Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum What is your merit system? Are we materialistic?

I hope so too ... and that you have a plan ready so that this little lass will quickly forget these dreary last months and rediscover or maybe discover for the first time the joy of studying music.

+1!

Exactly. My dog is highly food rewarded; we've known other dogs who couldn't care less. (if she weren't so extremely impulsive we could probably have her pretty well trained. But there's too much terrier in the mix.)

Children are different too, each one has their individual set of reinforcers.

In general though, depending on the age, many children find focused adult attention HIGHLY rewarding. That's one reason they misbehave - nothing gets them attention like misbehavior. When that attention is contingent upon misbehavior, it produces more misbehavior rather than less, even when the adult thinks he is punishing.

Stickers are so delayed. I don't think stickers alone can do enough to maintain behavior even when suited to the child.

Students are not trained pets.

Thank you, Keystring. I was wondering if anyone else was thinking that.

Well, no.

I meant it the other way around.

Pets can be a "teaching moment."

There are some behavioral principles that apply to all lifeforms, and an occasional review does no harm.

I would observe that some here focus more on the practical, and others on what I call the moralistic aspect.

On a moral basis, clearly children should never be bribed; they should work incredibly hard just for the joy of making music. And to avoid a double standard, teachers should never be paid, but should teach incredibly hard for the joy of THAT calling. <g>

And on a practical basis, neither approach seems to work very well. Go figure.

Than again, how many of us actually have well trained pets?

Exactly.

And if we have no understanding of positive reinforcement in its simplest manifestation, then our application of it to complex subjects (people) performing complex behaviors (like playing the piano) will be completely misguided and ineffective.

When I was in grad school I had an internship in an elementary school.

Some of the teachers had very effective classroom management, others had great trouble controlling children. The latter blamed the children, of course, but when these passed to the next grade somehow their behavior magically improved.

For both effective and ineffective teachers, the approach was intuitive. Few had an understanding of what reinforcers maintained what behaviors. To an observer some of it was obvious, and even turned out to be teachable. The best teachers were the most eager to implement suggestions, while the worst insisted the problem was in the kids, not themselves.

Perhaps the kids suddenly matured? Over the course of a year, that's highly feasible.

Blame the kids? That's just 25% of the equation. Teacher, administrator, parent, and student make up the education "team" in the public schools. Like the four legs of a table--any one that comes short will make the table wobble. Missing one leg? You get the picture.

This whole "blame the teacher" argument comes from people who are looking for the simplest solutions.

I agree. Sadly many kids start out from the gate with a 1,2 or 3 legged table. And secondly, it is rare that an entire class is advanced to the next grade level in the same grouping. Usually they are remixed. Esp when a teacher has a very trying year - is is usually because of the behavior problems of a few and higher needs all around. Spread them out the next year and the new teachers do have an easier time of it.

And this is why I truly applaud my public school colleagues who go way, way, way over and beyond their call of duty to compensate for:

1) lack of parental supervision or discipline,

2) idiotic administrators, and

3) unruly, undisciplined, "I don't care" kids.

These great teachers are truly overworked and underpaid. I've met many of them. They can work on overdrive and make up for the other 3 missing legs of the table.

In what capacity, and what context? Were you in teacher training, or studying management issues, for example?

I am not familiar with the American system. My teacher training was in Canada. The idea that the teachers you observed did not know about behaviour mod techniques surprises me, because over here that was taught in educational psychology.

My second question was whether effectiveness in the program you were in was measured in terms of management alone, or whether learning was included in the equation?

I also had internships in my teacher training. I studied with 4 different teachers. Later I taught in the system, and still later I worked one-on-one with students, especially in helping with problems. I have some training in learning disabilities, and studied alternative teaching methods after my formal training, which includes visiting schools and talking to teachers.

One of the things I found was that a not insignificant number of student had been well trained in the expected behaviors, and that training was getting in the way of their ability to learn. Yes, you can "train" a child in the way you train a dog, and the child can perform tricks for you. He can regurgitate his times tables without understanding what it means. He can read your face for cues, and give you the expected answer. He can extinguish his natural curiosity and thinking powers, and have difficulty with things that are well within his ability to understand, and that he might even find interesting otherwise.

I think I explained poorly, and I certainly did not intend to attack teachers in general, merely point out some aspects of behavior mod approaches.

I was a graduate student in Clinical Psychology (later became a mechanical engineer instead, long story) and worked with the school psychologist (free labor from grad students). I'm also the child of school teachers so may have had more exposure than some, and when my own kids were in public school I was involved with theater and music departments, who always need extra help.

We got referrals from teachers when they had kids with "special needs." And most of these were fairly legitimate cases, but there were a few teachers who consistently referred large numbers of hard to handle children, who hadn't been hard to handle the year before, and didn't continue to be hard to handle the year after. Of course we had to evaluate every child, but these kids rarely ended up fitting our criteria. When we watched classroom interactions we could observe the classic mistakes anyone with a good grounding in behavioral principles shouldn't be making. And we could also see teachers who never made those mistakes, but didn't have an understanding of what they were doing.

I also observed a Distar classroom. That was very intriguing, and I wish I could have spent more time with it. It was a very forceful high paced directed learning environment only used for children with learning difficulties. I always wondered what would happen if you used it with the kids who learned more easily. I don't know if it still exists, I'm mostly out of that field.

I'd like to differentiate between learning and behaviour that adults might find desireable that may not necessarily promote learning. I wrote about it in my previous post.

Meanwhile, when children with "special needs" came in, were the clinical psychologists help with their learning needs, or in some other capacity?

You may have gathered that I am very interested in intrinsic motivation, and preventing and avoiding extinguishing this quality that we are all born with. Therefore training people into behaviours may not necessarily be desireable, depending on how it relates to this.

LoPresti's Motto #2: Remain intractable.

It is a quality I have attempted to foster for years - interestingly, with VERY LITTLE REWARD!

I didn't miss that, I'm still thinking about it. I'm not sure it's a valid distinction with younger children; but the point that the desired behaviors have to be actually desirable (not just stay out of my hair and leave me alone) is a good one.

Intractable! Indefatigable! Reminds me of "unrestrainable."

Long ago, in a lifetime that seems far away, in the back wards of a state mental institution, I was called to another ward to subdue a violent patient. When I got there, I saw the problem: he was not only huge, but he'd cut off one of his arms. I was scratching my head trying to figure how to put restraints on him, wondering maybe if I could get a straightjacket out of the museum. They hadn't been used for decades, we used the modern leather cuff and belt systems, but his half arm wasn't going to stay in a cuff. Then he looked at me, shouted "I am NOT unrestrainable!" and came quietly. Problem solved.

Not sure why, Ed, but you reminded me of that incident.

Hey, Tim,

What a priceless story! I was hoping for a couple of snickers or giggles out of Motto #2, but now I am holding MY sides!

Ed

PS, my apologies for including keystring's post in my quote. That was unintentional.

The issue of intrinsic or internal motivation is an important one but unrelated to Ed or my comments.

I'd edit it out but after a few minutes that option disappears.

Thank you, TimR.

I'm not closely involved with it, but it seems that Distar waxes and wanes in popularity.

From my rather limited experience with it, it looks like some kids thrive with it and others don't. Same with teachers, some love it-some can't stand it.

At the school where I work with kids with autism, when they are ready to begin academics, our approach is often to 'throw everything and see what sticks' so we'll try a Distar style (site word) reading, and we'll try some phonics and we'll try some whole language activities...and if it doesn't work, we'll try something else.