A Reflection Paper
By: Noedy D. Balasa
To the Professional Reading of:
“Contingency Management in the Classroom”
Written By: B. F. Skinner
An Introduction of the Writer
B. F. Skinner (1904-1990), is an American
psychologist. Burrhus Frederic Skinner was born in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania,
and educated at Harvard University, where he received (1931) a Ph.D. degree. He
joined the Harvard faculty in 1948. Skinner became the foremost exponent in the
U.S. of the behaviorist school of psychology, in which human behavior is
explained in terms of physiological responses to external stimuli. He also
originated programmed instruction, a teaching technique in which the student is
presented a series of ordered, discrete bits of information, each of which he
or she must understand before proceeding to the next stage in the series.
A variety
of teaching machines have been designed that incorporate the ideas of Skinner.
Among his important works are Behavior of Organisms (1938), Walden
Two (1948), and The Technology of Teaching (1968). In Beyond
Freedom and Dignity (1971), Skinner advocated mass conditioning as a means
of social control. Later works include Particulars of My Life (1976) and
Reflections on Behaviorism and Society (1978).
An Overview of the
Literary Piece
This piece
that I have reviewed is entitled, “Contingency Management in the Classroom” was
a speech delivered by B. F. Skinner at Western Washington State College on October
2, 1969 in connection with the dedication of Miller Hall. It was prepared with
the help of a Career Award from the National Institutes of Mental Health.
B. F.
Skinner in his speech asserts the importance of the reason behind education. He
asks what drives students to go to school. In due course he stresses on
determining which is more effective in classroom management: the punitive
method or the permissive approach. Delving further he emphasizes the importance
of understanding operant behavior, the use of reinforcement and contingencies
of reinforcement to make the students learn. With the development of this topic
he also capitulates between the lines the foundations of effective teaching as
to the three levels of effectivity: the school, teacher and student level
factors.
Though Skinner did not mention these
things verbatim the point is still made for present and future teachers. He uses
terms often used in psychology throughout his speech but he makes the listeners
and readers understand these words by the use of synonyms, illustrating
examples and analysis of information. The speech is in essay form that revolves
in a core idea: classroom management.
The piece is sensitive to the social
issues of his time whereby he relates the news of his time to the occurrences
in history. He makes concrete explanations of abstract ideas through the
effective use of the most stirring social issues that goes along the tip of his
main idea.
Thorough discussion is evident in
this literary work but it has been quite observed that the manner of exposition
is quite not chronologically arranged. The author starts with a discussion of
the driving force behind education and he progresses into the topic of
classroom management which is quite not clearly linked to his introduction.
Some technical terms present can also be confusing and boring. All I all the
work is excellent!
The Core Ideas
Presented
“We
are on the verge of a new educational method—a new pedagogy—in which the
teacher will emerge as a skilled behavioral engineer.”
Skinner
views the modern teacher, you and me, too be well versed in the arts and
science of molding students through the use of psychology. He says that a
would-be teacher should have the chance to see learning take place or produce
visible learning himself. Saying this he became a patron of John Dewey’s
principle evident in teacher training today as the Experiential Learning or
Field Study Courses.
We teachers should inculcate the value of
basic psychology into our profession because the new method has abandoned the
traditional ways and is becoming more progressive through the passing of years.
“Education is primarily concerned with the
transmission of a culture…the classroom is a community with a culture of its
own…the sooner we find effective means of social control, the sooner we shall
produce a culture in which man’s potential is fully realized.”
The teacher
is undoubtedly charged with the most critical burden in a society: the
transmission of culture. The teacher should ask himself then:
1. What culture will I transmit to my
students?
2. What good will he/she learn from
this culture?
3. What fruits will this culture bear?
A teacher who shows absenteeism
transmits a culture of tardiness and absenteeism. The child will be inefficient
and teaching will be made useless while the child’s culture will destabilize
his future and that of his nation; getting fired from work he becomes a social
burden that topples the economy. A teacher who shows bad deeds transmits
corrupt culture and destroys morality while a well mannered teacher invests on
a glorious culture that brings about social development.
The classroom is a community. It is
the image of our society as a whole. What we see in classrooms are the
small-scale of our society. What students see in a society is mirrored to the
classroom while what they show in their classrooms today will be their
attitudes tomorrow. Corrupt the classroom culture and you destroy the society.
Build a moral classroom environment and make the society better.
Skinner believes that man’s
potential can only be fully realized in a society that has a culture of social
control and so do I. If we have means to make people stop doing immoral acts at
a wide scale social dimension then we can create a society where man becomes
fully effective and efficient since he will have no worries.
“Sow a thought and reap an act;
Sow an act and reap a habit;
Sow a habit and reap a character;
Sow a character and reap a destiny.”
The Means to
Achieving Our Goals
Skinner
believes that a “driving force” is necessary to make students learn inside the
classroom. He says that in the traditional scenario this “driving force” is
present in the form of punitive methods while in the permissive scenario this
“driving force” is present in the form of either stressing the long-term
advantages of education or bringing a real life situation in the classroom. He
further asserts that these measures fail because these are not enough in giving
students the drive to study and learn.
Effective
and efficient teaching conducts a valid transfer of learning. To achieve this,
Skinner asserts the use of operant behavior. The principle of operant behavior
indicates that human behavior consists of emitted responses which are voluntary
in nature and learning amounts to the change in operant rate through the use of
reinforcements. Reinforcements are stimulus that strengthens the behavior which
it is made contingent. To apply operant behavior effectively in a classroom
this should be implemented in the three levels of building effective schools.
What should be done in the three levels of building
effective schools?
I.
School
Level Factors
In this level there should be a guaranteed
and viable curriculum that exhibits a good program of instruction and well
defined behavioral objectives from the three domains of learning.
It is to be remembered always that a
good program, according to B. F. Skinner:
·
Shapes
new forms of behavior under the control of the right stimuli
·
Holds
the student’s attention
·
Contains
its own drive and reasons for learning (clarified through its objectives)
·
Clarifies
the progress based on a set of standards
·
Is
definite in size
·
Makes
the student think and work right
II.
Teacher
Level Factors
In this level the multifunctional
teacher should come to life. The effective teacher should rise to show his
efficiency and professionalism. He should assume the various roles that he has
inside the classroom. Among these are being the source and channel of learning,
the examiner, the parent, and the governor of the classroom community.
III.
Student
Level Factors
In the student level factor it
should be remembered that the students is a child or teenager that has some
interests in some things that can be used as reinforcements. What drives
learning into him is good interaction with the teacher and his peers together
with a comfortable classroom environment.
Where am I in this
picture?
I am a
student teacher and if I want to pursue the path to becoming a teacher I should
do all it takes to learn as much as I can in this exposure to the field for B.
F. Skinner says, “Everyone who intends to be a teacher should have the chance
to see learning take place or produce visible learning himself.” This is my
chance I should try to witness this path he says.
For I also
believe in what Aristotle have said, “what we have to learn to do, we learn by
doing.” Ron Sebring also said, “Learn from other people’s mistakes because you
won’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”
