I appreciate many points made in Amy Sutherland's book, "What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love and Marriage." She successfully shows how positive reinforcement is the most encouraging and motivating for the trainee, and builds trust between trainer and trainee. However, I noticed one issue which I'm struggling to reconcile. One major difference with training an animal and working with students in a classroom: animal trainers work with the animal from birth, whereas students come into a classroom with years of varied experiences. This major difference seems foundational in choosing training strategies. Animals are a blank slate when trainers begin their training. Ignoring poor behavior appear to be a successful and ideal strategy when working with animals. However, students arrive “pre-programmed” from a variety of influences and life experiences, with variety of embedded moral codes.
In class, we briefly discussed ignoring poor behavior. Robin posed the question: Do I (as the trainer) have the self-efficacy to do nothing – believing that ignoring the behavior will produce a change in the behavior? If I do not believe that the methodology is logically sound, then no, I would not have the self-efficacy to do nothing. Currently, I have no self-efficacy to whole-heartedly embrace this methodology in a classroom setting. I have no qualm using this strategy with a peer or spouse. However, I believe that leaders such as educators and parents have the responsibility to gently lead through intentional instruction/correction with an expectation of the student/child making necessary changes. Ignoring behavior involves massive sacrifice by the teacher and other students, mainly the time in which the distraction demands from the teacher’s instruction and student’s opportunity to learn.
Amy Sutherland discussed a successful alternative to ignoring poor behavior... a technique that animal trainers use and has proven to be successful with students: "incompatible behavior." I support this proactive training strategy, where the trainer teaches the animal (or human) to do something else rather than stop something... an action that makes the first impossible to do.
I ran across a Newsweek article, “How to change your husband,” by Jennie Yabroff: One brief excerpt: "Shamuing might work to get your husband to stop leaving his socks on the bathroom floor, says psychotherapist Marlin Potash, author of "Hidden Agendas: What's Really Going On in Your Relationships." "In small doses, it's really a good idea," she says. But she's skeptical of the idea that the technique will work with real marital problems such as lack of communication or sexual incompatibility: "I don't really believe that changing these small behaviors is how one transforms a marriage.""
The same applies in the classroom. When dealing with the squirrelly child who is making poor choices in keeping his hands to himself, or making goofy faces and distracting his neighbor… implementing the "incompatible behavior" technique would seem logical. No reward for poor choices; simply redirection. However, when dealing with a student who repeatedly hurts other students, breaks a classroom rule, makes others feel uncomfortable or causes distractions that repeatedly interrupt other students’ ability to learn… the educator has the responsibility to advocate for the other students by addressing behavior choices of the lone attention seeker. As stated in the quote above (“changing these small behaviors is not going to transform a marriage”), the same is true in the classroom: addressing small misbehaviors is one level of training, but sometimes poor behavior is rooted deeper than the attention seeking child and must not be avoided in hopes that it will disappear. There’s often a deeper cause to such behavior. After all, Skinner says that the best way to understand behavior is to look at the cause of the action. Ignoring would be irresponsible. Ignoring poor behavior implies approval of the behavior.
Looking forward to future discussions...
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