kitchen table math, the sequel: angry teacher

Saturday, March 8, 2008

I think we should invite this man to join our Karen Pryor club.

see also:
yelling doesn't work

Anonymous said...: Seem to be a lot of people in the school system with anger management issues.

I didn't see this item in the Washington Post at the time:
Snow Day Plea Sparks Online Storm

but just heard a radio item about it today. The video is all over the internet but here is one snippet from Good Morning America:
Angry Wife of Administrator

People need to wrap their minds around the fact that public education really is PUBLIC.

Karen Pryor could start a new career consulting to school districts;-); March 8, 2008 at 3:12 PM
Catherine Johnson said...: This is an example of negative reinforcement for the teacher.

The thing about yelling is that it does work (you can see it working in this clip for all but one of the kids), which means that the person doing the yelling is negatively reinforced for yelling.

Negative reinforcement means that a bad thing either doesn't happen or, if it's already happening, stops happening.

Reinforcement increases the likelihood of a behavior occurring again in the future, so a person who is negatively reinforced for yelling yells more.

Meanwhile the person getting yelled at habituates (I think that's the term); he learns not to respond until, next time, you yell longer and louder.

etc.

Pryor has some hair raising stories about households being run by two year olds who've been reinforced for tantruming.; March 8, 2008 at 3:24 PM

kitchen table math, the sequel