flickr photo via Kevan
All behavior elicits a response, and it seems to me, this response will be a naturally occurring one relative to the subjective, or perhaps unknown purpose of the behavior, (assuming that all behavior is purposeful.)
I'm not an operant behaviorist by any stretch... I just don't think that operant conditioning is natural or effective in nurturing positive behavior. Let's face it, engaging classrooms lead to engaged students... in the context of behaviorism, can we not call the engaging classroom the unconditioned stimulus, and the authentic, positive teaching and learning that takes place there the unconditioned response? If so, behaviorism is alive and well in North American schools, and thank heaven it is so.
Externally applied operant conditioning, (of which the effectiveness in schools is suspect,) is using positive and negative reinforcement to 'do to' in the effort to solicit a desired response, but there is so much more to a behaviorist approach than the cliche 'carrots and sticks' that opponents of what they refer to as 'behaviorism' allude to. I would assert that there is so much more to positive and negative reinforcement in general than many people realize, (positive and negative reinforcement can be unconditioned as well- e.g. if a teacher yells at a student to stop doing something he/she isn't supposed to do, and the student stops, the unconditioned cessation of the student's undesirable behavior has negatively reinforced the teacher's yelling.)
Educators need to explore the scope and context of behaviorism within a new and collaborative mindset if we are to be considered students of our own craft, which boiled down, is really just a very pure study of human behavior; is it not?
Your reflection deserves far more attention than I can afford it at the moment. That frustrates me. I agree with you. Behaviour is positively and negatively reinforced. The difficulty is parsing the complexity of this dynamic. We see the complexity in the situations where a favoured stimulus works with one individual and fails to work with another. People are so complex that knowing they respond to stimulus is of limited value. We actually have to interact with a person, get them to explain themselves, their goals and values, before we can work toward our goal. In essence, we need to collaborate with people to bring about change. Does this make sense to you?
ReplyDeleteOh yeah... you don't even know how much that makes sense to me;o)
ReplyDeleteTo add, I view change as a constant, not a variable... the world (and schools as parts of it) is an organic and mystifyingly complex entity, and I think the sooner we (teachers) accept change as omnipresent and requiring the collaborative effort you refer to, the better off we'll be.
Thanks so much for your comments on a HUGE topic.
Cheers!
Sean