B. F. Skinner on education

Estimated read time: 1:20

Summary

In this engaging dialogue, renowned psychologist B.F. Skinner elaborates on the key challenges facing the educational system today, exploring the notions of freedom, control, and reinforcement within learning environments. Joined by Dr. John M. Whitley, Skinner underscores the importance of creating educational settings that empower students through natural and socially beneficial reinforcements, advocating for the move away from punitive methods towards more positively reinforcing educational practices. By constructing ways to make learning naturally rewarding through proper environmental and instructional designs, Skinner envisions students becoming not only knowledgeable but also adaptable and forward-thinking members of society.

Highlights

Skinner discusses the need for shifting control from teachers to the natural world that students explore 🌎.
Educational environments should aim to make learning intrinsically rewarding 🌟.
Properly developed instructional materials can lead to more effective learning moments 📚.
Skinner criticizes punitive educational measures and promotes positive reinforcements ✅.
Success in education involves progressive learning tailored to individual paces 📈.

Key Takeaways

Freedom in learning is about guiding students to become self-reliant on their environment rather than dependent on teachers 🎓.
Effective education requires designing environments that provide positive reinforcements instead of relying on punitive measures 👍.
Success in learning comes from programming instruction where progress is its own reward 🚀.
Redesign education to ensure every student progresses at their own pace and gets motivated by personal success 🌟.
Education should help people to appreciate arts, skills, and culture beyond immediate gratifications 🎨.

Overview

B.F. Skinner, along with Dr. John M. Whitley, dives into the essence of how children learn, emphasizing the idea that learning should shift from dependency on teachers to being influenced by the surrounding natural and educational environments. This shift helps nurture genuine interest and curiosity in students, fostering self-reliance in their quest for knowledge.

In the discussion, Skinner argues for the redesign of educational frameworks that emphasize positive reinforcement over traditional punishment-focused methods. He suggests that by setting up environments where learning is naturally reinforced, students can find joy and motivation in their educational journeys. This requires a thoughtful construction of incentives, materials, and teaching methods that make progress visible and rewarding.

The dialogue also extends to the broader implications of education, not just in acquiring knowledge but in preparing individuals to engage meaningfully with cultural, artistic, and societal contexts. Skinner posits that a well-structured educational system can produce individuals ready to tackle future challenges, actively contributing to the cultural and social fabric of their communities.

Chapters

00:00 - 01:30: Introduction and Background on BF Skinner The chapter titled 'Introduction and Background on BF Skinner' provides an overview of Dr. BF Skinner's contributions and work in the field of psychology. Skinner, a professor at Harvard University, is known for his significant scientific publications, which include 'The Behavior of Organisms,' 'Verbal Behavior,' 'The Technology of Teaching,' and 'Contingencies of Reinforcement.' These works have played a crucial role in the development of psychological science.
01:30 - 04:30: Skinners View on Freedom and Control in Education This chapter discusses B.F. Skinner's views on the concepts of freedom and control within the realm of education, referencing his influential works such as 'Walden Two' and 'Beyond Freedom and Dignity.' It highlights how these works have been widely received yet remain highly controversial. Further, it mentions Skinner's recognition and accolades in the scientific community, including prestigious awards like the American Psychological Association's Distinguished Scientific Award, membership in the National Academy of Sciences, and the President's Medal of Science.
04:30 - 07:30: Defective Educational Environments and Solutions This chapter deals with the challenges present in current educational environments and potential solutions to these challenges. It features a discussion between Dr. Skinner and Dr. John M Whitley from Washington University, St. Louis. They focus on commonly misunderstood concepts such as freedom and control within educational settings. The chapter also includes a comparison of learning behaviors exhibited by two different children to highlight these issues.
07:30 - 10:30: Role of Positive Reinforcement in Education The chapter discusses the role of positive reinforcement in education, using two contrasting behaviors of children in a learning environment. One child shows excessive dependence on the teacher, waiting for guidance at every stage of an assignment. In contrast, another child exhibits independent learning behavior, characterized by a love for learning for its own sake and self-starting qualities. The chapter prompts the reader to reflect on which child appears to be more free and which one is more controlled, highlighting the impact of educational approaches on children's autonomy and motivation.
10:30 - 13:30: Using Reinforcers and Rewards in Schools The chapter discusses the concept of independence in the context of education, focusing on a child's dependence on both teachers and the physical environment. The discussion reflects on philosophical perspectives, such as those of Rousseau, who debated the impact of personal dependence versus environmental dependence. Rousseau advocated for a dependence on the natural world over people, suggesting that personal dependence could hinder natural goodness. The chapter underlines the inevitable influence of both human interactions and the physical setting on an individual's learning journey.
13:30 - 16:30: Challenges with Aversive Educational Methods In the chapter 'Challenges with Aversive Educational Methods,' it is emphasized that children who explore the real world around them are more advanced compared to those who constantly seek approval from their teachers. Effective teachers should guide students to shift their dependency from needing teacher approval to engaging with the world of things. This transition is crucial to ensure that teachers do not remain central in the learning process. The chapter draws a parallel with therapists, highlighting that just as therapists must help clients become independent, teachers must also wean students off their reliance on them.
16:30 - 19:30: Neutrality of Educational Technology The chapter discusses the influence of educational technology on the learning process, with a focus on the importance of reducing dependence on external validation such as parental or instructional approval. It suggests that over-relying on these external sources of reinforcement can limit the development of a child's intrinsic motivation and control. The chapter advocates for an educational environment that encourages self-directed learning and intrinsic reinforcement rather than dependency on approval from others. The idea of 'freedom' in a learning environment is scrutinized, implying that true freedom is not about being unanchored from influence but about fostering an internalized control that aligns with environmental motivations.
19:30 - 21:30: Redesigning Educational Systems In the chapter 'Redesigning Educational Systems', the discussion revolves around the concept of freedom in education. It contrasts two scenarios: one where a child seeks approval from a teacher and another where a child explores independently. The child feels free in both situations, but the nature of this freedom is different. In the first scenario, the child is still under personal approval, while in the second, the child is influenced by the intriguing discoveries of the world. The chapter addresses how current educational environments are flawed and raises questions about how teachers can navigate and improve these systems.
21:30 - 26:30: Improving Educational Practices The chapter 'Improving Educational Practices' discusses strategies for modifying a child's learning behavior. It emphasizes the importance of creating an environment that facilitates control over the child's behavior. For instance, in a chaotic classroom where students are disorganized or unruly, the teacher may lose control. To address this, the chapter suggests establishing clear and compelling rewarding or reinforcing contingencies to manage the classroom effectively. This approach aims to guide children's behavior in a positive direction by structuring their learning environment productively.
26:30 - 30:30: Reinforcement Principles in Classroom Management The chapter 'Reinforcement Principles in Classroom Management' discusses the application of reinforcement in encouraging desired behaviors in students within an educational setting. It emphasizes the importance of reinforcing students for attending school, staying focused, and engaging in learning activities. Initially, this reinforcement may need to be explicit and tangible, such as tokens or other rewards, to encourage participation and learning. However, it is also important not to let these tangible reinforcements continue indefinitely, as this could become counterproductive.
30:30 - 40:30: Development of Individual and Cultural Survival The chapter discusses the transformation from systems of token and credit rewards to a more intrinsic form of motivation. It explores the idea of moving away from material or extrinsic motivators, such as tokens or approval, towards making the instructional materials themselves the primary motivator. The aim is to foster a more self-driven learning process in individuals.
40:30 - 45:30: The Role of Diversity and Rebel in Education The chapter discusses the concept of how children learn behaviors that will be beneficial in the long term. While some aspects of early education like reading might not seem rewarding initially, it's crucial to structure learning environments for quick success and provide feedback, even if sometimes arbitrary, to reinforce correct recognition and understanding. The strategy involves using methods to ensure that recognition and learning are achievable and recognizable to the child, fostering a successful learning experience.
45:30 - 55:30: Philanthropy and Altruism in Education The chapter discusses the concept of using 'furious contingencies' in the context of reading and education. It suggests that by employing certain methods or 'contingencies', one can foster fluent reading behavior. Initially, reading may not be enjoyable due to a lack of acquired behavior in reading, but with these interventions, reading can become a more enjoyable activity. The use of artificial contingencies, such as approval or other forms of reinforcement, is highlighted as a way to encourage the development of reading skills and ultimately make the experience more enjoyable. This ties into the broader themes of philanthropy and altruism in education, where the focus is on setting up environments or systems that facilitate learning and personal development, similar to acts of altruism or charitable giving.

B. F. Skinner on education Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 [Music] Dr BF Skinner professor of psychology at Harvard University has authored such important scientific books as the behavior of organisms verbal Behavior the technology of teaching and contingencies of reinforcement in addition he has written
00:30 - 01:00 two books of general interest which have been both widely received and highly controversial the novel Walden 2 and Beyond freedom and dignity included in the many scientific Awards bestowed upon him are the distinguished scientific Award of the American Psychological Association membership in the National Academy of Sciences and the president's metal of Science in this film Dr Skinner
01:00 - 01:30 addresses himself to some of the most important issues facing education today with Dr Skinner is Dr John M Whitley of Washington University St Louis the issues of freedom and control are among the most misunderstood of your work I would like to provide the learning behaviors of two children by way of example one child's learning behavior is characterized by
01:30 - 02:00 excessive dependence on the teacher at every stage of doing an assignment the other child's learning behavior is characterized by an independence an apparent love of learning on its own a self starting which child is the more free and which child is the more controlled you see you have you phrased the question by referring to one child is dependent on the teacher and the other child is independent
02:00 - 02:30 he is independent of the teacher but he's not independent of the natural world he has already come under the control of the physical environment which interests him rouso raised this question 200 years ago rouso didn't like personal dependence he thought people harmed natural goodness so he wanted everyone to be dependent on things but that's the point that you are dependent on the physical environment just as much as you are dependent on people I think
02:30 - 03:00 we would agree I believe that the child who is exploring the real world around him is is farther advance and the child who has to run to the teacher for approval and the teacher if if he's any good will make sure that child shifts his his dependency to the world of things otherwise the teacher would remain essential and that you don't want the every teacher has to wean uh the student just as every therapist has to to wean his client you have to get you
03:00 - 03:30 have to break up these dependencies however if a child is really not getting much reinforcement out of life then a little parental or or instructional approval will be enough to get the child going but that should be withdrawn you should you should break down the control exercise by another person and play up the control exercised by the the environment but there's no Freedom involved in either case the
03:30 - 04:00 child will will feel free in both cases in one case he's free to go and ask the teacher if this is good and the teacher says yes in other case he's free to try something new and something interesting happens but uh and he feels free but actually he in one case he is still under the control of personal approval in the other case he has come under the control of all of the interesting things that happen in the World At Large when you when you begin to explore it you've written that our educational environments are defective How would teachers within this environment go
04:00 - 04:30 about helping the child modify his learning Behavior well you have to do it first of all by constructing the kind of environment that will will bring the child under some kind of control if you go into a disrupted classroom where the kids are late in arriving and they run around the room and so on the teacher may be completely out of control there what you have to do is to set up some very conspicuous rewarding or reinfor forcing contingencies and you can do it
04:30 - 05:00 with with by tokens or with credit points or with personal approval or something of that kind make sure that the child is reinforced for coming to school for sitting down getting to work and learning something now you may have to make it very explicit to begin with something as conspicuous as a a token that he can pocket in exchange for something at lunch or something like that but you don't want that to go on forever you don't want uh kids to live
05:00 - 05:30 their lives just to collect tokens any more than we want people to live their lives just collecting money it's something else again but you can then change from a token system to a credit system from a credit system just to a bit of approval a pat on the back but then you want to get rid of that also and have the the trial come under the control of the instructional materials he's working with now I don't think you're going to do that by finding things that are naturally to the child
05:30 - 06:00 there are naturally interesting things but the child is there to learn behaviors which will pay off naturally only much later in his life for example beginning reading is not very re rewarding uh you can put four color pictures on every page of the of the of your reader and that kind of thing but there are ways in which you can work out contingency so the child is successful very quickly in in it may be quite arbitrary you may get some feedback that this is the correct name name for that
06:00 - 06:30 object and so on and but with these Furious contingencies call them anything you like you can begin to build up fluent reading behavior and then the tri will begin to get reinforced as we all are from Reading enjoyable things but you can't move to the enjoyable things immediately because they they aren't enjoyable he hasn't acquired enough Behavior to read enjoyably so you set up artificial contingencies which might be just approval but could be much better
06:30 - 07:00 than that to build the behaviors which then come under the control of of the natural contingencies built into books we read books for the rewarding things that happen when we read and you can't start there but that's where you want the child to move as fast as possible what are the range of positive reinforcers open to a school seems to me schools are operating in a very different way than the one you just described yes that when you ask yourself as a teacher as I have at the college
07:00 - 07:30 level what have I got that my students want uh is sometimes a pretty discouraging question but you can uh discover things which will be reinforcing to students at any level and that has been done a great deal of progress has been made there are things in an ordinary even say a ghetto classroom lower grades or high school that can be used as reinforcers you can have special Foods
07:30 - 08:00 at lunchtime access to play Space privileges to associate with with other kids of your choice more and more of these things have been brought into play as as the kinds of contrived reinforcers that can be used temporarily to get the kinds of behavior which will then eventually have their own natural consequences which will be reinforcing that that can be done fortunately for us all the human organism is reinforced just for being
08:00 - 08:30 successful with something and that has had survival value and it can be used if you design instructional materials properly and I would say that programmed instruction is an example then mere progress is is is reinforcing what do you mean that programed instructions designed properly well I mean good programs in which the response you make U demand something from you it's not too easy but it's still a more almost always
08:30 - 09:00 right and as a result of having made that you were then able to go on and do something else that you couldn't do before a good instructional program has some built-in reinforces if you just Leaf through toward the back of the book and see what you don't know and it's always obvious you don't know it and then you look back and see what you've covered and you do know that that's obviously something is happening you're making progress and before you know it you know the whole whole the whole Pro program and fortunately for us all the
09:00 - 09:30 human organism is reinforced by by successful accomplishment so on a stage to to Stage basis through this program text you're rewarded as you go on it would seem to me however that our educational environments are designed very differently typically for example you're punished if you don't do well right the school rewards uh it's best rewards for those people who account Lish the most but almost by definition
09:30 - 10:00 within it there can only be a few at the top and children aren't rewarded on it on a day-to-day basis for accomplishing as much as they can well there are all sorts of things wrong with the contingencies which now Prevail and I want to get away from them just as much as say the free school people do but I think they're going the wrong way they're not going to be able to get away from these they always fall back on them eventually no you're quite right all the way up through even through graduate school the every student studies to
10:00 - 10:30 avoid the consequences of not studying it's an avoidance kind or an escape kind of thing now how do you find the positive consequences which can take the place of these aversive techniques that is the whole art of of managing a classroom designing instructional materials and progress is is being made the the ordinary positive reinforcers of of marks grades graduation and so on prizes honors medals and all of that the
10:30 - 11:00 contingencies are terrible that those things are not contingent on the behavior that you really want to set up but you can redesign them and and uh and make progress you make the point that not everyone can achieve the highest levels and get the the Kudos the medals and prizes which depend upon that but if you redesign a course of instruction as for example the the system that Fred Keller has designed for reorganizing a
11:00 - 11:30 college course then you can take progress through the course as your only examination there's no final examination you you can't get through the course unless you know it because of the way it's designed and you take an ordinary class with a distribution of IQs or whatever you want to call them these days and some will Breeze through this course and reach the end quickly and get the a and move on to something else others will move more slowly and
11:30 - 12:00 perhaps by the end of the term they've only got halfway through but you don't give them a c you don't give them anything come back and take the rest of it next term and you get an A2 and if the material is is within the range of the population you've already selected for this kind of instruction then you everyone everyone succeeds and everyone must have prizes as in allice and Wonderland and in your system this person would be rewarded by a success and and can acquire in the process a
12:00 - 12:30 desire to learn more on his own well I don't know about the desire to learn more what he has discovered is that he can improve he can acquire Behavior which makes him more effective and that acquisition is is itself reinforcing and he's unlikely to go on if the opportunity presents itself with the same kind of instruction you'll go on and do more of it and acquire acquire more and if you don't watch out he'll he'll try to stay too long in your school and uh and you left the graduate in forcibly what do you mean that our
12:30 - 13:00 schools are really using methods of adversive control well I mean why does why does a child come to school in the morning well there are truant officers who will go after him if he doesn't now we've given up on that there are thousands of children in big cities don't don't bother going to school but that was at one time now when you get to school why do you sit in your place well you'll be sent to the principal for a talking to or and and of course many schools are now calling for the return of of the of the of the Birch who get physically
13:00 - 13:30 punished I know schools in this in this country where if you don't bring your homework in you hold out your hand and get slapped with the ruler now that can be reversed it's such a simple thing to do I had a very interesting conversation with a with a a young girl who teaches in the sixth grade in a southern city she's black and she teaches mostly black students and she had this trouble they wouldn't come in with the homework and the family wasn't likely to induce them to do their homework they wouldn't bother doing the work in the classroom
13:30 - 14:00 so she had read something that I had written and decided to try it out what she did was to bring in at the beginning of the week a little prize which she would put up on the Shelf where the kids could see it it might be say a transistor radio or something like that cost her5 or $10 not any more than that and then she tell the children that on Friday afternoon there would be a drawing and someone would get this and she had a jar there and whenever you brought your homework in you could write
14:00 - 14:30 your name on a ticket and drop it in the jar and whenever you did your assignment during the day got some arithmetic problems when you finished if they were right you could write your name and drop it in the jar and Friday afternoon there would be a drawing and someone would get this and she would have changed her life completely she was glad to pay5 or $10 a week for this because it was so simple they all brought their homework in they all sat down and got their work done you see and uh now you say oh wait a minute that's it's not fair that you're bribing
14:30 - 15:00 them and so on but they're doing their work you see and they can begin to get the natural consequences of being more competent than their brothers and sisters who have been in somebody else's class and haven't had the advantages of this of these economic incentives I would justify that i' you say well that's not the natural reason for doing arithmetic but neither is it natural to to avoid punishment to do arithmetic you see and the as a matter of fact there is no natural reward and learn the
15:00 - 15:30 multiplication table uh but if you program it the right way so you can learn it easily you get some satisfaction out of that and eventually you get a job where you have to multiply and divide and uh then is when you begin to get the natural reinforcers but this the school must set up arbitrary spurious reinforcers to get the behavior there so that it can begin to reach uh natural reinforces what are the consequences of using the kinds of adversive rein enforcers that schools
15:30 - 16:00 currently do what are the byproducts of this that's the trouble you can you can of course fortunately for us all I suppose because the human race would hardly be where it is now if schools hadn't been severely punitive in the past the birds R up on the wall up there and you do this or else and of course people do learn under those contingencies but they also tend to play through and to escape from this when they can or to drop out as soon as they're able to legally or to forget it all as fast as they
16:00 - 16:30 possibly can or to vandalize to attack teachers to break windows in schools or just to fall into a state of apathy and do nothing these are all byproducts of aversive control and although they may have learned something they're not going to U have very much interest in supporting education in the future what are the problems of the transition between for a teacher being really a negative reinforcer a part of a punitive
16:30 - 17:00 system what are the transition problems in becoming part of a positive reinforcing system well strange as it may seem they're not really very difficult I've seen disrupted classrooms straighten out in a week or two when the teacher discovers that actually he or she has been reinforcing the very behaviors that have been causing trouble they learn how to stop that could you give an example well for example U there's a general principle at leave well enough alone here's so and so over
17:00 - 17:30 here and he's doing his work so don't go near him if you go near him he'll start causing trouble so what you do is you go and and pay attention to those who are causing trouble and and attention is reinforcing so you really you really reinforce people for causing trouble and you fail to reinforce people for sitting quietly and getting their work done now the thing to do is to pick out those children who are doing what you want them to do and they're the ones who should go and and talk to and give a
17:30 - 18:00 word to or something of that kind and avoid reinforcing the troublemakers as much as possible another principle is um it's very commonly practiced and commonly recommended if you see a child starting to get into trouble distract his attention now what is distraction distraction is something reinforcing so when you distract the attention of a troublemaker you're reinforcing is troublemaking you have to sense these things and realize what what you're doing you've written that the
18:00 - 18:30 technology that you've been identified with is essentially neutral and that the it's the uses to which it put um how within a school can you determine the uses to to which it's put how can parents not feel for example that the school is uh somehow doing things to their children that don't want done or let me phrase that another
18:30 - 19:00 way as a parent I would be leery of having people whose values I wasn't sure I agreed with having powerful tools at their disposal to affect my children or this is a time in our country when middle class values are under unprecedented attack the major purveyors of those middle class values are teachers in the school system within the
19:00 - 19:30 context of the school um this raises the the question which is bound to be raised if you suppose that education is effective if it's not effective then you can get out of all of this you don't worry about what is happening because you know nothing's going to be done but if you could imagine a very powerful educational technology which I think is available if it were to be used then you do want to go back and look at these value questions and uh I'm I'm all for that I have I don't particularly like uh
19:30 - 20:00 present culture and I've in world and 2 I describe what it seems to me an alternative culture and I don't blame young people today for saying no I'm not going to take what you're handling me I don't like that I'm going to try something of my own and I think that's it should be done in general in this country we have profited from a certain diversity you send your children to parochial schools they get one kind of thing you send them to Big City Schools they get another you send them to small
20:00 - 20:30 upper class private schools then they get another one and so you have the families have a certain amount of choice as to what they are exposing their children to and that isn't always possible because economic sanctions come into it but we have protected ourselves against too much regimentation just through the variety of schools available and in a given School you get variety just because of the availability or the lack of it of people who can teach various things I think we do need to look at the the values which underly an
