B.F. Skinner: Use

B.F. Skinner was American behaviorist. Explore interesting quotes on use.
B.F. Skinner: 60   quotes 28   likes

“Some of us learn control, more or less by accident. The rest of us go all our lives not even understanding how it is possible, and blaming our failure on being born the wrong way.”

B.F. Skinner Walden Two

Source: Walden Two

Way , Failure , Understanding , Learning

“It is the teacher's function to contrive conditions under which students learn. Their relevance to a future usefulness need not be obvious.”

B.F. Skinner

"Free and Happy Student" in The Phi Delta Kappan (September 1973); later published in Reflections on Behaviorism and Society (1978).
Context: Many instructional arrangements seem "contrived", but there is nothing wrong with that. It is the teacher's function to contrive conditions under which students learn. Their relevance to a future usefulness need not be obvious.
It is a difficult assignment. The conditions the teacher arranges must be powerful enough to compete with those under which the student tends to behave in distracting ways.

Learning , Teachers , Future

“What is love except another name for the use of positive reinforcement? Or vice versa.”

B.F. Skinner Walden Two

Source: Walden Two

Love

“It has always been the task of formal education to set up behavior which would prove useful or enjoyable later in a student's life.”

B.F. Skinner

As quoted in Performance-based Assessment for Middle and High School Physical Education (2002) by Jacalyn Lea Lund and Mary Fortman Kirk, p. 165.

Life , Education , Behavior

“Many instructional arrangements seem "contrived", but there is nothing wrong with that. It is the teacher's function to contrive conditions under which students learn. Their relevance to a future usefulness need not be obvious.
It is a difficult assignment. The conditions the teacher arranges must be powerful enough to compete with those under which the student tends to behave in distracting ways.”

B.F. Skinner

"Free and Happy Student" in The Phi Delta Kappan (September 1973); later published in Reflections on Behaviorism and Society (1978)

Way , Future , Learning , Teachers