Teacher A: Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we didn’t have to use any aversive procedures. Punishment is such a drag.
Teacher B: Yes! I agree. Positive reinforcement is sooo powerful—shaping, schedules, maintenance, and all that. You can do just about everything with it.
Teacher A: Really. I mean, we should make our classes totally positive this year. No negatives. None!
As strongly as I advocate the use of positive strategies in classroom management (“Catch ‘em being good!”), I have to acknowlege that there are at least three reasons it is impossible to create behavior management systems that exclusively employ positive reinforcement. Here’s why reasonable folks should resist the superficial appeal of the all-positive or positives-only Chimera.
Continue reading ‘Why not only positives?’
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In “Like a Rat: Animal research and your child’s behavior” that they penned for Slate, Alan Kazdin and Carlo Rotella explain why it is sensible to infer methods for modifying human behavior from research on rats, pigeons, and monkeys. They quite clearly show how what we know from systematic research on infra-human organisms applies to us, the magnificently complicated, subtle, and rational organisms—at least as we seem to see ourselves.
Psychologists who work with children and families tend to avoid mentioning to parents that the treatments they use are often based on research done on animals. It’s no secret that the widely used technique of the timeout was developed in studies on rats or that important early research leading to treatments for anxiety in humans was done on dogs, cats, and other species—but the subject doesn’t come up a lot in conversation. We will confess to doing our bit to perpetuate this professional shyness about animal research by tiptoeing around it….
If you, dear reader, have ever wondered why research about pressing levers or pecking disks matters for changing human behavior or have had someone ask you a question about the connection between research conducted in a laboratory with animals and learner performance, you should read Professors Kazdin’s and Rotella’s “Like a Rat: Animal research and your child’s behavior.”
By the by, it’s just one of many excellent pieces that they’ve published on Slate.
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In “Controlling a classroom isn’t as easy as ABC” Seema Mehta of the Los Angeles (CA, US) Times describes teachers’ struggles and successes with classroom management. She also reports what teachers say are important and unimportant components of management.
Not only does she describe conflicts in the classrooms, but the recommendations she received about management show conflicts, too. She captures this disagreement concisely with this example: “Some teachers, for example, offer rewards for good behavior; others believe that creates a false motivation.”
Here are recommendations I gleened from the teachers in Mr. Mehta’s article:
- Consistency
- Follow through
- Caring
- Clear behavioral expectations
- Automatic consequences
- Address misbehavior quickly and dispassionately
- Ignore what you learn in teacher education
For the most part, these seem sensible and appropriate. But, they also seem platitudinous and generic. If teachers are served this sort of stuff in teacher education, then I can even agree with the last one.
Instead, we need to teach more operational and evidence-based practices. I hope that’s what I accomplish in my classes. Mayhaps I don’t. Sigh.
Link to “Controlling a classroom isn’t as easy as ABC.”
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Professor Brian Iwata, who has extensively studied functional behavior analysis, will conduct a two-day workshop entitled “Functional Analysis & Treatment of Severe Behavior Disorders” in Philadelphia (PA, US) on 28 – 29 September 2009. Psychologists may earn 11 CE credits, BCBAs & BCABAs 12 Type 2 CE credits. Walt Antonow, who manages these workshops, advised me that as of 2 Sep there were only 15 seats available, He has a brochure available.
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