Subject: Re: Cooper's oddness explained?
From: stvan@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Laurel Smith Stvan)
Date: 1991-11-13, 23:42
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks

From the beginning of a chapter entitled "How Does Operant Conditioning
Work?" from a 1964 text called Learning Theories for Teachers:
"Let each of us picture himself as a fourth grader, Dale Cooper, in a
possible classroom of the year 1975. At the first bell students enter the
room; at the second bell they become silent. When opening exercises have
been completed, the teacher says, "Arithmetic." Dale has been conditioned at
this signal to place his arithmetic cylinder on his teaching machine, find
where he left off yesterday, and proceed with conditining himself to solve
arithmetic problems. After 20 minutes the teacher says, "Reading," and in
another 20 inutes, "Spelling." Each word is the appropriate stimulus for
Dale to change cylanders on his machine. Then comes recess. At the sound
of a bell with a different tone from that of the the one which brought
students into the room, they go out to the playground. Here, playground
equipment has been adequately mechanized and sequenced so that there is
little need for a teacher or any other supervisory personnel. The teacher
uses the recess period to check, repair, and lubricate the machines.
The psychology which would support the emphasis on teaching
machines for Dale's education has been developed by a professor at Harvard,
B. F. Skinner (1904- ). Skinner has found operant conditioning highly
effective in training animals, and he is confident that it promises equal
success when used with children and youth..."


Laurel Smith Stvan
stvan@casbah.acns.nwu.edu