Intrinsic education and its discontents

Abstract

Recently, in one of my (the first author) classes for preservice teachers, my stu­ dents and I discussed diverse approaches to arranging classroom life, which my students initially interpreted as "classroom management." Very quickly, our dis­ cussion started revolving around the notions of punishment and rewards. What is more effective? Pure punishment? Pure rewards? Or some kind of combination of both? What kind of punishment is more effective? What kinds of rewards are more effective? Also, manipulative and non-manipulative organizational educa­ tional techniques were introduced in our discussion. For example, asking students to write something it does not matter what pulls them away from activities the teacher deems undesirable, without any use of punishments or rewards. This pedagogical manipulation seems to be based on affordances of dictation. Design­ ing seating arrangements provides different psychological and social affordances: whether it is easier or more difficult for the students to get involved in discus­ sions, collaboration on projects, or listening to a teacher. Finally, we labeled this approach to arrangement of classroom life as "classroom management" and focused on its purposes. The students listed the following purposes of classroom management: "keeping students on task," "keeping control," "controlling stu­ dents' attention," "preventing acting out," and "keeping children safe." 1 then put to my students that in all these goals it is the teacher (or school admin­ istration, or even the entire society) who defines what is good for the students and what is bad. TI1e teacher defines u.oilaterally what is the task for the students and what is not; what is worthy for them to pay attention and what is not; what is learning and what is not; what is safe and what is not; what they must do and what they must not; and so on. As one of my students formulated, "the main goal of classroom management is to conform the students to the teacher's expectations." 1 formulated it slightly diff erently: "the main goal of classroom management is to make students do what the teacher wants them to do." I also introduced the psycho­ logical theory of behaviorism with its primary goal of controlling and predicting behavior through a smart design of punishment and rewards, and their schedule. My students got very excited about learning more about behaviorism when I abruptl)';introduced a new theme alternative ideas to them. I told them that Intrinsic education and its discontents 23