20:30 - 21:00 educational system now I don't think the answer is to throw everything out or leave it up to the student because the student I think is least of all able to say what he should be studying his his uh values will be all tied up with immediate gratification and what he what he's interested in now but he's there to acquire Behavior which will pay off sometime in in the future and people
21:00 - 21:30 who've been around are more likely to know what that future is like and uh what is to be done but you're saying that the individual Choice comes in in say the case of of uh elementary school children where their parents can choose the kinds of values that's represented by different kinds of educational institutions what the technology does is provide a systematic way to help them accomplish their education goals are not values per se smuggled in in the guide
21:30 - 22:00 in under the guise of the technology no the values are not in the technology at all I can imagine a parochial school becoming extremely powerful in teaching religion of a particular kind I can imagine um let us say a business school becoming extremely POS powerful in building certain kinds of businessmen for for our current American way of life supported by current businesses who want employ want new employees which have had
22:00 - 22:30 this preparation and so on this we could stly by making education more powerful tend to clinch the status quo and which I think would be bad because right now we profit from the fact that people aren't well educated and hence have a certain flexibility when they when they start living after they've got out of uh of education but if you and I think we are at the point where where we could be much more effective and that means we must take a much closer look at why we are teaching teaching what we're teaching how would you redesign our
22:30 - 23:00 Elementary in high schools well I think we we are in a position to do that if we were allowed to do it but right now there are very powerful educational philosophies particularly those associated with giving the student more freedom which is a natural reaction against the punitive kind of thing which I react against also but which seem to me have no future what what soever why is that well because they they are
23:00 - 23:30 mistaking the apparent pleasure and joy of the child doing his thing for Progress now it's progress in the sense that it's way from sitting with your hands folded as I did when I was in first grade when I wasn't wor I sat with my hands full on the desk uh I want to get away from that too but I want to give students additional reasons for doing the kinds of things which will develop them allow them to to do things of which they're
23:30 - 24:00 capable so that's one one reason why we're we're not doing what we're doing now and I I would want to I would want to see a clear understanding of why students come to school learn something remember it that kind of thing and that that could be done better instructional materials can certainly be prepared and I think right now a very promising thing is is the application of this to college
24:00 - 24:30 and the university the um the Keller system of redesigning of course of instruction is spreading very rapidly and it it I've seen it in work at work and in actual institutions and that there does no question that U students become involved in the subject matter and get a great deal more in return for the time and energy they spend we can we can do that we could we could redesign the whole thing but all sorts of problems arise
24:30 - 25:00 the very the very structure of the educational establishment is opposed to Improvement how does that operate well supposing you could teach twice as much with the same time and energy in other words in the first grade the child would learn what is now taught in the first and second grades so what does he get in the second grade well he gets the third and fourth um and this means of course your teachers are going to have to be changed around youve got to redesign your schools because some children will do
25:00 - 25:30 that and some won't you've got to allow for individual progress you can no longer have a bunch of students moving along at the same Pace the more where you dump them on the job market too early because they finished high school at a much earlier age and then they can't get jobs and then they get into the streets and become delinquents and all that kind of thing in England they have put up the terminal age one year just to protect the job market they won't ad ad MIT that but I think that's what is done and uh
25:30 - 26:00 you don't you don't want to finish an education any sooner our present culture can't take that well that means that you're not to be allowed to improve teaching because improving teaching means you're going to going to teach it a lot faster now the answer to that of course is you teach them a lot more while you're at it and that I would I would say is is a thing to do where would you begin uh I think the only real way to bring about A Change Is
26:00 - 26:30 to show what can be done I there are all sorts of reasons why people aren't improving education causes trouble there no particular reason to a teacher or an administrator isn't going to suffer very much for missing a chance to improve teaching but mainly I think it is they don't know what to do and those uh who have have some some suggestions to make simply have to have to demonstrate that they work I think I had H that the
26:30 - 27:00 performance contract thing might have done this by bringing into schools uh specific programs and to some extent I think it did but it also brought in a lot of uh very inadequate proposals and and and techniques and some kind of an entering wedge is needed I think when teachers see what can be done they will do it because teachers are Humane people they want want students to learn I I would suggest some kind of of of basic
27:00 - 27:30 research and then some some projects to demonstrate what can be done in the in the medical profession we now recognize that better practices will not come from practicing Physicians they will come from basic science in teaching it is still believed that classroom experience is the source of all wisdom and that if there's going to be any Improvement it's going to be done by teachers that isn't true either we have have I think to persuade teachers that they should look for and use new practices coming from
27:30 - 28:00 outside and the outside in that case means I think the psychological laboratory and what from the psychological laboratory would you single out well I think contingency management the the development of better reinforcing contingencies in the classroom is the first step and the preparation of better instructional materials largely programmed I think we have to realize that we are preparing people to be effective outside
28:00 - 28:30 educational institutions not in educational institutions this means getting along effectively in the natural environment and in the natural social environment that is to say social environment hasn't been constructed for instructional purposes and the teacher must turn the child over to the real world just as soon as possible and it's it's often attempting to do the wrong thing I've often used the example of the
28:30 - 29:00 parent who is so anxious to arouse the child's interest that he does things that the child should have the privilege of doing himself for example you buy a gadget that makes an interesting noise for example and you bring it home to your small child and you say oh look and then you make the noise and you put it down and then the child imitates you and makes the noise and that's fine but you have missed a terrific opportunity if you put this quiet ly down and allow the
