[From Bruce Abbott (991118.1940 EST)]
Bill Powers (991118.0835 MDT) --
Bruce Abbott (991117.1315 EST)
The environment is the environment, whether the "rules" are the laws of
physics or the social rules imposed by the teacher.
The difference is that the rules imposed by physics are not disputable,
breakable, or negotiable, while those imposed by a human being are all three.
True but in this context, irrelevant.
If the student has been
made aware of those rules, and thus knows what the consequences of his or
her behavior will be as stated in the rules, then if the student
intentionally engages in the behavior anyway, he or she has indeed in effect
made a decision to break the rules and thus to receive the stated
consequences.
I don't like "in effect." You wouldn't have to say that if you meant the
rest literally. You're saying that there really wasn't a decision to break
the rules or receive the stated consequences, but that you're going to
treat the child as if there were.
Sorry, Bill, that's not what I intended to convey by "in effect," which you
are translating into "as if." The child's decision to (a) break the rules
is also a decision to (b) receive the stated consequences, because of the
linkage, which has been made plain to the child, between (a) and (b). By
explicitly deciding to break the rules, the child has implicitly decided to
receive the consequences of breaking the rules.
The teacher is responsible for enforcing the rules, but
Johnny is responsible for seeing that the rules are not broken.
Who says so? Before you can say that, don't you have to get Johnny to agree
to it? Are you saying that Johnny, simply by virtue of being a child, is
responsible for seeing that any rules established by any adult are not
broken? All you're doing is saying, again, that the teacher wants Johnny to
obey the rules and will chuck him out if he doesn't. Are responsibilities
things that people just have? Or does someone assign them?
My first reaction to this is that you have forgotten that we're talking
about RTP, not just any child/adult interaction. My second reaction is that
you are using "responsibility" in a strange, new way here. My understanding
of your use of the term was that a person is "responsible" for the state of
a perception only if the person has control over that perception. Johnny is
in control of whether or not he breaks the rules, and is therefore
responsible for whether or not he breaks the rules. He is also responsible,
if I understand RTP correctly, in the sense that he has accepted
responsibility by agreeing to play by the rules. The teacher is responsible
for enforcing the rules in both senses, as well.
What Johnny
has to learn is that (a) breaking the rules _will_ result in the
consequences stated in the rules (no excuses allowed!) and (b) Johnny is in
control of, and responsible for, whether the rules are broken.
Why not put (a) in a form parallel to (b)? (a) the teacher is in control
of, and responsible for, making rules and administering consequences when
the rules are broken...
I have no problem with your restatement of (a). However, I just _said_ that
the teacher was responsible for that in the previous paragraph, so it really
was not necessary for me to repeat myself. Instead, in this new paragraph I
wanted to emphasize something different about this fact, which is that if
the program has to learn, Johnny has to learn that the teacher will indeed
carry out the promised action, no ifs, ands, or buts.
Even the introductory phrase falsely objectivizes the situation. It is not
that Johnny "has to learn" these things; it is that the adults around
Johnny, and you apparently, _want_ him to learn these things.
It is not a false objectivization of the situation. If the RTP program is
going to work, this is indeed what Johnny has to learn. If Johnny is going
to stay in the RTP program, this is what Johnny has to learn. And it is
what Johnny _is_ going to learn (he hasn't already accepted this from the
verbal instructions he has received) when he breaks the rules and, by golly,
he ends up in the RTP room.
And in the
background is a huge and unspoken assertion: that OF COURSE the child must
not break "the rules," whatever they are and whoever made them.
Of course. Not if he wants to stay in the program.
The key is whether the child intended to break the rules, isn't it? If the
child did indeed intend to break the rules (so as to control some other
variable, like getting back at the kid in the next seat), then the child is
indeed responsible for (and properly held accountable for) that behavior.
It's highly unlikely (though not impossible) that a child would _ever_
"intend to break the rules." What the child intends is to accomplish some
result, like getting a friend's attention. The breaking of the rules occurs
when the means of carrying out the intention happens to cause another
effect that is forbidden, like distracting other students (including the
friend) or the teacher.
I'm covering all bases here, and it doesn't matter to my argument how likely
or unlikely such behavior is. (I cover the case you raise next in the
paragraph.) However, I disagree that such behavior is "highly unlikely."
The child may be well aware that his or her behavior will almost certainly
result in being asked to leave, but find that doing whatever it is will
break the rules is simply too attractive an option to forego.
I really dislike all this pseudo-objectivism. You're describing to me how
you prefer to see children treated, and what you would like to see done to
them when they break rules that you would prefer to see obeyed, but you're
describing everything as if you were simply reporting how things are in
reality.
