Skinner Box to Freedom

Posted in Standards and EvaluationPhilosophy of EducationStudentsTeaching on Nov 17, 2009 - 08:44 PM

So, there I stood. In front of my thirty 9th graders, hour after hour, watching them write letters to each other, put their gum under their desks, talk to their neighbors while the assigned worksheet on the parts of speech I just spent the night before diligently creating fell silently to the floor. Think I am being melodramatic? I wish! In one class, I laughed to myself for a solid thirty seconds (a long time in high school time), after I spent three minutes going back and forth with a student as to why throwing wads of paper at a girl he did not like was unacceptable.

"Stop doing that and apologize."

"What? She doesn't care."

"She's not going to tell you she cares, but I do. Treat her like you'd treat your sisters."

"I don't have sisters."

"Treat her the way you'd treat your mother."

"Don't you talk about my mom!"

"What?"

"Who are you anyway! I'll do what I want!"

"Stop raising your voice!" I yell.

"Don't talk about my mom! I don't care! Kick me out!"

"What? I never said I'd kick you out! Start respecting this space! You've lost points on the behavior chart!"

"So! Double it!"

"Triple!"

"Four times!"

You get the picture. I could not believe it. I had become Richard Vernon from "The Breakfast Club": "Mess with the bull, you get the horns!"

As my students say, this was "my bad." I had given them the freedom to be responsible independent thinkers when the only experience they have had as children and students has been being treated as anything but.

It took me more than a week to regain control of my classes. Yes, I said it--I sought to regain control. How and why? I took away their choice to sit next to whomever they chose. I took away their privilege to choose when homework would be assigned. I took away their privilege to go to the bathroom without asking me. I took away their privilege to speak in class without raising their hands. I took away all the privileges I had just promised them seven days earlier.

Why?

This pained me--honestly. I had such high expectations for my students--for myself. I imagined they would see how necessary it was that they exercise and develop their independent thinking skills and how important it was they take responsibility for their actions. But just as teachers need to scaffold students' learning--help to build a bridge between the knowledge the students have and the knowledge students need to have--I needed to scaffold their approach to and view of education.

The necessity of this set of actions on my part lay in their words. For two weeks after my "betrayal" as they deemed it, I started writing down every single question students asked me. Here's a few:

"Miss, when is this due?" Note: All homework and due dates are written on the board and announced after bellwork--every day.

"Miss, can we choose a word more than once?" Note: On the quiz, the directions clearly state, "Words may be used more than once or not at all."

"Miss, what does 'eradicate' mean?" Note: This was asked during a context clue exercise that I had just explained was not graded.

"Miss, do I have to use paragraphs?" Note: I just finished saying this, the question on the worksheet stated this as a requirement, and this directive was written on the board.

And these are just four examples of the four full legal size (8 1/2 x 14) pages I had filled with more of these types of questions. After my collection, I shared my findings with students. I read to them a selection of these questions and asked them blankly, "What do you notice about these questions?"

Without fail, several students would shout out, "They can all be answered by the person asking them--if they paid attention." Of course, every hour, I also had the straight shooters who would add, "Man, they're dumb questions--we're just lazy."

And with a "Tell me more..." from me, a discussion on what they have come to expect from teachers and what teachers have come to expect from them began. Why listen to what teachers have to say when they have always answered any question I have? Why try to figure things out on my own or try to deconstruct the meaning of words when the teacher will either give me the definition or send me to the dictionary? Why work hard on a quality essay when teachers have only cared about length?? Why be creative when teachers have only cared about mimicking the work done in class? Why show initiative when teachers have always told them, "Don't start until I tell you to"?

The students I have today have been enclosed in a Skinner Box that has conditioned them to be controlled--to not think deeply, but act accordingly.

Well, time to take this Skinner Box and use it against its own objective: I set out to condition these students to be unconditionable <----yeah, I made this word up (start now by unconditioning your vocabulary).

A noble and lofty goal in the name of democratic education, yes. A painless process? No way. A little less than two weeks into this new endeavor, I had phone calls from angry parents demanding their children be pulled from my class.

Tags for this entry:
k-12 education, curriculum, control, freedom, choice, critical thinking and analysis, homework, questioning, classroom strategies, discussion

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