[From Rick Marken (991112.1400)]
Me:
But this is precisely what I believe; the motives of others
do matter to me, big time! The belief which I have trouble
revising is my belief that these motives _don't_ matter
at all to the person who is coercing another person. The
person who "gives you a choice" doesn't care whether either
of those choices matches your motives (intentions).
Bruce Gregory (991112.0630 EST) --
Your description of a coercer doesn't match anyone I know
associated with RTP.
My description of a coercer is of one who "gives a person a
choice" without regard to the motives of that other person
and who enforces that choice using force if necessary. I
agree that this description of a coercer doesn't match
anyone associated with RTP; in particular, I am certain
that no RTP person ever has used or ever would use physical
force to enforce a proffered choice.
But there are coercive aspects to RTP that, I think, RTP
people are a tad too quick to dismiss. According to the
description of the RTP process, when a kid disrupts, you
"give the choice" of staying and behaving or going to
the social skills room. Nothing in the RTP material I've
read says that an effort should be made to determine the
disruptive kid's motives; and certainly nothing in that
material says that, if those motives are determined to be
anything other than "stay and behave" or "go to the social
skills room", the student would be allowed to carry them out.
What is non-coercive about RTP is that actual physical
force is never used; I think force is rarely even necessary
(if it were it would probably be administered by school
officials or the police) because a well trained RTP teacher
would know how to keep any conflict from becoming violent.
But rather than pointing to the non-violent nature of RTP
as evidence of it's non-coerciveness, what I have been hearing
from RTP folks is that RTP is non-coercive because coercion is
an "interaction" and since the kid wants to do what the teacher
wants (as evidenced by non-resistance to the proffered choice)
then giving the choice is not coercive. This disturbs me
because it assumes that the teacher can just look and see the
student's motives (possibly because those are the motives the
teacher would _want_ the student to have). This justification
of non-coerciveness ignores one of the basic tenets of PCT: you
can't tell what a person intends (what s/he is controlling
for) just by watching what s/he is doing. You can't, for
example, tell that a kid's motive is to go to the social
skills room just because the kid goes, sans protest, to
the social skills room.
I don't doubt that some (most?) kids, when given the choice
between staying and behaving or going to the social skills
room, actually want to do one of those things; and such kids
don't feel coerced by the choice. But unless you ask (or
determine by testing) what each kid really wants (to go
home, to go to the XXX bookstore down the street, etc) when
"given a choice" you have no way of knowing whether the
kid feels coerced or not; non-resistance is not evidence
that a person doesn't _feel_ coerced. Since the RTP kid
will not be allowed to do anything other than stay and
behave or go to the social skills room, even if it is
determined that what s/he really wants to control for is
something other than those two options, then why not just
admit that this is a coercive aspect of RTP?
But apparently even suggesting that there is a coercive
aspect to RTP is such an overwhelming disturbance to some
people that they will no longer even talk about it on CSGnet.
I guess it makes me wonder why PCT is considered such a good
basis for a discipline program. It seems like PCT is only a
good basis for a program as long as it justifies what one
has already decided to do.
But RTP is a good program. I cherish my memories of working
with the people involved in the program (non-coercive people,
every one). I'm sorry that these people are so disturbed by
the suggestion that there may be coercive aspects to RTP that
they don't want to even talk with some of us PCTers anymore --
that's probably why I keep coming back to this "coercion" topic;
I'm just completely perplexed by their reaction. But I think
I've got it out of my system...for now
Now back to important stuff -- like catching baseballs and
controlling sequences.
Best
Rick
···
--
Richard S. Marken Phone or Fax: 310 474-0313
Life Learning Associates mailto: rmarken@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~rmarken