It would be nice if you would speak to the issues rather than resorting to
rhetorical tricks like labeling my position "pseudo-objectivism." I'm not
stating anything about how I would prefer children to be treated, and you
have no evidence that I am. I am describing how children are treated in the
RTP program, as I understand it.
You can't say what the child "is" responsible for. You can tell me what you
intend to hold the child responsible for, but that doesn't mean that
another person couldn't disagree.
If the child is to remain in the RTP program, then the child will be held
accountable for (responsible for) his or her own behavior. As the child is
in control of that behavior, then the child is in fact the _only_ person who
could be held responsible for it.
Your saying it doesn't make it true.
Sure it does. I'm always right, remember? (:->
And
what does it mean to "properly" hold someone accountable? Doesn't that
imply that there is, in the objective world, a justification independent of
human opinions for holding someone accountable? And what does "holding
accountable" mean? Doesn't it imply that there is an objective
justification for assigning blame and punishment, a justification that just
exists, and for which you take no responsibility?
Sure there is an objective justification for holding the child accountable
for his or her own behavior. It isn't required that the justification, to
be objective, must be independent of human opinion. The objective
justification arises from the social contract, the rules by which the child
has agreed to play. The responsibility for that justification is shared by
everyone involved in that social interaction.
The choice of breaking the rules entails the choice of being sent to the
RTC.
No, it doesn't.
Yes, it does. That's how the teacher understands the rules. That's how the
student understands the rules. As Bruce Nevin so clearly pointed out,
children understand rules and how to play by them. If the rule is, you get
tagged, you're out, then if you get tagged, you're out!
You're not telling me a literal truth, you're expressing an
opinion, a preference, an intention.
Nice try, but just making assertions like this is not enough. You have to
back them up with something tangible.
You're telling me how you _want_ the
child to think of being sent to the RTC.
If the child doesn't believe it initially, he or she will be forced to that
conclusion (if he or she is rational) by experience.
You're telling me how the teacher
will react to the child's breaking the rules.
Of course. And that's the objective fact of the matter.
The teacher is indeed responsible for seeing that the rules are
enforced, but I don't see how that changes the fact that the child is
responsible for whether or not this has to be done.
Nothing "has" to be done. The teacher could choose _not_ to send the child
to the RTC. That is up to the teacher. The teacher has all sorts of reasons
for sticking to the RTP system, but those are the teacher's reasons, not
the child's.
The teacher _has_ to do it if the teacher is to properly implement the RTP
rules of the game. He or she could opt not to, but then it wouldn't be RTP.
You're really grasping at straws here, Bill.
It seems to me that the only time telling the child that he or she has
"chosen" to go the the RTP room is a sham is when the child breaks the rules
without meaning to.
You didn't finish the sentence. It should end "without meaning to be
forced, as a result, to go to the RTC."
I did finish the sentence, and I'll thank you not to rewrite it for me so
that it conveys a different meaning. I mean that the child has broken the
rules as a side-effect of doing something else, not realizing that as a
consequence, the rules would be broken. Your rewrite conveys a completely
different meaning, which is that the child may indeed have intended to break
the rules, but nevertheless did not have any intention to go to the RTC.
I think that this distinction is the real issue for you -- that the child
may really be opposed to being sent to the RTC despite having broken (even
deliberately broken) the rules. But according to the rules, this will be
what happens, and Johnny knows it. You are all hung up over the fact that
Johnny doesn't really have a choice in the matter, and that therfore (as you
see it), Johnny is being told a lie when the teacher says "I see you have
chosen to go to the RTC room." But you are focusing on the situation as it
exists _after_ the rule has been broken, when Johnny really has no choice.
That is NOT where Johnny made his choice, to which the teacher refers.
Johnny chose to go to the RTP room when he chose to break the rules, because
one entails the other, and Johnny knows it. It is the same as when Johnny
chooses to steal a base, and ends up getting tagged out. Did he really
choose to get tagged out? No, but he was aware of the risk, so he knew that
this was a serious possible consequence of his actions. He was responsible
for taking the risk, and will be willing to admit that he was responsible
for the consequences, whether they turned out to be a stolen base or being
tagged out.
But if you give the child this excuse as a way to
escape the specified consequences, then the child will learn to use this
excuse whether it is the truth or not.
If the child actually chose to go to the RTC, why would there be any
attempt to excuse the behavior and escape the consequence? I would
interpret any effort to avoid going to the RTC as inescapable evidence that
the child did NOT choose to go to the RTC.
