Behaviorism

Behaviorism is the philosophy that everyone learns through repeated involvement or conditioning. The two major forms of conditioning are classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Behaviorism basically says that we have little control over ourselves, it's all dependant on our environment. We conform to the environment, not the other way around. All schools on some level use operant conditioning in that you're incentivized to do well by being given good grades, right? So if you're being given bad grades for not doing the work, you're likely to conform, do the work, and receive good grades.

A Picture of John B. Watson, the father of behaviorism.


You can do a lot through conditioning: change habits, instill fear, sway loyalty. Behaviorists believe that by learning more about human nature and why these things are possible, that we will be able to solve many of the problems of government, war, and education.

So what do behaviorists believe about education? They believe that people are supposed to be learning. They feel that if students are not learning then there is something in the system that is discouraging learning. It should be enough to just be surrounded by interesting things. You hear about backwoods rednecks who can fix a truck's engine with a kettle and some string. They can do that because they are put in an environment where having those skills are rewarded, and because they are constantly learning, and with no textbooks around they learned about engines.

I like the behaviorism approach. If it can lead a dog to salivate, why can't it lead a kid to learn. Maybe it's because my whole schooling was pretty much one big lesson in behaviorism: "If I don't do my homework, I won't be ready for the test. If I don't get a good grade on the test, I won't get a good overall grade. If I don't get a good overall grade, my parents will surely hate me. I better do my homework." That's operant conditioning at its finest. It's what got me through school.