Alfie Kohn Good Quotations

I applaud Sudbury Valley's focus on freedom, but not what I take to be an inattention to community. Sudbury has a libertarian bent, and the worldview seems to see all adult involvement as an authoritarian restriction of personal autonomy. Total autonomy is not developmentally appropriate. Kids need guidance and many of them need structure at the same time that they need the opportunity to learn how to make good decisions.

We think of ways that we can control them, whether it be with a spanking or a gold sticker or a parent constantly saying, 'Good job, good job, good job.'