>>Having said that,
>>I would agree with Nick that it is likely that the sorts
>>of behavioral controls experienced by
>>poor people in such insitutions as the public
>>schools, juvenile detention centers, the military,
>>jails etc. have much to do with shaping the
>>behavioral orientations of the poor, including
>>the development of predilections towards impulsivity
>>and reactive thinking.
>So, I would appreciate it (without the slightest tint of irony) if
>someone explained to me how behavioral training results in
>impulsivity and reactive thinking. I just don't follow this.
>
>I can, however, give a counter example. My daughter's ballet teacher
>is a deep believer that the best discipline and the best education
>happens from the inside out -- it can be imposed from the outside,
>but the results are far inferior from what can happen if growth
>happens from within.
That isn't a counter-example though, in the sense that it doesn't contradict the theory. Its rather the other side of the same coin. Training, "behavioural" or otherwise, would be education imposed from the outside. As opposed to learning, or education from the inside out, as you put it.
I have to say that I was quite shocked by the article by Jonathan Kozol that Nick posted the link to. <http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2005/American-Apartheid-Education1sep05.htm>http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2005/American-Apartheid-Education1sep05.htm. I personally served a minimum sentence in the education system and came out with a very dim view of the whole thing. In general my state school education was based on the same principles. It was pretty obvious to me too. The regimentation and indoctrination was likewise aimed at manufacturing competent and obedient worker drones.
But all the same, even in those days of large class sizes and austere facillities, it was a million miles from what was described by Kozol. At least we weren't expected to act like complete robots. Not even robots, that's the way you train parrots. It seems like a system destined to fail spectacularly, a talking parrot after all doesn't actually acquire genuine literacy skills, or any ability to communicate.
God knows what will happen to people churned out by such a pathetic education system, they'd be no more use to the employing class than a trained parrot. Let alone any use to themselves. No wonder religion is growing so fast in America, there's not many other human institutions that welcome sub-sentient parrot-people.
If that really is representative of the US education system, then that nation has no future whatsoever.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas