Defining "Agency-Based" Education
By Rebecca Bocchino
What is
"agency-based" education as opposed to constructivism and
behaviorism, and is there any scientific research supporting these
methods? Addressing these questions
requires that we consider the various underlying assumptions of the nature of
man, upon which are based the intellectual, moral, and cultural foundations for
our differing views of the nature and purpose of education. It might also help to put the issue of
"scientific research", with its emphasis on measurable, quantifiable,
observable, and replicable behaviors, into a more Judeo-Christian perspective.
Behaviorism, as articulated by John
Watson and B. F. Skinner, sees man as an object that is only capable of
responding to external stimuli. It
claims that man acquired sense organs through evolution, not Divine design, and
these sensory organs receive and transfer the environmental stimuli which then
act upon the human "object", causing a response. Thus, choice and action are determined
by the process of controlling and manipulating stimuli, which can be reduced to
a science in a laboratory.
In his book, Beyond Freedom and
Dignity, B. F. Skinner dismisses any belief in the free will or agency
of man, claiming instead that
man does not act upon the world,
the world acts upon him. … Freedom and dignity…are the possessions
of the autonomous man of traditional theory, and they are essential to
practices in which a person is held responsible for his conduct and given
credit for his achievements. A
SCIENTIFIC ANALYSIS [BEHAVIORISM] SHIFTS BOTH THE RESPONSIBILITY AND THE
ACHIEVEMENT TO THE ENVIRONMENT. (emphasis added)
It is upon this humanist moral
foundation that behavioral methods using operant conditioning are based.
Constructivism or progressivism takes
the concept of free will to the other extreme by operating on the assumption
that man is not only a "self", but that he possesses within himself
all the wisdom and individual determination needed to progress. In Summerhill, the British
educator A. S. Neill counters the behaviorist assumption by suggesting
that…
we should allow children to be
themselves…renounce all discipline, all direction, all suggestion, all
moral training, all religious instruction…a child is innately wise and
realistic. If left to himself, he
will develop as far as he is capable of developing.
From this extreme springs methods such
as "whole language" and "fuzzy math".
Many are united in their rejection of
constructivism and progressivism as one extreme, but controversy still exists
between the humanist underpinnings of behaviorism and the Judeo-Christian
belief in redemption and the nature of man. Differences arise in how we define the
capacity and nature of man: whether
he is a moral agent accountable to a higher, divine law, or a non-redemptive
organism to be manipulated, controlled, shaped, and used by an external
environment. Each view is governed
by opposing values and uses a different set of standards to measure human
choice and action.
Judeo-Christian thought examines both
the physical and spiritual nature of man.
Constructivism/progressivism acknowledges both the physical and
spiritual, but takes the spiritual nature of man beyond the mark. Behaviorism examines only the physical and
denies the spiritual. The physical
sciences have reduced the nature of man from the wholistic view of spiritual
and physical combined to a biological and ultimately psychological science. Western educational theory has turned
away from religion to science as the standard by which the nature of man is
defined, and has become preoccupied with measurable, quantifiable, observable,
and replicable behavior, effectively divorcing the physical man from the
spiritual man. Skinner himself
admitted that behavioral science could not tolerate such an uncontrollable
variable as the 'spiritual man', because such a perspective would destroy his
concept of science. He said,
There is no place
in the scientific position for a self as a true originator of initiator of
action.
That statement alone admits the
relevance of spiritual man, not the opposite. Judeo-Christian thought claims on the
other hand that man is a moral agent with the capacity to initiate action,
discern between good and evil, right and wrong, and to choose between them.
Before considering specific methods or
pedagogy, we must first be willing to confront and identify the principles that
determine our view of the nature of man and his capacity to determine the moral
outcome of his existence. Once that
has been accomplished, we must then determine what constitutes the nature and
purpose of education based upon that underlying assumption. Only then can we truly examine specific
methods in the proper context by focusing on the whole individual, rather than
the physical man alone.
For more information regarding the
beliefs that underlie behaviorism, please visit the following links:
The Nature and Purpose of
Education (Rebecca Bocchino)
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