June 30, 2008
Contact Shirley Frick at 608-796-3384 or smfrick@viterbo.edu
NATIONALLY RENOWNED AUTHOR AND EDUCATION EXPERT ALFIE KOHN TO SPEAK AT VITERBO UNIVERSITY JULY 18
LA CROSSE, Wis. – Nationally renowned author, speaker, and education expert Alfie Kohn will present “The Homework Myth” in the Viterbo University Fine Arts Center Main Theatre at 8:30 a.m. Friday, July 18.
The event is free and open to the public, and area educators are especially welcome to attend. Part of Kohn’s audience will be the 384 students in Viterbo’s Master of Arts Degree in Education program, who will be on campus that week completing their requirements for graduation.
Kohn has been described in Time magazine as “perhaps the country’s most outspoken critic of education’s fixation on grades and test scores.” He lectures widely at universities and to educators, parent groups, and corporations. He also speaks regularly at staff development seminars and keynotes national education conferences, and conducts workshops for educators and administrators on a variety of topics.
Kohn’s criticisms of educational competition and rewards have helped to shape the thinking of teachers, parents, and managers in the United States and abroad. He has appeared on the Today show and twice on Oprah, and has been profiled in the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times.
The most recent of his 11 books is The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get too Much of a Bad Thing. Earlier well-known works include Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes and The School Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and “Tougher Standards.”