Chile Culture: Behavioral Theory of Education Research (Essay Sample)

Research on Behavioral Theorist
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Alfie Kohn is a behavioral theorist as well as a contemporary academic scholar who advances a behavioral theory of education and the management of the classroom. He has various works on which he has written on parenting, education as well as human behavior. As a result, he as published various books about these topics which include the following; No Contest (1986), Rewards (1993) and the recent one being The Homework Myth (2006) among other of his works. He lectures at various places that have interests in his works as well as various universities. He has various theories concerning the listed topics although there is a far-reaching theme in most of his theories. He outlines the significance of competition as a factor of motivation as well as any other external motivating factors. This applies to various places for example in classrooms, home or even places of work. He consequently believes that the societies which base the above mention extrinsic motives inevitably become inefficient in the long run.
My personal philosophy about classroom management would go almost hand in hand with what Kohn advances in his theories of classroom management. I believe in unity and cooperation and if at all things were done in unity then effective and admirable results would be achieved. This should also apply to education. When students, as well as teachers, cooperate in classrooms, then education would achieve the goals in which it was meant for as opposed to the failures of education in the society in general. This issue of unity is well put by Kohn as Cooperative Learning (CL) and students in classrooms should be grouped or group themselves in small groups that would help them cooperate and produce desirable learning outcomes (Kohn, 1992). Kohn has a belief in cooperation and curiosity.
The ideals of cooperation and curiosity and beliefs apply to his arguments on education. These ideals are in support of my philosophy of unity and cooperation in the course of education. He advances that for a classroom to be ideal there should be cooperation as well as curiosity being emphasized and focus laid on above any other issue. For curiosity as an item to be emphasized, he asserts that it should govern the issues being taught in class and if standards are at all necessary they should be general in nature. Hence, he points out the standardized testing which is extrinsic to the process of learning. It further promotes a curriculum that is strict in nature that does not allow flexibility to the need of students as well as their interest. This means that once the standard is set them all the students have to adhere to the set standards, hence it uniformly applies to all the students.
He goes further and points out that politicians as well as business people are very determined to get tough with students together with the teachers and have increased the pressure to increase the score standards and tis comes at the expense of more meaning learning forms. He offers insights on how harmful the test driven curriculum can be and this he supports by asserting that most of the leading tests were in fact never intended to measure learning or teaching. There are other more meaningful measures of student learning that are available other than the standard testing. He is also against the common core curriculum as it is a dangerous theory that education can have. He asserts that it is as a result of interests of politics. These standards are rigorous in nature and that equates to burdensome and harsh curriculum which in real sense is not beneficial at all to students. This will make classrooms harder and hence students will not succeed in the long run.
I am against the issue of competition in schools due to the adverse effects it has o education as well as it is not the best approach that can be used to enhance education of students. My perspective is also shared by Kohn whose theories are against competition as a tool in the promotion of education in the society. This promotes the issue of cheating in classrooms as well as using other dubious means to achieve success in classrooms as the students are implanted with that culture in the long run. Some even go to the extent of cheating the other students about things in education like the answers to some questions so that he or she can defeat the other students in the exams and consequently beat them to become in better positions.
Kohn writes and argues against the issue of competition as it has negative effects on learning the process. He asserts that competition is bad news in all because the trouble lies with the competition itself and not how it is applied as most of the people think (Kohn, 1986). He further points out that competition is destructive, and it is not necessary for places of work, at home and even in classrooms. In this sense competition should be scrapped off the system of education as it has more disadvantages than the advantages. He further asserts that the issue of homework does not promote the goals that set and on the contrary it undermines them. He points out that many of the traditional methods that were used in the management of classrooms promote the extrinsic motivation as opposed to the intrinsic management.
Another issue I would like to add on my philosophy of learning is about discipline. Classrooms and education places are not centers of discipline and parents should not send their students to schools as they know they will be disciplined in the end. Most teachers in schools are not concentrating on being effective disciplinarians, and rather they concentrate on disciplining students. Concerning the issue of discipline, the approach that should be used is supposed to be cooperative discipline. This will ensure that discipline serves its purpose of correcting the behavior of students in the classrooms to a great extent
.Kohn points out that there are some of the discipline programs that are autocratic in nature and that they encourage teachers to put the law down with the students participating in the process and consequently coerce them into complying with the laid down law (Kohn, 2006). In this case, the students are aware of what they will get if they break the law that they have set with the teachers. His basic line is that if the principle of running a classroom is cooperation then as well as the nurturing of the curiosity of the students, then the students will behave in an appropriate man...