[From Bill Powers (2000.09.15.0647 MDT)]
Tom Bourbon (92000.09.14.23.55 CDT--
The moral, for me? Before one speaks about an assumed social
phenomenon, one ought to go and see if the phenomenon even
exists.
The way we used to say it in PCT science was, "First the
phenomenon, then the theory."
You're right. A great deal of what I say is an extrapolation from my
long-ago K-12 school days, when RTP programs didn't even exist. I must
visit some of your schools before I pontificate any more about RTP.
Unfortunately, in the one school where I did manage to visit (Lukachukai),
the program wasn't working out for political reasons that had nothing to do
with RTP. Where would you recommend that I go (other than the hot place)?
In partial defense, I have seen both parents and teachers using the
"choice" approach in just the phoney way I complain about, although of
course there was no RTP program in the background. And I experienced the
same thing through most of my young life, so it's not as if I'm making up
the phenomenon out of whole cloth. You'll notice that there have been a few
replies seconding my observations, although again no RTP program was in
place. Adults very often do offer children choices neither of which the
child wants, and I claim that children do very often see though this
artifice (I did). But I'm willing to consider that the RTP program as
actually practiced is so effective and beneficial that students don't mind
having their choices restricted and find the atmosphere so friendly that
they don't criticize the system when no adult can hear them. I admit that
it's hard for me to imagine any system so perfect that it's beyond
criticism, even if it is miles better than any other system. But if you say
it is, I tend strongly to believe you simply because of my respect for you
as a scientist and an observer. Please, however, be careful about what you
ask me to believe, and make sure you believe it yourself.
In the meantime, RTP aside, there are immense numbers of schools in which
RTP is not operating, and where attempts to control children by punishment
and reward, and by offering phoney choices, abound. Without having studied
such schools first-hand, of course, I can't really say how they operate,
but one can place a certain amount of credence on reports from people
associated with such schools -- who teach in them or administer them or
have visited them for purposes of evaluation, or have attended them as
students. We can all remember our experiences in non-RTP schools.
That -- reading descriptions -- is actually how I have formed most of my
opinions of RTP, by the way. It is how most people will form their opinions
of RTP before experiencing it for themselves. If my opinions seem far off
the track to you, it might be useful to consider that I got them from doing
the same sort of reading and viewing of videos that strangers will do,
strangers who might be considering bringing the RTP into their schools.
Could it be that these materials can convey a message that is different
from what RTP is really about? For example, when it is said that students
removed to the RTC lose the privilege of being with their friends, and that
they want to get back to class in order to be with their friends again,
could this not be misinterpreted as a punishment-reward system? Indeed,
isn't the whole idea that adults can grant "privileges" contingent on good
behavior and withhold them for bad behavior (like disrupting a class) part
and parcel of a system for controlling their behavior? I'm sure that RTP is
not built on that idea, but when strangers read your materials I can see
how they might easily get the wrong idea. And that would certainly hamper
the spread of correct versions of RTP.
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I have pointed out that in the US anyway (Tim Carey says it's different in
Australia), students are legally required to be in school until they are 16
or so (varying by states, I think). This means they have no _free_ choice
at all about being there. If they leave school before the legal age, a
truant officer brings them back; if they persist in leaving, they are
turned over to juvenile authorities. In no case can they simply attend or
not as they please.
This means that you can't judge by school attendance which students want to
be there and which do not. All students younger than 16 or so attend school
under duress. Some of them like being there, some of them don't. But it
makes no difference whether they like it or hate it; they go to school
anyway, under the threat of the application of overwhelming physical force.
To me, that makies the system "xxxxxxxx", where there is a word I would
substitute for the x's, but which others strenuously insist doesn't apply.
So I'll just say that to me this makes the system compulsory rather than
optional.
So RTP, no matter how well it works, has to work within a compulsory school
system from which students couldn't escape even if they wanted to. The
students are under adult supervision and their behavior is basically
controlled all of the time, in the respect that they are not free to come
and go as they please. They cannot take this course but not that course, be
in this teacher's class but not that teacher's class, arrive at 10:30 AM
and not 8:30 AM, eat lunch at 11:00 and not 12:00, go home at 1:30 and not
3:15. Whether there is or is not an RTP program in a school, these
restrictions are, at least to my knowledge, pretty strictly observed and
enforced. The reasons are largely legal: all children must receive what is
considered a basic education, and must be instructed for a minimum number
of hours per school year. Please correct me if I'm wrong about that.
All this said, does this mean that I want children to be perfectly free to
do anything they want without adult supervision? No, it does not. I am
simply trying to get started on the right track, recognizing how things
actually are without regard to whether I agree or disagree with the system.
This is the first step in putting all the cards on the table.
I don't feel that with respect to RTP all the cards are on the table yet. I
feel that there are some principles and beliefs operating other than PCT,
some of them religious, which are not openly discussed. How does a child
"know right from wrong"? Why must a child be either in a class or in the
RTC while in school? Why must a child learn any course materials? Who has
the final say about what a child will and will not be permitted to do, or
not do? Who gets to make the rules, and to whom, if anyone, must they be
justified? What are the objectives of the teachers, the administrators, and
the school boards, and to what extent are they negotiable? To what extent
can they be altered to accomodate the objectives of the students? And of
course, the biggie: under what circumstances, and to what degree, is the
behavior of children in the RTP program controlled?
None of this has anything to do with the degree of success enjoyed by RTP
in the schools, especially in comparison with the miserable state of many
non-RTP schools. It has everything to do with examining RTP to make it
still more effective and communicable, and to eliminate contradictions from
at least the way it is presented to the public, if not the way it is
practiced.
Best,
Bill P.