# Thanks, SSRIs, educational applications?
**URL:** http://discourse.iapct.org/t/thanks-ssris-educational-applications/11200
**Category:** CSG1995
**Created:** [November 15, 1995, 3:55am UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/thanks-ssris-educational-applications/11200 "1995-11-15T03:55:04Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@CCHERPAS](http://discourse.iapct.org/u/CCHERPAS)
#### Post date: [November 15, 1995, 3:55am UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/thanks-ssris-educational-applications/11200/1 "1995-11-15T03:55:04Z")
[From Chris Cherpas (951114.1846 PT)]
> **ยทยทยท**
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> [re: Erling Jorgensen (951111.1230CST)]
> [re: re: Chris Cherpas (951110.0921 PT)]
>
> Just a quick thanks to Erling for your comments on the issue
> of whether "the environment controls behavior."
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> [re: Rick Marken (951113.1100)]
>
> > This report caused me to be very angry and aggressive when I read it but I
> > had a big bowl Grape Nuts laced with serotonin for breakfast and I'm much
> > better now;-)
>
> # Since I married a psychiatrist, I've learned that Specific Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) are more effective, and tastier, than straight serotonin on cereal. Serotonin is "the" neurotransmitter of the nineties; there's even a radio talk show host in SF who invites all his listeners to join him in taking their [prozac, zoloft, paxel, etc] SSRIs at a given hour. I suspect dendrite burnout from too much ecstacy is a factor...=8^0)
>
> Finally, a general question: Are there any specific perscriptions
> for educational practice based on PCT? I read the section in
> Gary's \_Without Miracles\_, as well as the articles in \_Educational
> Researcher\_, but has any PCT-er written something that 1) uses
> PCT crucially (PC learning theory is \_required\_ for a given
> way of designing curricula), and 2) gives details on how to design curricula
> which would improve our ability to get students to be as skillful
> as possible as quickly as possible (some proposals, like Papert's
> would seem to require somebody spent about 30 years of "discovering"
> before they get through high school).
>
> Best regards,
> cc
---
### Author:  [@Kent\_McClelland2](http://discourse.iapct.org/u/Kent_McClelland2)
#### Post date: [November 15, 1995, 3:37pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/thanks-ssris-educational-applications/11200/2 "1995-11-15T15:37:49Z")
[From Kent McClelland (951115.0930 CT)]
> [From Chris Cherpas (951114.1846 PT)]
> Finally, a general question: Are there any specific perscriptions
> for educational practice based on PCT? I read the section in
> Gary's \_Without Miracles\_, as well as the articles in \_Educational
> Researcher\_, but has any PCT-er written something that 1) uses
> PCT crucially (PC learning theory is \_required\_ for a given
> way of designing curricula), and 2) gives details on how to design curricula
> which would improve our ability to get students to be as skillful
> as possible as quickly as possible (some proposals, like Papert's
> would seem to require somebody spent about 30 years of "discovering"
> before they get through high school).
Chris, if you're interested in educational issues and PCT, I'd also take a
look at Hugh Petrie's book, The Dilemma of Enquiry and Learning (Chicago:
Univ. of Chicago Press, 1981). Hugh's book is helpful, but on a fairly
high abstractly philosophical plane. The
nuts-and-bolts-techniques-of-PCT-education primer you want remains to be
written, as far as I know.
One thing to consider about pedagogical techniques is that PCT is
unfriendly to any one-size-fits-all thinking. The "disturbances" offered
by a teacher in the classroom will be resisted in different ways by
different students, depending on the perceptions they happen to be
controlling. Thus, I expect that a variety of techniques may be a
practical necessity if you hope to reach all your students.
More generally, PCT seems to accord with the sorts of humanistic techniques
that treat each individual student as an independently guided control
system or, in conventional language, respect the integrity of each student.
My take on teaching is that the teacher is trying to help students develop
control systems similar to the ones the teacher himself or herself is using
and to recognize and adopt the reference standards that are generally
accepted by members of the academic community of the discipline being
taught.
PCT teaching and learning has an emotional side. In order to get students
to start reorganizing the relevant control systems, I think it's usually
necessary to present a disturbance ("new information" in conventional
terms) that is extreme enough to be impossible for the student to handle
with his or her current control systems. As the student then experiences a
prolonged perceptual error and tries to cope by learning through
reorganization, one inevitable side effect will be feelings of frustration
or distress.
That's why it's important, I think, for PCT teachers to work hard on having
good relations with their students and building up trust, so that the
challenging problems they present and the high standards they maintain
aren't perceived by the students as punitive. And when students do succeed
in building new perceptual systems, so that they can control perceptions
better than they did before, the resultant feeling of exhilaration should
help to improve the teacher-student relationship even further, giving the
teacher some scope for imposing further challenges or demands.
Kent