Towards a Humanistic Behaviorism Approach to Turning on Teachers: Some Observations, Rationale and Teacher Projects.

By addressing the areas of feelings and value judgements the goals of a relationship between behaviorists and teachers can be clarified. The term "behavior modification" elicits negative emotional responses. Perhaps behaviorists should accept responsibility for the negativism and use a term such as Ogden Lindsley's "precision teaching." The term "self image" also elicits prejudicial responses; yet its aptness for explaining behavioral phenomenon, as in the instance where children improved their spelling ability during a treatment period and continued to improve after treatment ceased, predicates its existence in behavioral vocabulary. Value judgments are inherent in establishing behavioral targets and in identifying techniques to attain them. It is possible to choose the teacher's values, not the behaviorist's, and still apply behavior analysis in assessing goal attainment. A teacher applied our technique to his goal, but since values differed, attainment of the goal was not satisfying for the teacher because the technique was not acceptable to his value system. Values are the basic qualifiers of techniques and goals, but emotional response is a shaper of those values. (JH)