[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