The child chose to take the risk that his behavior would get him sent to the
RTC. Only the child is in control of his behavior. He may not like the
result, but by doing what he did, he chose to engage in behavior that
entailed that consequence. Now, why would the child choose to engage in
such behavior despite the known and undesired consequence (assuming that
this was intentional)? There must have been something sufficiently
attractive about doing it anyway that the undesired shipment to the RTC was
worth the cost. So the kid did it anyway.
Now what you want to do is offer the kid a second choice -- that of going to
the RTC or staying in the classroom. But he's already made his choice, and
choices have consequences. He chose to hit the kid next to him with a
spitwad, knowing that he was thereby _also_ choosing to go to the RTC. Now
you want to offer him a second choice, which will allow him to have his cake
and eat it too. Given the motivations I have attributed to him in this
scenario, it is clear that he will choose to stay. But that proves nothing
about his earlier choice, which still remains his choice and which he made
of his own volition. When the teacher says, "I see you've chosen to go to
the RTC," he is referring to that earlier choice, in which going there was
part of the bargain he made with himself when he chose to throw that
spitwad. Can't you see, Bill? He _did_ make that choice!
<Enforcing the breaking of the rules
unconditionally teaches the child that he or she is also responsible for
seeing to it that rules are not broken as a side-effect of controlling other
perceptions.
Mainly, it shows the child what your attitude, as a teacher, is. The "zero
tolerance" approach reveals your lack of tolerance and understanding, and
your intention that the child will obey the rules no matter what has to be
done to the child to bring that about.
Like beatings, for instance? I don't think you're describing the RTP
program, Bill. Just what _are_ you talking about? Your own experiences in
school?
Why should the child agree to whatever it is you
have to offer? (I think it's especially important to remember that in the
situations Ed Ford has been dealing with, in many cases these are "hard
core" juveniles who have learned to manipulate the system to get what they
want, which often includes purposefully frustrating and angering those in
authority. They are likely to pretend to "negotiate" with no intention of
carrying out their end of the bargain.)
Jeez, you really don't like kids, do you?
I like kids just fine. Are you asserting that these kids don't learn how to
manipulate the system when that is possible?
Ed Ford talks about "them" that
way, too. If you can't think of anything to negotiate with a kid about, you
have no business ever interacting with one. Ed actually negotiates with the
"hard-core" kids a lot, in a sensible and realistic way. "You want to get
out of here, right?" And so on.
That's not negotiating the rules -- it's offering the kid incentives for
going along with the program, as run. My understanding of RTP is that a lot
of this goes on, so it's clear that we're talking not about a heavy-fisted
authoritarian program such as you just described. Why do you keep arguing
as if that's what I'm talking about? You seem more interested in winning an
argument by distorting my position than in understanding what I'm trying to
tell you.
What a teacher can ask for is the right to work at her profession. What she
can offer is to treat children with respect, to avoid hurting them, to keep
her promises to them, and to help them understand the subjects she is
teaching. And lot of other things, which anyone can think of who has the
will to do so.
Who would disagree? Certainly not me! Are you suggesting that I would?
Your assertion that reward requires overt deprivation needs to be examined.
It doesn't require that, unless the victim already has free access to
whatever he or she is to be deprived of. What is required is _control_ of
the resource, so you can prevent the person from getting it without your
help or permission.
Does anyone ever have so much happiness and joy that they no longer respond
positively to being with friends, hearing a good joke, being liked by
others? Before you will laugh at my jokes, do I have to make sure that you
can't hear anyone else's jokes?
Let's say that the child really likes and respects a teacher and would like
to have those feelings returned by the teacher. The teacher offers what the
child perceives to be a genuine expression of such. Now the child does
something that angers the teacher, and the teacher says to the child, "I
think you're a great kid, Johnny, but this thing you've just done, well, I
was counting on you and I feel that you've really let me down." Question:
will the child perceive this response as "the teacher is depriving me of
something I want in order to control my behavior"?
No doubt about it. Later on, the child will tell his friends, "Old Abbott
used that 'you've really let me down' thing on me, but she didn't hit me
this time."
You're really being cynical here. In the scenario I presented, the child
perceives the relationship as genuine, not manipulative. Old Abbott isn't
doing this to manipulate the child, but genuinely feels distressed and
disappointed, and the child knows it.
Of course if Old Abbott and the child really have been in a good
relationship, this withdrawal of friendship will be keenly felt, and the
child may promise to do anything to get it back (whether able to carry out
the promise or not). It might take several repetitions for the child to
realize that Old Abbott will stop being so friendly the moment you do
anything that displeases her; then she'll lay that guilt trip on you. Her
unconditional positive regard isn't so unconditional after all. And it will
be quite obvious what she's up to -- trying to control you. She wants you
to value her friendship so she can take it away when you misbehave.
If Old Abbott were being overtly manipulative in this way, sure. But who
said that Old Abbott would stop being friendly "the moment you do anything
that displeases her"? And what about Old Abbott's genuine praise and
encouragement for doing a good job, for trying if not actually succeeding,
and so on? You think the child will feel manipulated? Again, I think that
perception depends on the relationship that has been fostered between
teacher and child.
I'll bet when someone on CSGnet writes that one of your posts was wonderful,
you immediately think "what's this guy trying to get from me"? I'll bet it
doesn't give you any warm fuzzys at all.
It's possible, I
suppose, but I doubt that it would happen if the child perceives the
teacher's positive opinion of him or her to be genuine.
If it's contingent on the child's obeying the rules, is it "genuine?"
Why wouldn't it be?
I think that the
child would perceive that he or she is in danger of loosing something valued
(the teacher's friendship & respect) as a result of his or her own behavior,
and would then take steps, like any good control system, to rectify the
problem. Neither the child nor the teacher would characterize this
situation as bullying.
Not the first time, or the second, or maybe even the tenth. But sooner or
later it's going to become obvious that when you and the teacher disagree
about the right way to behave, the teacher is going to take away the thing
you value most in your relation to her, and only give it back when you
choose her way. And there's nothing you can do about it. Is that bullying?
That's not the sort of behavior on the teacher's part that I have in mind.
You're talking about a machine-like manipulation, involving deprivation and
punishment. Apparently the only way your teachers ever dealt with you was
by witholding their love and respect, or handing out overt physical
punishment. Whatever happened to genuine concern, encouragement, and praise?
Do I have to be bigger and stronger to get you to like me and want to please
me? Is it bullying if the child perceives the rules and their
administration to be fair?
Yes, because if you can't get me to like you and want to please you, you
need to be able to try whatever will work, to get me to do things your way.
In that case I've failed as a teacher, at least in your case.
Of course if you just want me to like you, and if you like me in return,
there's no ulterior motive, is there? So there's no need for superior
strength. Of course then you can't use withdrawal of your liking me as a
weapon, if you want the friendship to continue.
Who said anything about using withdrawal of my liking you as a weapon? I
just responded naturally to the situation, with genuine disappointment. If
I start using feigned disappointment to manipulate you, it ain't gonna work.
But if you do like me and care about how I genuinely feel about you, you're
going to try hard to do the things you perceive I would approve of, and to
avoid doing the things you perceive I would not approve of.
No, I would say that if the child perceives the rules to be fair and their
administration to be even-handed, there will probably be very little
objection to them. The best way to start toward that kind of goal is to ask
the child, "What kind of rules do you think we should have in this school,
for you and for me?"
No homework, no lessons, recess all day, and video games and cable TV and
other neat stuff in the classroom that I can play with any time I want. And
don't forget the free snacks!
The child is going to know that there are limits on what can be
"negotiated," and that means that most of the stuff the child would rather
not do, like schoolwork, are not on the table for discussion. But within
those limits, I agree with you, and in fact have already stated such. You
are not proposing anything different!
In that case, however, I can't imagine sending a child out of class to
resolve his problem when he agrees that he broke the rule and that breaking
it was, for reasons he agrees with, wrong. The purpose of the RTC is not
punishment, no matter what Ed says about depriving kids of the company of
their peers. It is to help kids work out answers to questions like "Why do
I keep doing that when I agree it's wrong?" and "What can I do that would
help me remember not to do that?" The RTC is for working out useful answers
to personal problems, and one of the best indicators that RTP is on the
right track is that many, many children describe the RTC that way. The
story I love best is about a parents' night during which many children took
their parents to meet the RTC teacher.
It has all of those functions, Bill. It's not either-or.
So I would see a child going to the RTC by mutual agreement; when the
infraction was clearly something more serious than a momentary lapse, and
when the kid is seriously bothered about something and clearly not able to
behave better. The teacher has to use good judgement about enforcing the
ritual.
I think that this probably applies to the later stages, after the child has
had some positive experiences in the RTC. In _some_ cases this might
require sending the child there even though he or she does not want to go,
because the child cannot learn the benefits of the RTC unless he or she has
gone there.
That's fine, but it has nothing to do with the theory behind behavior
modification. I've notice this in reading descriptions of such programs. In
any branch of the helping professions, no matter what the nominal
theoretical orientation, there are people with good sense and friendly
motives who treat their clients with respect and are just as capable of
loving relationships as anyone else is. They do not want to control their
clients; they just want to make life better for them. I claim that such
people will naturally follow a course consistent with PCT.
I think there's more to it than that, but I'm not prepared to embark on the
extended discussion that would require.
But this does not entail setting up rules and imposing implacable
consequences, while assuming that the client will make excuses and try to
wriggle out of paying the piper, and all that horse manure.
The program has to be designed to fit whose who will be in it. I don't
think you can call these contingencies "horse manure" until you know for
whom they were designed, what else has been tried before that did not
succeed, and whether the program as currently implemented for these clients
is succeeding according to whatever criteria you deem important. Lacking
that information, your judgments are those of an ivory-tower theorist with
no practical experience with the situations these programs deal with.
What is incompatible is using force and the threat of force to control the
behavior of children. ... What you see as effective about Ed's program
is precisely what I see as a source of conflict rather than a cure for it.
Yes, I know. As I keep repeating, that's because you have a distorted
picture of how these programs are designed and work.
So do you. So do the people who design and operate those programs.
Perhaps. But if both of us have a distorted picture, that doesn't make view
of it any less distorted.
All you can see is the
carrot and the stick -- artificial deprivations, punishments, and rewards,
coldly imposed in an attempt to induce the child to do what is demanded, or
else. Such artificial contingencies are unlikely to work, except perhaps in
the initial stages of the program. Properly designed programs are
considerably more sophisticated that that, and are not perceived, by those
whose behavior is being modified, in the ways that your description would
suggest they would.
But it is the artificial deprivations, the carrot and the stick, that the
underlying theory dictates. There is nothing in reinforcement theory about
respecting the autonomy of other control systems, treating clients as
equals, avoiding arbitrary control of another's behavior, and the like.
You'd be surprised. There's much more to reinforcement theory than
"reinforcement theory." Behavior analysis takes account of a much wider
variety of factors than you are apparently aware of.
As a good PCTer, you should know that "behavior modification" is a mistaken
notion of how people change. You can't just change your behavior, or
pretend to allow someone else to change it. You have to change your
_desires and intentions_, for they, not your actions, determine the
_outcomes_ that you will consistently bring about through your behavior.
The key is that those desires and intentions depend partly on one's
experience with the environment, and particularly (for social animals like
ourselves) with the social environment. Those experiences change the
individual, including what variables the person controls, what references
are set, and what actions are taken to control those variables. What
behavior analysis does, when it is applied well, is to analyze the situation
in which the individual operates and arrange, to the extent feasible, a
structured environment within which the individual can learn how to deal
more successfully with the natural environment in which the person will have
to operate after the person leaves the program.
It doesn't do so by "strengthening responses," I agree.
If there are deviations from a strictly cold and uncompromising imposition
of a schedule of reinforcements in behavior mod programs, that is because
there are behaviorists with human feelings who do not like to deal with
other people that way, and recognize that it doesn't really work. So they
invent ways to soften the approach, to ask the permission of the client, to
encourage the client to take control and experience successes. There is no
theoretical brief for such treatments, but it doesn't take a rocket
scientist to see that pure reinforcement theory would be unlikely to
succeed. All successful therapists tend to converge on a common method. I
claim that they even converge on methods that help people go up a level.
And that is likely to be true of successful behavior-mod people as much as
anyone else.
In the early days of behavior modification, there was an attempt to apply
the principles discovered with animals in the operant chamber directly to
human beings. It worked fairly well in certain cases, for example with
schizophrenic patients in mental hospitals (it didn't cure their
schizophrenia, but did improve such things as social interactions with
hospital staff and others) and with the mentally retarded. Clinical
experience suggested, however, that this simple approach, which did not take
full account of human abilities, needed to be refined. Consequently, the
application of principles has become more sophisticated (partly due to the
discovery of new principles in the laboratory as well as to clinical
experience) over the years to include analysis of the properties of the
individual's social environment and the person's adaptations to it. There
are very definite principles that are adhered to, so that it is not just a
matter of behavior analysts adopting whatever methods seem to work, whether
consistent with the basic behavior-analytic approach or not, as your
statement above would seem to suggest.
The environment is the neglected side of PCT, apparently because of the
belief that whatever the environment is, the individual organism will change
that environment to suit itself. (Thus the only importance of the
environment is that the feedback loop passes through it.) The reality is
that much of the time, it is the individual organism that must change to
suit itself to its environment. That process is called adaptation, and
behavioral adaptation during the life of an organism is accomplished
primarily through the process we call learning.
Regards,
Bruce A.
