Charlotte Mason advised that we shouldn’t use external motivators  to make children learn. She said “[grades], prizes, places, rewards, punishments, praise, blame, or other inducements are not necessary to secure attention, which is voluntary, immediate and surprisingly perfect” without them. ( A Philosophy of Education, p. 7.)

But is this true today? Are rewards really that bad? How will our kids behave and learn if we don’t give them a little incentive to motivate them? And what can we do instead? To help answer these questions I’ve asked Alfie Kohn to chat with me today.

Alfie Kohn is the author of fourteen books on education, parenting, and human behavior, including PUNISHED BY REWARDS (1993/2018), THE SCHOOLS OUR CHILDREN DESERVE (1999), UNCONDITIONAL PARENTING (2005), THE HOMEWORK MYTH (2006), and THE MYTH OF THE SPOILED CHILD (2014). He has written for most of the leading education periodicals and has appeared twice on “Oprah.” Time magazine described him as “perhaps the country’s most outspoken critic of education’s fixation on grades and test scores.” A strong supporter of public schooling, Kohn works with educators and parents, speaking regularly at national conferences. He lives (actually) in the Boston area and (virtually) at www.alfiekohn.org.