29:00 - 29:30 child to explore it a bit and suddenly it makes a noise for the first time when the child is operating it then the child will be reinforced for his exploratory behavior and he will go out and explore the rest of nature but you've cut undercut you've destroyed the contingencies which would reinforc exploration by demonstrating this and yet it's so tempting you brought home a lot of something it's a lot of fun making this noise and so you immediately get the child to make this noise but you've you've lost a marvelous chance [Music]
29:30 - 30:00 [Applause] [Music]
30:00 - 30:30 Dr BF Skinner professor of psychology at Harvard University has authored such important scientific books as the behavior of organisms verbal Behavior the technology of teaching and contingencies of reinforcement in addition he has written two books of general interest which have been both both widely received and highly controversial the novel Walden 2
30:30 - 31:00 and Beyond freedom and dignity included in the many scientific Awards bestowed upon him are the distinguished scientific Award of the American Psychological Association membership in the National Academy of Sciences and the president's metal of Science in this film Dr Skinner addresses himself to some of the most important issues facing education today As We join Dr Skinner and Dr John M
31:00 - 31:30 Whitley of Washington University they are discussing what dimensions of human endeavor are not receiving sufficient attention in schools we certainly are ignoring many of the important aspects of our own culture in our present education we're having so much trouble teaching Reading Writing arithmetic that we don't prepare students to enjoy their lives we boast of the fact that with our
31:30 - 32:00 industrialization and so on we're now giving people a great deal of leisure time we cut the week down first to five days and now they're talking about four days we cut down the work hours what are we going to do with with all of this time which is suddenly being released in which people don't have to do anything the what if you don't watch out but what you will do are those things which are immediately gratifying and enforcing all Leisure cultures have
32:00 - 32:30 tended to go in for for drunkenness or drug addiction for spectatorship Roman circus that kind of thing watching other people living dangerously um gambling of All Sorts games of chance and that these are the these are the things that people are likely to do when they don't have to do anything now the trouble with that is that by the end of a full lifetime of exposure to this you no better off than
32:30 - 33:00 you were you can you can buy a lottery ticket every week of your life and at the end of your life you you're the same person you were when you started you can say you can stay stoned or drunk all your life and um you've not acquired any new kinds of behavior at all watching other people live seriously or dangerously doesn't doesn't do that either now if if you leave it to the individual those are the things he is likely to do but the culture through its educational facilities primarily can Pro
33:00 - 33:30 can teach people other kinds of of reinforcements other things that they can do to be reinforced which actually will bring out all that there is in them they develop Arts skills talents of that sort where by the end of your life you are a very different person you are now an accomplished musician or an accomplished artist or you're an accomplished listener to music so you get more out of it than you ever did before or you read not simply in the
33:30 - 34:00 sense of living somebody else's life in a novel but more perceptive about people understanding people better and so on these These are the kinds of things that people could also do with Leisure Time which would make them much more effective people and but they need they need support from the culture they're not the things people naturally do because they they are more deferred by way of consequences you need to prepare person to be musical how does an educational system help
34:00 - 34:30 develop people in this way well it would have to arrange temporary reinforcers to build the kinds of behaviors which eventually prove to be more highly reinforcing if I sit and watch professional football on the Saturday afternoon I get something very quick out of that if however I instead of that I I practice the piano or something like that so that from then on I'm slightly more effective as a player then I have done something which will will increase
34:30 - 35:00 my pleasure for the rest of my life perhaps whereas the football game comes to an end it's all over and that's that I may have bet on it or something of that sort so I've been terribly interested in how it comes out I've had a good two or three hours um by way of immediate gratification but I'm at the end I'm I'm back where I started from at the beginning but if I do something which increases my skill or my general understanding of things or my knowledge then I am in a position to do something
35:00 - 35:30 different the next time which will at the end of my life I will be as complete a person as I could possibly be what are some of the temporary reinforcers that those in education can use to Foster this kind of constructive personal development clearly the the deck is stacked on the other side of long range behavior is much more difficult to develop than short range Behavior it's also not seemingly as amable to
35:30 - 36:00 short-term adversive control that Educational Systems use so much what can they substitute and how can they begin yes well this is again one of those practical problems of finding out what a particular person finds reinforcing but if you take the the old pattern of learning to play the piano in every neighborhood in my day there was a was a teacher of the piano and she had pupils and she or he in my case I was actually
36:00 - 36:30 was a man who who taught me the piano very briefly he would call once a week at our house and I would sit down and play the morning Prayer by someone named stribog his name was goers but he reversed it and for very good reason but I'm sure he wouldn't be proud of having composed this piece of music and I would be jabbed in the ribs if I made a mistake and so on and I practiced it I hated it and gave it up as quickly as my parents allow me to and this is a fairly
36:30 - 37:00 common pattern one thing you've got to play perfectly because there going to be a spring recital that all the students get together and play this kind of thing no nothing could be done to make people less interested in making music now there are natural reinforcers in the field ofm all sorts of noisy things that kids love to bang on and so on and I'm sure you could build a kind of kindergarten of Music in which kids would have a lot of fun making noises and you could program it in such a way that they would be have they have to
37:00 - 37:30 make more and more complicated noises you see this with kids getting rhythms and so on they are reinforcing themselves The rhythms are are reinforcing and these things grow you become better and better at this but I would think also you might want to have um for for one thing you'd want to program the material in such a way the progress is pretty conspicuous not just finishing one piece every year for a spring recital but
37:30 - 38:00 actually quite clearly doing much more with your music than you had ever done before let's take another example reading which is both a basic goal of school and something that in terms of the increased Leisure Life that people may have a great deal of satisfaction is to be had from Reading yet our statistics show that the average American reads no books a year the consequence of 12 or 13 years of education is been no interest in reading books or the average college graduate
