Kim's talk on changing behavior spurred a range of responses from us:
Geneva: We do not create these behaviors and in most cases do not support them.
Cynthia: MANY FACTORS ... CONTRIBUTE TO BEHAVIORS
Connie:
I don't see how the behaviorists can actually change a student's behavior.
Saroja: it is extremly important to control the undesirable behavior in the class room.
Cleat: What to do...what to do???...Much of what I do instinctively, or unconsciously
Margaret:I wonder about the difference in expectations when culture in taken into consideration?
Tiffany : my theory on THEIR BEHAVIOR was rooted in MY BEHAVIOR. So I now am now questioning how my behavior determines their behavior.
Julie? : it is impossible to use a script for every child's problems....However, some classes need a little more (or a lot more) direction.
Teresa :
The majority of the children respond quite well to being the decision maker for their choice of behaviors.
Judith:
The afternoon session seemed to go back to the idea that we must look at behavior problems as just that, behavior problems!!!...Trying to control things that we have no control over can be the behavior that we must change.
Antoinette:
Im fighting tooth, and nail against the behavorilaist approach to learning and education, it seems to take personal responsibility and individuality.
Here's what Anne learned from Kim:
- developmental psychologists don't know much about how change happens; they have no idea, for instance, how kids make the shift from thinking that others know what they know, to realizing that they may be thinking differently
- Robert Siegler has studied these sorts of changes; his theory is one of "overlapping waves" (=just because you are given a new, more efficient strategy doesn't mean you will use it all the time; CHANGE IS GRADUAL)
- reinforcement is anything that will increase the likelihood of a behavior; it is not a property of anything; it is not linear or predictable; it can be positive (adding something to the situation) or negative (taking something away)
- you have to know what your group finds reinforcing (and teachers are not very good at predicting what is reinforcing for a younger generation)
- "extinction" is taking away the reinforcer ("there can be no weak-hearted people here!")
- "rebound" is to be expected: the behavior will "spike" before it ceases
- punishment is the opposite of reinforcement; it means actively decreasing the frequency of a behavior (and can be negative--taking something away--or positive--adding something)
- the problem w/ punishment is the failure to replace it with something else;
it works better in smaller amounts, if the consequences are "natural" to the misbehavior, and within the right time frame (small kids have very short event horizons, and many kids in our society expect immediate feedback)
And these are Anne's questions: 
