What is wrong with encouraging students to put "how well they're doing" ahead of "what they're doing." An impressive and growing body of research suggests that this emphasis (1) undermines students' interest in learning, (2) makes failure seem overwhelming, (3) leads students to avoid challenging themselves, (4) reduces the quality of learning, and (5) invites students to think about how smart they are instead of how hard they tried.

Educational success should be measured by how strong your desire is to keep learning.

Punishment and reward proceed from basically the same psychological model, one that conceives of motivation as nothing more than the manipulation of behavior.

If I offered you a thousand dollars to take off your shoes, you'd very likely accept--and then I could triumphantly announce that 'rewards work.' But as with punishments, they can never help someone develop a *commitment* to a task or action, a reason to keep doing it when there's no longer a payoff.

Independence is useful, but caring attitudes and behaviors shrivel up in a culture where each person is responsible only for himself.

When we do things that are controlling, whether intentional or not, we are not going to get those long-term outcomes.

There are different kinds of motivation, and the kind matters more than the amount.