38:00 - 38:30 reads something like7 books a year and there's no indication of what kind of books those are anyway given these kinds of figures it doesn't appear with a massive effort being made in our educational system to teach reading that people are reading very much at all how might you begin to do this this is a goal that almost everybody in our society would value how well have they learned to read you
38:30 - 39:00 see if you don't read very well if you've got to figure out words and whatnot then it's not pleasurable to read a book and you stay away from it you ought to learn at a very early age I think to read fluently and in ways which don't wear out your lycs when you're reading silently to yourself and permit you then to get the pleasurable side of of books we have tended to get away from
39:00 - 39:30 an emphasis on on verbal Behavior as such people do read the comics they read what is in the balloons uh and that's enough because the Picture Tells them the rest or they they subscribe to magazines which have pictures and very little text the pictures are doing doing most of the work or they watch TV with no printed material to read so you can say well we're getting away from reading but I don't think that's true either I think that actually a great deal of our thinking is verbal and if we fall back
39:30 - 40:00 entirely on Visual and other presentations we be will'll be doing less and less thinking all the time and solving problems and that sort of thing I I think the problem the trouble is not that we haven't spent a lot of effort in teaching reading but we've done so very badly in the old days when the punitive systems were feasible you learned to read or else that kind of thing and uh people did learn to read and many of them read a great deal and enjoyably but Rel by relaxing the punitive
40:00 - 40:30 contingencies and not bringing in anything else we're failing to teach quick easy reading the kind that would make make it reinforcing to read something and we are not also making subject matters important enough to people to care about uh learning something new about about things I think this can be done I I've had a hand in developing a a reading Series where you use immediate contrived reinforcers for evaluation of sentences or just words
40:30 - 41:00 and so on so that there is a Fascination kids like this they they work with it they're always discovering that they have read something correctly and in the in the in doing so they they do learn to read and and fluently enough I believe so that eventually they can begin to read for pleasure but to begin with you can't read for pleasure Run Spot Run that's not pleasure pleasurable and it's absurd to expect that you can design primers in Reading which are going to be
41:00 - 41:30 naturally interesting to a child compared with television or something of that kind but you can build in contrived contingencies it will get the child through the early stages of reading to the point of the kind of fluency which makes reading a pleasure is the fact that so many people learn to read in under an adversive system it all related to the fact that people don't seem to read when the adversive system is no
41:30 - 42:00 longer there when it comes to an end you just stop this is something you've had to do now you don't have to do it so you don't do it I think that's very largely what is involved moreover in these aversive contingencies you don't learn to read very fluently and that's that's a terribly important thing it's like uh playing the piano if you never play well you don't play you don't get any fun out of it but if you learn to play well then then then the natural reinforcers of the music you're producing begin to come through true if you read hesitantly sounding things out and so on you're not
42:00 - 42:30 going to get any fun out of that you'll stop as soon as you have to as soon as you're permitted to let's take another issue what about developing people to be deeply concerned about their fellow man concerned for his physical welfare concerned for his the style of life he has the quality of life he has how might the school work on that well that is actually very close I thought you probably were going to ask me why is it better for um a culture to
42:30 - 43:00 develop the individual rather than allow him to sit uh stoned all his life though happy and I think the answer to that is that the culture is stronger if each member develops himself as fully as possible and he would be most able to to meet emergencies he would make Progressive changes and improvements in the culture he would develop better art forms better science and so on I think you have to take the future of the of
43:00 - 43:30 the culture into account and a culture which allows everyone just to sit and watch professional football have a few lottery tickets and waiting for the next number to be reported and and drunk half the time that's a bad culture because it would not be able to tackle any problem and solve the problem well as people are not developing their natural interest and I think this this is the Criterion that you want to build the individual so that he is most effective most capable
43:30 - 44:00 of doing what may need to be done to survive and for the culture to survive and I think it's up to education to build into the individual those behaviors which will most likely work for the survival of the culture I think that's the only ultimate value that we we Face happiness is not the ultimate value in general is better than unhappiness because
44:00 - 44:30 people who are happy are likely to be most like to be developing as much as possible toward something better but there are instant happinesses of one kind or another but that is not true and simp say that culture is best in which most which people are happiest it isn't true because you could have a very happy culture that would go down the drain the next time an emergency arose let's return to the notion of the school developing people as people and take for example the adarian notion
44:30 - 45:00 of social interest or being concerned with one's fellow man and working for the betterment of other human beings what can the school do to develop this kind of humanistic value well what what does society do in the first place the school is doing it for a society how do you move from a culture in which each man is out entirely for himself to a culture in which the individual takes another person person into account and then perhaps eventually reaches that stage
45:00 - 45:30 expressed by John D the very famous passage no man is an island we're all part of the main never send to know for whom the belt TOS when someone dies a part of you dies the welfare of everyone is your good see if you can put that across then that culture is going to be strong because it will disseminate its goods everybody will have the support of everybody else I think it's no question that a culture which manages to make its members help each other and take the
45:30 - 46:00 good of each other into account is a strong culture but it's not the best culture now that's that's because the greatest good of the greatest number isn't an ultimate kind of value it's great right now but it may miss the future which is a terribly important thing in the culture in which we all are brothers are each other's keeper and we keep keep each other well you say this might be not might not be developing at all it could be static it could be you
46:00 - 46:30 know this would mean simply give everybody a bottle of whiskey a week in the television set and and that would be what I do for you is to give you all of this but you would not be developing and the greatest good of the greatest number has got to be oriented toward the future and if we simply settle for thoughtfulness about our fellow men we may be missing the boat clearly this raises the issue of how
