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   Alfie Kohn (alfiekohn@sciences.social)'s status on Monday, 13-Nov-2023 22:14:57 JST Alfie Kohn

   1/2 Epiphany from Joan Goodman's book "When Slow Is Fast Enough": IEPs amount to "mandatory behaviorism." Their focus on specific, measurable behaviors "forces teachers to concentrate on narrow accomplishments, restrict free choice," & manipulate kids with extrinsic inducements.

   "The more specific the goal," Goodman writes, "the more control must be exerted over the response, so only an extraordinarily ingenious teacher can be child-directed and flexible yet [still] conform to the IEP law."

   • GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) repeated this.
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     Alfie Kohn (alfiekohn@sciences.social)'s status on Monday, 13-Nov-2023 22:15:33 JST Alfie Kohn

     in reply to

     2/2 This book helped me to see that sometimes the problem isn't with the tweakable *details* of a certain procedure or policy; rather, the policy itself may reflect hidden premises (in this case, a reductive Skinnerian worldview) and will invariably produce unwanted effects.