[Bill Curry (2000. 09.26.1132 EDT)]
Bill Powers (2000.09.25.0753 MDT)--
Before I learned Zen, a mountain was a mountain, a forest was a forest, and
a river was a river. As I learned Zen, I saw that a mountain was not a
mountain, a forest was not a forest, and a river was not a river. Now that
I understand Zen, I see that a mountain is a mountain, a forest is a
forest, and a river is a river.
Ahh...honored master...at last I, too, have experienced samadhi! 
If you think that we must always point out that controlling something is
_really_ controlling a perception of something, then somewhere in the back
of your mind you must believe that sometimes it is possible to control the
thing itself rather than only a perception of it.<snip>
But if it helps to remind yourself that it is perception you control, by
all means continue to say it that way until you no longer require reminding.
Grasshopper will practice this cherished mantra until the end of days...
and Rick Marken (2000.09.25.0840)--
The fact that teachers control _perceptions_ of student behavior does not
mean that the teachers do not actually control student behavior. It means
that there are many different _aspects_ or _dimensions_ of student behavior
that the teacher can control: how much noise the student is producing, how
much movement the student is producing, whether the student has his nose in
the books, whether the student is hitting other students, etc. Teachers can
control some, all or none of these perceptions of student behavior. But, in
order to control any of these _perceptions_ of student behavior the teacher
must control the aspects of the _actual behavior_ of the student that
correspond to these perceptions.
Bill and Rick -- I have never had a problem with the concept that one controls
_aspects_ [to use Rick's restrictive shading] of the "real" environment by
controlling for certain related perceptions, but are you also inferring that
the following statements are identities in terms of PCT analysis?
1) teachers control student behavior
2) teachers control aspects of student behavior
My PCT-based concerns with 1) are its implied lack of respect for the student's
autonomous control processes, and the excessive breadth of the phrase which
subsumes _all_ of the student's behavior. I characterize this form of usage
as the conventional vernacular use of the word "control"-- "my boss is a
controller."
My understanding is that the words "control" and "controlling", in PCT
analysis, refer to the dynamic negative feedback _process_ used by autonomous
organisms to stabilize their environmental and imagined perceptual variables at
desired states. Statement 1) suggests that a teacher can become some sort of
agent in a student's brain, resetting goals and references to produce whatever
output they want. This interpretation is a gross over-extension of the
teacher's domain of control and disrespects the student's control autonomy.
Teachers may disturb the control processes of students in ways that influence,
constrain or restrain aspects of the student's behavior, but the student is not
an automaton (though many teachers treat them as such).
To the extent that the teacher is successful in controlling a given classroom
CEV, she could assert that the related "real" objects in her environment are
also controlled, but that view is her's alone since it is predicated on her
hierarchy of controlled references. This is to say that her perception of
controlled student behavior is not an objective absolute environmental state
that would be agreed to by all observers, especially those students who give
her the finger when her back is turned.
I do not aspire to be an arbiter of semantic purity, but version 2) seems the
preferable form as a PCT-based statement.
Awaiting further enlightenment...
Bill
···
--
William J. Curry
Capticom, Inc.
capticom@landmarknet.net