46:30 - 47:00 much diversity can a society tolerate and how much power should be given to the school for example the uh the rebel today the young person who's dropping out as opposed to engaging themselves in in a culture where the school is a purveyor of middle class values what how do you design a system to tolerate and to enhance indeed the rebel
47:00 - 47:30 well the rebel is a figure which has a place only in an imperfect system and things are bad someone's got to change them and we call him a rebel because he's making changes if you simply go into his school system and say look here's a better way of teaching why don't you use it nobody calls you a rebel they call you a rebel when you attack the present system not because you put something better in its place now I think a a a good culture
47:30 - 48:00 would have very few rebels in a perfect culture would have none and that would not be any great loss we value the rebel because our cultures have been so bad in the past but to say what what would you do in a perfect culture about the rebel is about like saying to Isaac Newton what would you do about a body that goes the wrong way in a gravitational field field there wouldn't be rebels in a perfect culture well that's something to
48:00 - 48:30 dream about and not to talk about really because we're not going to have that kind of culture but the rebel has been someone who has done something in the past and he's had to do it by breaking into the present system so we call him a rebel I think in the future we won't have Rebels we'll have improvers but they won't have to Rebel they won't have to attack they will simply change and move things into the future if you don't like the way of life someone is handling you now there are three things you can do you can destroy it and try to build
48:30 - 49:00 something else in the ashes you can walk away from it and set up another culture of your own somewhere else that's the utopian Escape pattern or you can take the present culture and improve it bit by bit and that I think is what a technology of behavior is most likely to do with the present time I think we can now improve teaching practices we can improve incentive conditions we can improve the ways in which people are
49:00 - 49:30 induced to behave well with respect to each other and so on what do you mean by behaving well with respect to each other not robbing each other or stealing from each other and so on the kinds of things that allow you to spend the day without watching over your shoulder to see what's going who's going to knife you and so on what about in the positive sense in the non-destructive sense well I enhancing the individual yes well I this is is is a kind of thing which has made culture strong when you
49:30 - 50:00 when you get people who teach so that other people are more effective you have an example of that um when you get someone who designs an incentive system not just for the profits he's going to make out of it but to produce the goods the culture needs and you have that because after all if people need food then an agricultural system is a way of helping others because they they they consume the food you produce you may do it for selfish reasons or you may do it for philanthropic reasons you are
50:00 - 50:30 helping others when you raise food you are helping others when you teach you're helping others when you counsel in therapy and so on how might the school system enhance the development of philanthropic Behavior well this isn't this is a again a practical problem that needs to be tackled as such I would I would simply suggest relevant principles find out under what conditions people do
50:30 - 51:00 indeed uh take the goods of others in into account and how do they reinforce them now we've had historical examples of that of course um a a strong State can induce its members to be patriotic and to fight for the state which is a way of working for the good of others a religion can can suggest mdom the sacrifice of the individual for the good of of the of the religion or the good of the people who practice that religion
51:00 - 51:30 these are these are techniques U you may criticize some of them you may say it's pretty rough on the person who got control that way he died for others and but what did he get out of it that's that's a question very often but I think that you could without too much difficulty in a given culture arrange contingencies under which the culture makes sure that those who do things for the good of others are themselves reinforced don't appeal to
51:30 - 52:00 their Compassion or their generosity or anything of that kind that those are feelings and are not going to help you appeal instead to the contingencies under which behavior of helping others is actually reinforced let's take the Practical issue again of developing philanthropic Behavior you mentioned earlier that some of the other philosophies of
52:00 - 52:30 Education are really preventing in their technology the development of desired kinds of behavior the humanistic system clearly values philanthropic Behavior you value philanthropic Behavior but you're saying something else the technology you're describing is far more powerful in the developing philanthropic Behavior than is the humanistic educational system why is
52:30 - 53:00 that why is that what are what should they be doing differently well I think they're they're doing what I suggested they are looking for help to the Inner Man his feelings his compassion and so on I've pointed out elsewhere that there are some great classical examples of mistreatment the care of children in orphanages the care of old people in homes for old people
53:00 - 53:30 prisons care of psychotics and the care of retardates these are systems which from the beginning of time have already deteriorated so that conditions are perfectly awful then some kind of Reform sweeps in but before you know it is back again now you say oh well that's because we need compassionate people we we need Humane people who will love children and take good care of them will be fond of old people and take good care of them who will have the interests of the prisoner at heart and whatnot you know that you've heard this sort of thing I I
53:30 - 54:00 point out that the only reason that those five areas are classical examples of mistreatment is that all five classes of people are unable to exert counter control the children are too small to do anything about the mistreatment the old people are too weak the prisoners are under armed guard psychotics and retardates they can't escape they can't Counterattack at all so why they're being m treated not because people lack compassion but because there is no
54:00 - 54:30 positive reason for treating them well you don't the aversive control which keeps you treating me well and me treating you well is lacking in it's an lopsided condition where no control is POS coun control as possible now if you want people to be treated well in these institutions make sure that someone makes sure that mistreatment is not punished is is punished somehow or other now you say well now you're going back on a vers of control and that and and recommending it well I would recommend it as a first step but control
54:30 - 55:00 counter control isn't isn't again the ultimate if someone steps in and say look you're going to keep these kids well or you're going to be fired from this your job in the orphanage then they may get more Humane or compassionate treatment but in the long run what you want is not somebody who's afraid to mistreat but someone who treats well because he understands what he's doing and knows how to treat well and further knowledge of of human behavior is the answer to this I think not not more compassion but some contingencies which
55:00 - 55:30 induce people to treat people well and then some knowledge that enables them to do it effectively [Music] [Applause] [Music]