A compelling argument that the use of rewards is counterproductive in raising children, teaching students, and managing workers. Kohn (The Brighter Side of Human Nature, 1990, etc.) contends that rewards, like punishments, are methods of controlling people—perhaps a morally objectionable goal—and that, at best, they produce only temporary compliance. He begins by tracing the development of behaviorist doctrine and the widespread acceptance of its popular version, encapsulated in the idea ``do this and you'll get that.'' Kohn examines the effect that rewards have on behavior, concluding that rewards fail for many reasons: They punish; rupture relationships; ignore underlying reasons for behavior; discourage risk-taking; and undermine interest in the task at hand. The author looks carefully at three places in which rewards are used extensively- -the workplace, the classroom, and the home—and demonstrates in turn why incentive plans and other reward-based systems employed, first, by managers fail to improve the quality of work; why outward motivations undermine students' intrinsic motivation to learn; and why children whose parents use rewards to motivate them are less likely to develop a sense of responsibility and the ability to make ethical judgments. Having shown that rewards don't work, Kohn undertakes the more difficult task of developing a strategy that does. His solution is based on what he calls the ``three C's''—``content,'' ``choice,'' and ``collaboration''— and he illustrates how they can be applied by managers, teachers, and parents. Three appendices round out his well-documented study: excerpts from a 1983 interview with a rather crotchety B.F. Skinner; a reflective essay on intrinsic motivation; and Kohn's prediction of how behaviorists will respond to his arguments. A clear, convincing demonstration of the shortcomings of pop-behaviorism, written with style, humor, and authority.
Pub Date: Oct. 26, 1993
ISBN: 0-395-65028-3
Page Count: 356
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1993
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The daughter of Boston's beloved maestro transposes the familiar laments of a star's adult child into the world of classical music. In the course of his 50-year tenure as conductor of the Boston Pops orchestra, Arthur Fiedler emerged as a true celebrity. Beyond his musical flair and dashing appearance, he exhibited a knack for marketing. He made his reputation by organizing America's first annual series of free outdoor symphony orchestra concerts on Boston's Charles River Esplanade. On taking over the Pops in 1930, he built a national following, and in his last decades, the PBS ``Evening at Pops'' television broadcasts cemented his fame. The Arthur Fiedler whom the public adored, however, turns out— surprise!—to have distanced himself from his family, immersing himself in his career and continuing to live the high life while on tour. When at home, he would show himself to be misanthropic, miserly, and alcoholic. Fiedler fille details in a clear style how this behavior impeded her personal growth. After a withdrawn, troubled childhood, she came to have difficulties of her own with alcohol and searched into adulthood for a father figure—for instance, dating musicians, some ``hand-picked'' by her father, all with forceful, dominating personalities like his. Her complaints against Fiedler päre seem valid, but the dysfunctional Fiedler family nevertheless strikes the reader as having been more typical of the mid-century upper middle class than traumatic in the ``Daddy Dearest'' vein. More intriguing sections of her book narrate her family's singular accomplishments: her grandfather's emigration from Austria to join the Boston Symphony, her father's navigation of the tides of cultural politics and of nationalist sentiment during WW I, and his endeavors to prove his mettle as a serious artist. That he loved dogs, fire engines, and women while hating children is, in the end, relatively uninteresting. Only Fiedler enthusiasts and habituÇs of the classical music scene will want to wade through the run-of-the-mill pop psychologizing featured here.
Pub Date: Oct. 11, 1994
ISBN: 0-385-42391-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
A succinct, informative, and well-written history of attempts by Germans to kill or overthrow Hitler. Gill, an Anglo-German historian (A Dance Between Flames: Berlin Between the Wars, p. 192), focuses largely on the resistance network within the German ``establishment'': the Evangelical (Lutheran) Church, the Foreign Office, the Abwehr (German secret service), and, above all, the army. Focusing on the years 193844, he chronicles such key events as the coup d'Çtat planned by a group of officers at the time of the Munich crisis, a coup they would have implemented had Hitler gone to war instead of winning major concessions from British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. Such efforts culminated in the July 20, 1944, near-miss of a bomb assassination attempt against Hitler by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. It resulted in massive bloodletting against thousands of real and suspected conspirators, was widely denounced within the Third Reich, and was undervalued both abroad and in postwar West Germany, but a July 1944 New York Times editorial aptly called the bombing an ``honorable treason.'' In colorful prose, the author demonstrates how possible anti-Nazi uprisings and assassination attempts were repeatedly thwarted by the conspirators' dawdling and individual failures of nerve, by Allied (particularly British) indifference and mistrust of the conspirators, and by bad luck. He scants communist resistance, although he does delve into the White Rose and other German student groups. Unfortunately, Gill makes almost no mention of Germans who hid or otherwise aided Jews, political dissidents, or those threatened by the ``euthanasia'' campaign. Still, he skillfully uses German and English sources and provides a chart illustrating the resistance network and a ``Who's Who'' of anti-Hitler conspirators. Like the late Barbara Tuchman, Gill has deftly synthesized scholarly and more popular historical writing to produce an impressively accessible and interesting work. (Maps, 25 b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Oct. 11, 1994
ISBN: 0-8050-3514-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1994
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