Dear Jon,
How glad I am that you reappeared on the list. Your past contributions
were of great value. Great value for me and hopefully for others, since
you were able to spin a web between a large number of contributions with
different subject headings and opened for us a magnificent view to the
behavioural sciences.
Your contributions of last januari LO20309 and LO20446 are still
glittering jewels for me. They had a great impact and deepened my
knowledge of the effects of punishment and praise.
On Thu, 2 Dec 1999, Jon Krispin wrote:
> I have been silent on the LO list for some time, but I have been
> participating through actively listening, reading and thinking. I have
> been following the postings on School as a Learning Experience with great
> interest.
I sometimes wish myself more wisdom and patience. We all know now the
importance of digesting. However, the food on this list is so tasteful and
attractive that I can't push my emergences aside :-) Thanks to our host
Rick that with the decreased frequency of contributions, there is more
time for digesting. But Jon, your digesting time surprised me :-))
> The appeal of negative reinforcement is that it gets results immediately
> (less observable chaos and disorder in the form of disruptive behavior in
> the classroom), and it requires much less precision to apply (you can
> create an undesired outcome that everyone wants to avoid fairly easily),
> but the free energy that maintains this organization comes from outside of
> the system (usually from you, the teacher), and spontaneous organization
> will never result. This is why authentic learning will never result - the
> students are not focused on learning, they are merely trying to
> avoid/escape a negative outcome. Stick with negative reinforcement and
> immergence is imminent.
Yes, we have discussed earlier about the easiness of punishment, the
unwanted or unexpected long term effects if it. And this could not be said
enough. I am glad that we had this discussion before. Please dear readers
if you missed, or forgot about the contribution of John Gunkler: Applying
the behavioral perspective LO20707 (february, 1999), read this one!
(Another jewel for me).
In 1950 the Dutch poet Jan Hanlo wrote in English:
Why not eliminate
the notion of any
pulling
by only accepting
pushing
from the other side?
Gravitation and magnetic attraction
might just be
greater pressure
greater pelting
from the other side
- celestial bodies
any substance
and its peculiar way a magnet
being objects intercepting pressure -
in much the same way
as the suctive power
of a vacuum
has also been reduced to
pressure
from the air beyond
Pulling is unintelligible
(though it may be believable)
Pushing is immediately acceptable.
----
I guess, if Jan Hanlo had known about the implications in behaviour, he
would have used other words.
It is possible that he was thinking of blowing out a candle. It is a nice
experiment in these days of Christmas: blowing out, or sucking out.
Apart from the spreading-chracteristic of pushing (or blowing), there is
another characteristic: one can direct the pushing force. One can direct
the pushing and blowing force deliberately to someone or something. With a
pulling force one can only hope (or believe in the words of Hanlo) to
attract someone or something. But I am sure about the long term outcome of
this hope.
Thank you Jon.
dr. Leo D. Minnigh
l.d.minnigh@library.tudelft.nl
Library Technical University Delft
PO BOX 98, 2600 MG Delft, The Netherlands
Tel.: 31 15 2782226
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Let your thoughts meander towards a sea of ideas.
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--Leo Minnigh <l.d.minnigh@library.tudelft.nl>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>