Can a Socratic Teacher Be a Behaviorist?
When a teacher complains that students are ‘off task’—a favorite bit of
educational jargon—the behaviorist will leap to the rescue with a program
to get them back ‘on’ again. The more reasonable response to this complaint
is to ask, ‘What’s the task?’ Not surprisingly, this way of framing the
problem meets with considerable resistance on the part of many educators.
More than once I have been huffily informed that life isn’t always
interesting, and kids had better learn to deal with this fact … Thus is the
desire to control children, or the unwillingness to create a worthwhile
curriculum, rationalized as being in the best interests of the students.
(Kohn, 1993)