Intimidating Teachers

Skinnerizing Teachers Posted on October 21, 2014 Written by Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt, ABCsOfDumbDown.blogspot.com Day 21: Skin­ner Hor­ror Files The Skin­ner­iza­tion* of Teachers

*DEFINITION of Skin­ner­ize: The process by which stu­dents, teach­ers, prin­ci­pals, admin­is­tra­tors, etc. — and any­one else for that mat­ter — con­form to B.F. Skinner’s model, meth­ods, goals, process and sys­tem. To become Skin­ner­ized means one has adapted them­selves, will­ingly or through com­pul­sion, to the entire modus operendi of B.F. Skin­ner and his sub­se­quent behav­ioral clones and change agents. Related terms: Skin­ner­iza­tion, Skin­ner­iz­ing.

Thus it isn’t a sur­prise to read how the Skinnner­ian sys­tem is applied to the behav­ior of teach­ers. The Effec­tive School Report’s May 1985 issue con­tained an arti­cle titled “Principal’s Expec­ta­tions as a Moti­vat­ing Fac­tor in Effec­tive Schools.” Notice how the prin­ci­pal is expected to shape the behav­ior of teach­ers, who are then expected to shape the behav­ior of their stu­dents. And notice how “achieve­ment” is no longer about aca­d­e­mic goals, but “abil­ity” and “per­cep­tions” and “atti­tude” changes:

The prin­ci­pal expects spe­cific behav­ior from par­tic­u­lar teach­ers which should then trans­late into achieve­ment by the stu­dents of these teach­ers; because of these var­ied expec­ta­tions, the prin­ci­pal behaves dif­fer­ently toward dif­fer­ent teach­ers; i.e., body lan­guage, ver­bal inter­ac­tions and resource allo­ca­tions. This treat­ment also influ­ences the atti­tudes of the teacher toward the prin­ci­pal and their per­cep­tion of the future util­ity of any increased effort toward stu­dent achieve­ment. If this treat­ment is con­sis­tent over time, and if the teach­ers do not resist change, it will shape their behav­ior and through it the achieve­ment of their students….

With time teach­ers’ behav­ior, self-concepts of abil­ity, per­cep­tions of future util­ity, atti­tude toward the prin­ci­pal and stu­dents’ achieve­ment will con­form more and more closely to the behav­ior orig­i­nally expected of them.

Source: http://agenda21news.com/2014/10/skinnerizing-teachers/#more-3278

Comments

Children are born unique, with free will as sovereign beings. Those who do not know this have not spent a sufficient amount of time with 3 year olds. The goal should be to teach the basics and help children identify what they love to do.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader