Gotta Test

[From Rick Marken (970318.1600 PST)]

Bruce Gregory (970318.1550 EST)

The point I would make is that teachers can benefit from: (1)
knowing that each student is controlling his or her own
perceptions; and (2) you can't tell exactly what they are
controlling without a great deal of testing.

Agreed.

I think this perspective (PCP) has the potential to make a
great deal of difference for teachers and students even if
the teacher does _not_ decide to test for the controlled
perception.

I have to disagree here. I don't think PCP is enough. I think PCP
can only be of value if people are willing to _use it_ -- and that
means testing (usually informally) to determine what variable(s) people
are controlling.

Simply knowing that you are dealing with autonomous control systems
(despite Bill's reservations that we really don't know this)
entails a fundamental shift in classroom practice.

I just don't believe that this is the case. My experience (in and
out of classrooms) has been that a great many of my problems have
resulted from dealing with people who were sure they knew what my
purposes were. These people knew that they were dealing with an
autonomous control system (me) but they had no idea what that meant. For
example, some of these people have imputed purposes to me that would
have required the ability, on my part, to control events that
I could not even perceive. These people had no idea how autonomous
control systems worked (by controlling perceptions); they had no idea
that they could actually find out what I was trying to do (control)
by testing rather than by "reading into" my observable behavior; and
they certainly had no idea that they, themselves, were control
systems who were coming to their conclusions about what my purposes were
in order to control their own perceptions.

Most good teachers and coaches are probably always doing informal little
tests to determine whether a particular variable is under control or
not. I would hope that PCT could make this process a bit more systematic
and "teachable".

Best

Rick

[From Bruce Gregory (970318.2035 EST)]

Rick Marken (970318.1600 PST)

I just don't believe that this is the case. My experience (in and
out of classrooms) has been that a great many of my problems have
resulted from dealing with people who were sure they knew what my
purposes were. These people knew that they were dealing with an
autonomous control system (me) but they had no idea what that meant. For
example, some of these people have imputed purposes to me that would
have required the ability, on my part, to control events that
I could not even perceive. These people had no idea how autonomous
control systems worked (by controlling perceptions); they had no idea
that they could actually find out what I was trying to do (control)
by testing rather than by "reading into" my observable behavior; and
they certainly had no idea that they, themselves, were control
systems who were coming to their conclusions about what my purposes were
in order to control their own perceptions.

Our only difference is that I do not believe that it is necessary for a
teacher to be interested in what variable each student is controlling.
That would be nice to know, but it is not clear to me that it is necessary.
I do agree that teachers must know _that_ students are controlling
their perceptions, as they, the teachers, are as well.

Bruce Gregory

From Bill Powers (970318.1819 MST)]

Rick Marken (970318.1600 PST)--

Bruce Gregory (970318.1550 EST) said

I think this perspective (PCP) has the potential to make a
great deal of difference for teachers and students even if
the teacher does _not_ decide to test for the controlled
perception.

And you said:

I have to disagree here. I don't think PCP is enough. I think PCP
can only be of value if people are willing to _use it_ -- and that
means testing (usually informally) to determine what variable(s) people
are controlling.

I agree with your disagreement. People are quick to read motives into other
people's behavior, but how do they do it? Their opinions are often
projections of their own motives, or attempts to be optimistic, or attempts
to read confirmation of a bad opinion into a behavior, or simply an
unthinking echo of a popular stereotype.

A teacher who does this (and I've hardly ever met one who doesn't) isn't
going to get much of a result from the PC Perspective if the same flawed
methods of assessing purposes are used, but simply expressed in PCT
language. "He's controlling for not doing any work" isn't any improvement on
"He's just lazy." "He has a reference level for a perception of me being
upset" is no better than "He's just trying to annoy me."

Adopting a PCT perspective involves a lot more than just learning to say the
same things you always believed, but using words from PCT to express them.
This is why Testing is so important. We all leap to judgment. But if we
remember that the Test could easily invalidate those judgments, perhaps we
might be more willing to admit that maybe we are misreading what other
people are trying to do, and even make a few silent predictions just to see
if the hypothesis holds up. When we get rid of our habitual snap judgements,
maybe we will catch ourselves thinking "Hey, I don't _know_ what this person
wants! How could I find out?"

Teacher: "Billy, why do you always want to sit in the front row? Are you
trying to make me think you're a good student?"

Billy: "No, I just can't see the blackboard very well -- it's all fuzzy."

Teacher: "Fuzzy? No, it isn't --- wait a minute. Billy, have you ever had
your eyes tested?"

It took them until the end of second grade to figure out that my vision was
20/100 in one eye and 20/200 in the other. When I got my glasses, suddenly I
could catch a baseball! And I didn't have to sit in the front row any more.

Best,

Bill P.

[From Rick Marken (970319.0800)]

Bruce Gregory (970318.2035 EST)--

Our only difference is that I do not believe that it is necessary for a
teacher to be interested in what variable each student is controlling.

But that's potentially very BIG difference. I agree that a teacher can't be
worried about trying to figure out every variable that every student is
controlling at every moment. But I think a PCT-aware teacher would
certainly be interested in SOME of the variables that SOME of the STUDENTS
are controlling SOME of the time.

I do agree that teachers must know _that_ students are controlling
their perceptions, as they, the teachers, are as well.

What does knowing this get you, though? It's like knowing _that_ the
behavior of steel girders is caused by external forces. You certainly have
to look at girders from this perspective if you want to build a bridge; but
you also have to know a whole heck of alot more about how masses behave in
response to external forces if you actually want a bridge that stays up.

I had hoped that those who got involved in the application of PCT to
practical situations would do the hard work of developing the methods
that could be used to access control in those situations. I thought we
might see some catalogs of the kinds of possible controlled variables
to test for in educational or clinical situations of various sorts. I
thought we would see descriptions of clever techniques for asking questions
or posing problems that would reveal the variables under control.

Instead, all I have seen in applied uses of PCT so far is new ways of
_talking about_ doing the same stuff people have always been doing. As
Bill Powers (970318.1819 MST) said:

Adopting a PCT perspective involves a lot more than just learning to say the
same things you always believed, but using words from PCT to express them.
This is why Testing is so important.

I envision an applied PCT that is as rigorous (and interesting) as PCT
science. I envision an applied PCT that produces results that are as clear
and as easy to obtain (within the constraints of "real world" considerations)
as those we see in the PCT demos. We won't get these kinds of application
of PCT , however, until we get applied people who are willing to do what
applied scientists (engineers) do; learn and _understand_ the science (of
PCT, in this case).

Best

Rick

[From Bruce Gregory 9970319.1100 EST)]

Bill Powers (970318.1819 MST)

Adopting a PCT perspective involves a lot more than just learning to say the
same things you always believed, but using words from PCT to express them.
This is why Testing is so important. We all leap to judgment. But if we
remember that the Test could easily invalidate those judgments, perhaps we
might be more willing to admit that maybe we are misreading what other
people are trying to do, and even make a few silent predictions just to see
if the hypothesis holds up. When we get rid of our habitual snap judgements,
maybe we will catch ourselves thinking "Hey, I don't _know_ what this person
wants! How could I find out?"

I agree with all your points. It seems to me that you are
arguing that the Test is important for teachers because it
gives them a greater insight into what the PCT perspective
entails. This makes perfect sense. My only caveat is that most
teachers will conclude that they having little hope of learning
anything much about what more than a few students are
controlling for. Further, it is not clear what a teacher could
do with the knowledge that a student's goal was to do as little
as possible while getting as high a grade as possible.

Bruce Gregory

[From Bruce Gregory (970319.1315 EST)]

Rick Marken (970319.0800)

But that's potentially very BIG difference. I agree that a teacher can't be
worried about trying to figure out every variable that every student is
controlling at every moment. But I think a PCT-aware teacher would
certainly be interested in SOME of the variables that SOME of the STUDENTS
are controlling SOME of the time.

Me too.

I said

>I do agree that teachers must know _that_ students are controlling
>their perceptions, as they, the teachers, are as well.

Rick said:

What does knowing this get you, though?

Humility?

I had hoped that those who got involved in the application of PCT to
practical situations would do the hard work of developing the methods
that could be used to access control in those situations. I thought we
might see some catalogs of the kinds of possible controlled variables
to test for in educational or clinical situations of various sorts. I
thought we would see descriptions of clever techniques for asking questions
or posing problems that would reveal the variables under control.

The question of what variables students are controlling is
certainly legitimate, but I am not sure that it has much to say
about teaching and learning. Most junior high school students
are probably controlling for variables that they associate
with: (1) being accepted by their peers, and (2) being
attractive to certain members of what used to be called 'the
opposite sex". (I know that this did not apply to you and Bill,
but bear with me anyway :wink: My view is that schools largely
serve as places where young people learn to relate to each
other and to authority figures who are not their parents. These
are _important_ skills -- I am not minimizing the role of
schools in society.

When it comes to learning something as difficult as science, I
suspect that at most 10% of the students are doing anything more
than attempting to survive and not embarrass themselves too much.
The 90% are not irredeemably flawed, they simply have no
occasion to do the hard conceptual work involved in thinking
scientifically. Many who are quite bright have difficultly with
learning physics. Others, equally bright, have no interest in
the subject.

