Reading Response to Choices for Children by Alfie Kohn Tonight I read the article Choices for Children by Alfie

Kohn and it coincided, coincidentally, with a day in class where I ran a project tuning with four different groups of kids. I used the project tuning protocol that we use as teachers when tuning projects. I offered opportunities to choose types of assessments, length of project, the type of exhibition. I gave them choice to dump the project all together. I asked them how they would prefer to have content presented, how they wanted to structure groups. I asked for input on anything I could thing of and then anything they could think of. I listened intently; the feedback I got was fantastic. So, I was feeling pretty good about student choice coming into the article. Still I found myself frustrated while reading Kohn's article. I'm not sure exactly why, but Ill try to come to a point by the end of this response. I do believe in and try to provide student choice. Maybe I don't try hard enough; maybe I am still concerned that too much choice might lead to chaos. I also believe in solid classroom management, I feel like I have learned a lot from the book "Teach Like a Champion" but I find myself getting upset when reading that book as well. I feel the tug of progressive and not-progressive educational paradigms all the time and tend to both agree and disagree with both of them. Hmm Is it okay to argue with a few of the points that Kohn makes, while largely agreeing with him? I hope so. Here are a few things: Kohn states that burnout is largely related to lack of choice and that the empathy that we often see in classrooms is a result of burnout brought on by lack of choice. "Rather, it is powerlessness, a lack of control over what one is doing (that leads to burnout)." p.24 I don't agree. I think being overworked, under compensated and having too little time are several contributors to burnout. Overall, I think devoting oneself too passionately to a single area of life without regard to balance in other areas is the biggest cause of burnout. I think all the choice in the world cannot help someone consumed by a single interest for too long without attention to other pursuits or passions. I don't have any research to cite for this but Kohn doesn't cite sources for his claim either and mine makes more sense to me. Kohn also telIs us a cautionary tale of a student who was not given enough choice in school. He cites Rudolf Hoss the commandant of Auschwitzp25 as the product of an overly authoritative environment. Kohn is being alarmist and it is a poor choice to include this as a cautionary tale. As Kohn states later in his article, it is possible to create pseudo choice for students and I think he is guilty of doing this to his reader. Choosing between providing students with more choice or risking creating another sadistic Nazi murderer is not really much of a choice at all. I don't like his reference to the Stanley Millgram's "famous experiment" pg 4. This was an also an infamous experiment. The results and the after effects on many of the humans

duped into it were significant and long lasting. The actions of the experimenters say much more about human nature than the results of the experiment ever will. More to the point, the results of the experiment were not concerned with whether the tendency of humans to blindly follow authority was a learned behavior or an inherent one. It only helped established what we already knew: that we do it. As an aside, the experiments were held in my hometown, first on students and then on locals. Finally, I don't like the reference to the principle of the Brooklyn High School given without context. The quote by the principle who lived by a "simple proposition" p24 lacked context. Frank Mickens is the principal he was referring to. The school was in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Birth place of Jay Zee and Notorious B.I.G., "Bed Stuy" was an area in serious trouble in the mid 80's when he took over the job of principle of Boys and Girls High School. The graduation rate was in the mid twenty percent rate during his first year on the job. To take the statement "no 15-year-old is going to tell me how this school is run" out of this context is unfortunate. Mickens worked in a very difficult environment and he showed results, The graduation rate went from mid twenty percent to high forty while he worked there. Loftier ambitions aside, the difference between a diploma and no diploma to a kid growing up in a place with few second chances can be a pretty big one. I don't know the man, but in my heart I want to believe that he saw the value of student choice as well anyone but also appreciated that in a triage situation, choice is sometime sacrificed for safety, and higher ideals are sometimes sacrificed for practical ones. I think part of my frustration is Kohns its one or the other approach. It pushes up against what I am feeling more and more lately, which is that it is NOT one or the other, it is both. Kohn includes a section on the reasonable limits of choice, but still Im left feeling like I have to choose between one paradigm or another. I appreciate the techniques in a book like Teach Like A Champion and I also appreciate the benefits of student choice as outlined my Kohn in this article. Trying to reconcile the two in my head creates a sometimes-uncomfortable cognitive dissonance. What I perceive to be Kohns heavy handedness threatens to push me off my already uncomfortable position atop the fence.