Where Student Rights Begin
Examining behavior, authority, and group dynamics inside modern educational environments.
Aspiring to Teach and Returning to the Classroom
Later in life I aspired to become a high school physics teacher—this in the freedom-respecting aim of teaching at the nicely never compulsory physics advanced-placement level—having often stood in awe of the mathematics inhering within the laws and the mysteries of the physical universe. I hoped this fascination might prove contagious with the kinds of students who would naturally choose the subject. In pursuit of certification, and also in the hope of learning something worthwhile in the process, I enrolled in an evening course in classroom management at another school with a good reputation.
When Classroom Management Became the Problem
Far from offering a good introduction to the art of classroom management, the course itself became a prime example of the endless ways in which naïve and cavalier educational innovations are liable to miscarry in the classroom social arena.
Assigned to “Behavior Modification”
With no choice at all, I was promptly tossed by means of random selection into a project titled “Behavior Modification.” In this project, I and four others were assigned the future task of researching and then presenting to the class the model of classroom management based on the behaviorist theories of B.F. Skinner. “Group One” became our name and our fate on the schedule of group presentations on various models to be covered in the course. To this directive, the professor added a role-playing exercise, for which, as her only guidance, she urged us all to just “Relax! Enjoy!”
Group Dynamics and Social Isolation
Unanimous aversion for the role-playing chore was apparently the only thing I had in common with the rest of the group—all of them women of the undergraduate years, a critical mass of peers indeed, all of them would-be teachers of the middle or primary grades. Meetings accomplished nothing beyond the parceling out of research topic requirements. The young collegians chatted each other up in the manner of a natural sorority, one to which this middle-aged male stranger could hardly be expected to belong. (A smidgen of worldly wisdom could have predicted as much.) And not being one to intrude, I soon lapsed into a condition of minimal participation that remained nevertheless polite. Little did I know that my awkward social circumstance would soon be instrumental to their eleventh-hour scheme for handling our jointly neglected theatrical obligation.
The Ominous Hint of “Audience Participation”
Scheduled as I was to lead off the presentation with a required biography of B.F. Skinner, I should have grown suspicious when, on the eve of the show, the role-playing question was briefly addressed with a cryptic reference to something they chose to call “audience participation.” Nothing more was explained on the following night as the supercilious clique arrived equipped with a batch of cutesy stars designed to go on a poster chart. On this chart appeared a number of names of their other pals in the class.
The Presentation Begins to Unravel
To my complete surprise, the audience participation commenced as soon as I began my talk. Spurts of laughter, airborne objects, and other distractions abounded in a general atmosphere of comic expectation—all of which I had not authorized by way of addressing, the others having arranged the show and established a monopoly on the ostensible instruments of behavior modification. The tittering and other disturbances continued at this merry pace for quite some time as I did my best to speak, and then one fellow stole the show by overturning his chair on the floor with a crash. Startled, like everyone else, I tried to put a good face on this by smiling bravely and asking, “Was that in the script?”
The Instructor’s Response
The professor, our “guide on the side,” as fanciful doctrine would have it, laughed along with my question as if all of us were marvelously engaged in a highly dynamic celebration of pro-socially cooperative interactive learning. Or something as fashionable as all that, with a wonderful time being had by all.
Physical and Psychological Strain
The reality in my own case was that each and every word was now a struggle to enunciate in one of the ghastliest cases of dried-up salivary glands that I can ever remember.
Being Publicly Upstaged
The furniture percussionist, flush no doubt with the triumph of his well-timed spill, now came forward, walked behind me, and played behind my back some kind of role that drew astonished laughter from the class—impudence enough to leave this dutiful speaker feeling as demolished as that “Weekend Update” commentator who used to serve as the object of the stealthy scorn that Chevy Chase was famous for delivering on Saturday Night Live. It may have been something other than Chevy’s routine, but in any case I had been thoroughly upstaged in a way that others had found outrageously funny. I remained in dire need of a drink of water, not to mention a hunk of bubble gum or something to restore the normal ability to unglued one syllable of speech from another.
The Talk No One Was Listening to
A story that I then went on to relate from Skinner’s memoir of his youth was in its own right funny, but the unremitting spasms of mirth remained in sync with other events in the room and not with this; few in the class were listening at all.
Powerlessness in a Leaderless Game
The world-renowned Faber College would ably serve as the flagship school for such an academic league as this. Aside from simply walking out on the whole affair (the best resort in retrospect), what was one to do about this game without a referee? This show without a gong? Retaliatory juvenility as an attempt at saving face would hardly have been the age-appropriate answer; it never even occurred to me as an option.
Choosing the High Road
The high road would have been to find some way to assert a scheduled speaker’s normal rights—a feat of non-cooperation far more easily said than done against this reign of what amounted to a flash mob facilitated by a magisterial school of education. A foiled attempt would only have made the bad scene worse, and something told me it would have been politically unwise. Choosing, therefore, to avoid disrupting the behavior-modification dramatization, I played the accepting good sport from beginning to end.
The Mechanics of the Demonstration
Throughout this activity, my Group One colleagues were nonchalantly engaged in functions like sticking stars beside the names on the poster. The stars, I guess, were tokens awarded for cessation of misbehavior. Regardless of these and other charades, the distractions persisted for the duration of my talk—and then subsided rapidly when I was finished at last.
A Dubious Claim of Success
The role-playing ended with that, as everyone’s polite attention was then accorded the rest of Group One for the four remaining talks. In a master stroke of inductive reasoning, one group member actually cited with a smile of precious innocence the nicely modified audience behavior, as if this credibly demonstrated the efficacy of behavior modification.
Reflection on Being the Expendable Outsider
Stunned at this development, I soon began to contemplate the none-too-sporting use that had just been made of me as a socially expendable outsider. Were these the proverbial college undergraduate snoots who rated their social standing on the number of people they could afford to cut? And had their sense of fair play been mangled somehow in the rites of passage of sorority-fraternity row? Or did they despise science “nerds” or hold a grudge against science teachers?
Aftermath and Institutional Amnesia
“The first ones are always the guinea pigs,” the professor said in her smiling way as she expressed to the class a measure of regret that a solitary student had taken the brunt of the bush-league events of the evening. Damage control ensued as she generously then awarded me a grade of A for services rendered to her arduous cause, her written evaluation of my presentation even culminating with the grateful exclamation, “Going first takes courage! Thanks!”
The Course Moves On
One week later, Group Two struggled through a skit supposedly demonstrating Lee Canter’s assertive discipline model. They drew a politely smiling and embarrassed silence from the rest of us…
The Quiet End of Role-Playing
Role-playing was given a rest after that, its recent malfunctions having illuminated nothing about how to manage a class. Most of the rest of the groups either ignored that part of the assignment or paid their dues with a number of minimal gestures…
