166. The
Limits Of Behavioral Theory: The Underground History of American Education by
John Taylor Gatto from archive.org
The
Limits Of Behavioral Theory
The multibillion dollar school-materials
industry is stuffed with curriculum
psychologized through application of behaviorist theory in its design
and operation. What these kits are
about is introducing various forms of
external reinforcement into
learning, based on the hypothesis
the student is a stimulus-response machine. This surrender to questionable science fails its own test
of rationality in the following ways.
First and foremost,
the materials don't work dependably. Behavior can be affected, but fallout is often negative and daunting.
The insubstantial metaphysics of Behaviorism leads it to radically simplify reality; the content of this
psychology is then always being
undermined by experience.
Even some presumed core truths, e.g.,
"simple to complex, we learn to walk before we can run" (I've humanized the barbaric jargon of the
field), are only half-truths whose
application in a classroom provoke trouble. In suburban schools a slow
chaos of boredom ensues from every
behavioral program; in ghetto schools the boredom turns to violence. Even in better neighborhoods, the
result of psychological manipulation is indifference, cynicism, and overall loss of respect for the pedagogical
enterprise. Behavioral theory
demands endless recorded observations and assessments in the face of
mountainous evidence that interruptions
and delays caused by such assessments create formidable obstacles to learning — and for many
derail the possibility entirely.
By stressing the
importance of controlled experience and sensation as the building blocks of training, behaviorism reveals its
inability to deal with the inconvenient truth that a huge portion of experience is conceptualized in language.
Without mastery of language and
metaphor, we are condemned to mystification. The inescapable reality is that
behind the universality of
abstraction, we have a particular language with a particular personality. It takes hard work to
learn how to use it, harder work to learn how to protect yourself from the deceptive language of
strangers. Even our earliest experience is mediated through language since the birth vault itself is
not soundproof.
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