Behaviorism and "Cool Hand Luke"
In the movie "Cool Hand Luke," Paul Newman, as the title character, has a tendency toward antisocial activities. At the beginning of the movie, he is arrested and put in jail for cutting off the tops of parking meters with a pipe cutter. (An act that had no discernible motive.) Throughout the movie we see him doing a variety of things that run counter to what might be accepted as normal or expected behavior, even for a miscreant.
At one point, the warden (an apparent behaviorist who is pulling out his last card) puts Luke in solitary confinement. After his time in solitary, Luke becomes a poster-boy for obedient, reformed prisoners. The warden seems to relish having tamed Luke. But, the other prisoners seem to watch him with a sense of disappointment at his subservience and at his broken spirit.
That is, until Luke absconds with the water truck and escapes from the warden while the prisoners are all performing some community service.
I reflected on this movie as I read about behaviorism, because the "theory" strikes me as being simply a method for controlling behavior in a certain environment as opposed to a valuable learning theory, per se. There is no doubt that the practice of reinforcement can seem to be a powerful tool in classroom management, but it doesn't necessarily bring about thoughtful change or intrinsically motivated behaviors. I see students, without thinking, doing whatever is required to maintain their cognitive equilibrium . . . until the rule-maker leaves the room -- like (as an example in the book describes) the dog who is reinforced to not sit in his masters' furniture, but will still sit in it as long as the master isn't there.
It seems all the student (or dog or prisoner) is learning through the behaviorist lens (without any additional reasoning or enlightenment) is merely to jump the hoops, to appease the person in charge. There is much more to learning and developing society than maintaining homeostasis.
At one point, the warden (an apparent behaviorist who is pulling out his last card) puts Luke in solitary confinement. After his time in solitary, Luke becomes a poster-boy for obedient, reformed prisoners. The warden seems to relish having tamed Luke. But, the other prisoners seem to watch him with a sense of disappointment at his subservience and at his broken spirit.
That is, until Luke absconds with the water truck and escapes from the warden while the prisoners are all performing some community service.
I reflected on this movie as I read about behaviorism, because the "theory" strikes me as being simply a method for controlling behavior in a certain environment as opposed to a valuable learning theory, per se. There is no doubt that the practice of reinforcement can seem to be a powerful tool in classroom management, but it doesn't necessarily bring about thoughtful change or intrinsically motivated behaviors. I see students, without thinking, doing whatever is required to maintain their cognitive equilibrium . . . until the rule-maker leaves the room -- like (as an example in the book describes) the dog who is reinforced to not sit in his masters' furniture, but will still sit in it as long as the master isn't there.
It seems all the student (or dog or prisoner) is learning through the behaviorist lens (without any additional reasoning or enlightenment) is merely to jump the hoops, to appease the person in charge. There is much more to learning and developing society than maintaining homeostasis.
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