Kohn's Zone

September 1, 2026

How Not to Deal with Bullying

The amount of bullying that goes on in schools is as sobering as the psychological impact it has on its victims, sometimes lasting into adulthood. Alas, common strategies for dealing with this problem are often ineffective and even counterproductive. In fact, we may inadvertently create a climate conducive to bullying by relying on punitive discipline and also by pitting students against each other in contests. Rather than just trying to protect individual kids — or, worse, punishing bullies — we need to work with all students (and adults) to restructure the school’s culture and norms.

RESOURCES:

Barbara Coloroso, The Bully, The Bullied, and the Not-So-Innocent Bystander (William Morrow, 2004/2016) – https://tinyurl.com/4z3nmyur

Katherine Schaeffer, “9 Facts About Bullying in the U.S.,” Pew Resarch Report, 2023 – https://tinyurl.com/ybe5axjh

Frank Elgar et al., “Income Inequality and School Bullying,” Journal of Adolescent Health 45 (2009) – https://tinyurl.com/4rj6fs98

Suzet Tanya Lereya et al., “Parenting Behavior and the Risk of Becoming a Victim and a Bully/Victim,” Child Abuse & Neglect 37 (2013) – https://tinyurl.com/4ncaecv5

Kyriaki Fousiani et al., “Perceived Parenting and Adolescent Cyber-Bullying,” Journal of Child and Family Studies 25 (2016) – https://is.gd/ziVkTJ

William E. Copeland et al., ” Adult Psychiatric Outcomes of Bullying and Being Bullied…,” JAMA Psychiatry 70 (2013) – https://tinyurl.com/wk6du7ba

Mark J. Van Ryzin & Cary J. Roseth, “Cooperative Learning in Middle School, Journal of Educational Psychology 110 (2018) – https://is.gd/k04lUr

Maria Rosaria Di Stasio et al., “Social Comparison, Competition, and Teacher-Student Relationships…Predicts Bullying and Victimization,” Journal of Adolescence 53 (2016) – https://tinyurl.com/bdddtdej

Sung Hyeon Cheon et al., “Cluster Randomized Control Trial to Reduce Peer Victimization,” American Psychologist 78(2023) – https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36701523/

 

A note from Alfie Kohn:

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ART: Abi Kohn

August 15, 2026

Teaching Kindness

How can schools help children to become not only good learners but also good people? What’s involved in cultivating a genuine concern about others, an enduring commitment to helping and caring? Here we consider several strategies, which require us to look beyond behaviors and think about motives: the care we express for students, the prosocial examples we set, the beliefs we hold about them, the explanations we offer (about how their actions affect others), and the opportunities we create to practice caring. Particularly important for helping students to grow into caring people is the (eminently teachable) capacity to imagine the perspective of others, which promotes intellectual as well as moral growth.

 

A note from Alfie Kohn:

If you’re enjoying Kohn’s Zone, please tell other people about it. If you have feedback about an episode, send it to https://www.alfiekohn.org/contact-us/. And if you’re willing to do your part to keep the podcast ad- and paywall-free, please click on the donate button or visit https://coff.ee/kohnszone. Thanks!





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ART: Abi Kohn

August 1, 2026

The Pseudoscience of Reading

What the real science of reading shows is that there isn’t a single method for learning how to read that’s ideal for all children. Moreover, reading is not just about letter-sound relationships; it’s about making meaning — reading (and talking about) real books for real reasons. In an eye-opening conversation, literacy expert Catherine Compton-Lilly helps us dissect the dishonest claims of the so-called “Science of Reading” campaign and understand why an overemphasis on phonics (mechanical decoding) is not just unhelpful but actively harmful. SOR mandates amount to a kind of “educational malpractice” that ultimately diminish kids’ understanding of what they read and their enthusiasm about reading itself. Compton-Lilly describes what high-quality language-arts instruction looks like in the primary grades and beyond, as well as how thoughtful teachers assess kids’ reading proficiency (hint: not with tests!).

RESOURCES

Catherine Compton-Lilly et al., “Stories Grounded in Decades of Research: What We Truly Know about the Teaching of Reading,” The Reading Teacher 77 (2023): 392-400 – https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/trtr.2258

Catherine Compton-Lilly, “Centering Children and Working Towards Equity: Teaching All Children to Read,” Journal of Reading Recovery 24 (2025): 5-16 – https://tinyurl.com/zn9pa3yu

Robert J. Tierney and P David Pearson, Fact-Checking the Science of Reading (Literacy Research Commons, 2024) – https://is.gd/3CboHH

David Reinking et al., “Legislating Phonics: Settled Science or Political Polemics?”, Teachers College Record 125 (2023): 104-31 – https://is.gd/FChhv3

Alfie Kohn, “On Teaching Reading…” (excerpt from The Schools Our Children Deserve [Houghton Mifflin, 1999]) – https://is.gd/h32VeY

 

A note from Alfie Kohn:

If you’re enjoying Kohn’s Zone, please tell other people about it. If you have feedback about an episode, send it to https://www.alfiekohn.org/contact-us/. And if you’re willing to do your part to keep the podcast ad- and paywall-free, please click on the donate button or visit https://coff.ee/kohnszone. Thanks!





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ART: Abi Kohn

July 15, 2026

The Remarkable Benefits of Diversity

Even if you aren’t ideologically opposed to segregation in schools, research shows that it doesn’t make sense for practical reasons — and that goes not only for segregation by race but also segregation by gender, ability, or age. What generally proves beneficial, from preschool to college, are heterogeneous environments — diverse schools and, equally important, diverse classrooms. But because proximity doesn’t guarantee affection, the optimal arrangement also provides support for interdependence: guided heterogeneity in which learning is structured to promote shared goals and perspective taking.

RESOURCES

For citations to the research mentioned in this episode, please see “Heterogenius,” the essay on which it’s based.





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July 1, 2026

Raising Reflective Rebels

We’re faced with a silent epidemic of obedience, a pervasive failure to become outraged by outrageous things. Adults whose highest accolade for a child is “well-behaved” often themselves suffer from a crisis of moral courage. This episode offers practical suggestions for teachers and parents who want to help kids acquire not only the capacity but the inclination to question what they’re told — and, when necessary, to refuse to go along.

 

A note from Alfie Kohn:

If you’re enjoying Kohn’s Zone, please tell other people about it. If you have feedback about an episode, send it to https://www.alfiekohn.org/contact-us/. And if you’re willing to do your part to keep the podcast ad- and paywall-free, please click on the donate button or visit https://coff.ee/kohnszone. Thanks!





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PRODUCTION SUPPORT: Ultraviolet Audio

ART: Abi Kohn