Book Sources Searches and Sitters BACK to Dear Habermas Home Review of Cranks, Quarks, and the Cosmos Review Essay by Jeanne Curran Added in late November, 1998. We ask that question all the time. Arrogance is rampant in the hierarchy of the academy. Students report it every day about their encounters with faculty.
Faculty report it every day about their encounters with students.
And the administration just can't seem to remember to consult any of us when it makes far-reaching decisions about the future of our learning. Alfie Kohn, lays much of the blame for this dilemma on behaviorism. The Trouble with Goldstars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes . In Volume 2, our Spring 1998 Issue, we addressed arrogance and hierarchy in the academy. On this page we will review the threads of Alfie Kohn's arguments on how grades, praise, honors' convocations, all that we think of as good about our grading system, can have the same harmful effects on learning when they are set within the context of a manipulative environment that rewards competition in lieu of cooperation, and when they treat us as objects without intrinsic motivation.