That said it would be very interesting and important to be able
to show the 10% who want to learn some science what they need to
perceive in order to expand their control in this domain. This
is not simple, but I am trying to make some progress in this
area (with little success so far). When I do make progress, you
be the first to know :wink:

I envision an applied PCT that is as rigorous (and interesting) as PCT
science. I envision an applied PCT that produces results that are as clear
and as easy to obtain (within the constraints of "real world" considerations)
as those we see in the PCT demos. We won't get these kinds of application
of PCT , however, until we get applied people who are willing to do what
applied scientists (engineers) do; learn and _understand_ the science (of
PCT, in this case).

I'm _sure_ you are not referring to me :wink:

Bruce Gregory

[From Rick Marken (970319.1300 PCT)]

Bruce Gregory (970319.1315 EST)--

The question of what variables students are controlling is
certainly legitimate, but I am not sure that it has much to say
about teaching and learning.

I think it has everything to do with teaching and learning. A teacher
has to know what perceptions the kid has to learn and be able to
determine what perceptions the kid is actually trying to control. I
don't think this has to get real technical; for example, a tennis coach
who teaches by describing what a good ground stroke should _feel_ like
is identifying a perception to be controlled. Bill Powers' teacher
finally identified the perception Bill was trying to control by always
going to the front of the class.

I think teaching could become much more effective and less contentionus
if teachers knew some simple ways to see the learning process from the
student's perspective (in terms to the variables the students should be
trying to control and that they are trying to control).

Most junior high school students are probably controlling for
variables that they associate with: (1) being accepted by their
peers, and (2) being attractive to certain members of what used
to be called 'the opposite sex".

I think these perceptions are being controlled by some kids and not
others. Why assume that a kid is trying to gain acceptance from his
peers just because all the other kids are? Why not test and see? And
kids certainly control a heck of lot more variables than just these two.
These might be particularly important variables for some kids to control
but there may be others that are just as or more important.

When it comes to learning something as difficult as science, I
suspect that at most 10% of the students are doing anything more
than attempting to survive and not embarrass themselves too much.

No doubt. But I don't see PCT helping with this much. I see the
educational benefit of PCT coming from its ability to help educators
educate kids who _want_ to get educated. PCT can help by encouraging the
identification of educational goals in terms of perceptions to be
controlled and by helping kids achieve control of these perceptions by
being able to see (via Testing) when the kids are barking up the wrong
perception.

...it would be very interesting and important to be able
to show the 10% who want to learn some science what they need to
perceive in order to expand their control in this domain. This
is not simple, but I am trying to make some progress in this
area (with little success so far).

Now you're talking! Nothing worthwhile comes easily. Why do you think I
got into PCT research? It's because developing applications of PCT to
real life situations is DIFFICULT! It takes _real_ brain power. That's
why I am so thrilled that you are working in this area. It
WILL be difficult to develop useful and PRACTICAL PCT applications to
education but I am sure you can do it. But it will not be easy; you will
be a real pioneer and pioneers don't live the easy life. I
really hope that you stick with what will sometimes be a very
frustrating task. There are no guideposts that say "how to use PCT
in education this way --> " but I hope you will continue blazing the
trail toward the development of some real, useful educational
applications of PCT. I'll carry the machete and hand it to you when you
need it;-)

I think the development of practical, PCT based applications (which I
see as largely consisting of informal and formal methods of testing for
controlled variables) is probably the most important thing that
can be done for PCT now. PCT has a LOT more to say to educators and
clinicians than just "people are autonomous, purposeful systems".
PCT should be able to show educators and clinicians how to
determine what people's purposes are (what perceeptual variables
they are tryng to control) and what they can do when they discover that
some of their purposes are "crossed".

Best

Rick
http://www.leonardo.net/Marken

[From Bruce Gregory (970319.1635 EST)]

Rick Marken (970319.1300 PCT)

I see the
educational benefit of PCT coming from its ability to help educators
educate kids who _want_ to get educated. PCT can help by encouraging the
identification of educational goals in terms of perceptions to be
controlled and by helping kids achieve control of these perceptions by
being able to see (via Testing) when the kids are barking up the wrong
perception.

Sounds good to me. As I read your post, it occurred to me that
an essential part of "real" learning is figuring things out for
yourself and then being willing to test your new understanding to
see if it stands up (Richard Feynman has some wonderful
descriptions of how he did just this). To use one of our favorite
examples, it is the difference between driving a car and saying
that you know how to drive a car because you have watched
someone else do it. Too much of education consists of watching
the teacher do it or of solving canned problems that aren't
really your problems in the first place.

Bruce Gregory

[Martin Taylor 970320 11:55]

Rick Marken (970319.1300 PCT) to Bruce Gregory (970319.1315 EST)--

Why assume that a kid is trying to gain acceptance from his
peers just because all the other kids are? Why not test and see?

A laudable point of principle, but how practical is it? How would one
introduce the disturbance? Ask his peers to shun him and see whether
he does -- does what? -- to restore their acceptance? If they are
controlling for the teacher's goodwill and that seems to them to
involves maintaining the shunning, what could the poor guy do that
would effectively counter the disturbance? Would it be enough for the
teacher to see the kid cry, or lash out at his peers? Would it be enough
that the kid might ask "Why won't you play with me?"

How could you introduce _any_ such disturbance without possibly changing
the way the kid interacts socially? He would have to reorganize, wouldn't
he, if his normally successful ways of maintaining a perception of being
accepted began to fail? It's not necesarily a good idea to get people
to reorganize _away from_ a successful control organization, just for
the sake of seeing what they were controlling for when they were controlling
successfully.

As I say, your principles seem fine. I worry about how to put them into
practice without the potential for doing damage.

A different approach is one that seems to be inherent in Ed Ford's program,
and in Bill Powers' occasional attempts to use "the method of levels." We
seldom recognize what perceptions we are controlling when we are successful
in controlling them. We are more likely to identify those perceptions that
we are unsuccessfully trying to control. So it doesn't do much good to ask
a student "What are you trying to achieve." The answer won't include those
things that the student _is_ achieving, unless you can get the student to
go up a level, and from there see the successfully controlled perceptions.
The answer you will get will be relevant to the perceptions the student is
having trouble with.

However, you might be able to use this "just ask" approach in another way
to get at what the student is controlling for, provided that the student
has a good imagination, and is controlling for some kind of cooperation
with the teacher.

"Johnny, would it bother you a lot if Jimmy stopped playing with you?"

"No, I can get along fine by myself. I don't need Jimmy."

"But you always play with Jimmy, don't you?"

"Yes, I like him. He plays nicely and doesn't try to hit me."

"Would you like it better if other people didn't try to hit you?"

"I guess so."

"Do you think they hit you because they are jealous of your good marks?"

"I don't know. Maybe. Jimmy gets good marks, too, and they don't hit him."

And so forth. The teacher may not discover precisely what Johnny is
controlling for, but may discover some of what Johnny thinks he is trying
to achieve.

Can a teacher do this in a class of 40 students? Would it actually be a
valid and safe way to get at what Rick wants to achieve?

Martin

[From Rick Marken (970321.0800)]

Me:

Why assume that a kid is trying to gain acceptance from his
peers just because all the other kids are? Why not test and see?

Martin Taylor (970320 11:55) --

A laudable point of principle, but how practical is it? How
would one introduce the disturbance?

I don't know. That's why it would be nice if some applied people would
work on this. I think saying things (asking questions, making
suggestions, etc) is certainly one of the obvious ways to introduce
disturbances in order to test on the fly. Again, I don't imagine that
practical applications of the test will be anywhere near as rigorous as
they are when we do our experiments on control.

Part of what will be learned by the people who develop PCT applications
will be the kind of variables people have been found to control in
certain situations. If Bill Powers' teacher has been aware that some
kids control for seeing the blackboard by adjusting their dlocation in
the room she could have more readily determined that Bill was, indeed,
controlling for seeing the blackboard by sitting in front of the room --
and that he was not controlling for other variables, like being noticed
or being seen as a good student.

I don't imagine that applied people will spend all their time testing
for controlled variables. I assume that they will do this testing when
they run into problems -- kids who are trying but can't seem to
understand some concept, like "carrying" in adition; kids who are doing
unusual things, etc.

I think your "just ask" approach is exactly the kind of thing I'm
thinking of; a verbal version of "the coin game". Experiece should help
the tester select hypotheses (based on the observed behavior) about what
is being controlled. For example, teachers might have learned that there
are two of three variables a kid is likely to be controlling for by
moving to the front of the class: 1) seeing what'a happening 2) avoiding
disruptive kids at the back 3) getting noticed.
There are surely MANY other possibilities but at least a teacher
interested in figuring out why the kid always moves to the front of the
room would have a ready made list of things to test for first.

Can a teacher do this in a class of 40 students?

How this is done in a classroom would be part of what applications
people would have to learn. I imagine that this kind of testing would be
relatively rare, it would occur "on the fly" (as it does in classrooms
now) when most of the kids are working and the teacher has a chance to
"visit" kids who might need special attention.

The question you ask, Martin, cannot be answered by sitting amd mulling
over possible answers. It can only be answered by people who are
actually working in applied settings and are willing to TRY things out
and see what works and what doesn't. Of course, this has to be done by
an applied person who knows _how_ to test for controlled variables and
_why_ this testing is essential for understanding what another person is
_doing_.

Best

Rick