A reader posted the following comment about “Whole Brain Teaching.” By the way, I too recommend Elisabeth Bruehl-Young’s book Childism. It is an informative and in some ways a frightening book about how adults abuse children and think it is normal behavior.
This method of “conditioning” children with authoritarian fear and intimidation is “abusive”. It is the same as “bullying”. It’s purpose is to “break” children. Adults who use and teach this method obviously grew up in a dysfunctional environment of “bullying”, so it is “normal” for them, but it is NOT normal by society’s standards.
In Marine Boot Camp it is effective for training adults to be “killers”, but with young children it will condition them to become obedient and loyal to abusive authority. It will
condition children to become “slaves” or robots.
When young children are trapped in an environment of authoritarian fear and intimidation, they can be trained to do anything that the ‘master” demands. They can be “conditioned” to memorize facts to pass test, or clap their hands in unison, or become sex slaves.
Since “conditioning” is on a spectrum, the damage is determined by the amount of “control”. If children have this authoritarian method used both at home and at school, the psychological damage will be severe.
Another name for this method is “dominance” or the slave/master style of conditioning. Children will become “self-punishing” or masochistic. Many New York psychologists have started calling this “self punishing” behavior in children the “Common Core Syndrome”.
When these “broken” children become adults, they will have a “fragmented self”. They will not have their own identity or a strong sense of self, since they were forced as children to model after their abusers. Their identity will be codependent with their abusers. Their behaviors would most likely become in adulthood the psychiatric disorders of Borderline, Narcissistic, or DID.
This harsh authoritarian management style for training children is like a psychological plague that has become increasingly pervasive in schools for three decades. We can now see the products of this poisonous pedagogy in our adult society.
People who are in charge of children and are insecure with themselves (have paranoia and fear the children will get out of control), will have an obsessive need for control. This is the hallmark of a bully. It has caused our teachers and administrators to be more like gestapo than empathic humans. Unless we learn to recognize “bullying”, and call it what it is, we will allow this paranoia of “managing” and “training” children to bring on
“totalitarianism”.
A book that describes this method of”scapegoating’ children is called CHILDISM, by the Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth young-Bruehl. I strongly recommend everyone read it.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Interesting. I’ve visited a few K-1 Whole Brain classrooms and it appeared that this method is very effective of capturing the students’ attention and holding them accountable to participate. Seemed like the kids were enjoying themselves, too.
They were “performing”…..Master likes to see them dance…
Yes, it does capture their attention!
It is called “brainwashing”.
Behaviorism is OK for potty training toddlers, but please, has our society actually regressed to this low level that we call this “teaching “?
This is shameful. I will be embarrassed for Finland to see this!
Odd. I guess nobody should do sports or perform in general because “Masters” are telling them what to do. Don’t even begin to tell the players to shake hands with the other team. Spine shudders! I’m not saying some adults don’t treat children like this but whole brain teaching is not anything like what this article says. Kids like to participate and feel connected to the class and school. These sayings help them, keep the class in control, and make them feel secure. They also yearn for attention and just saying “Good Job (enter name)!” makes other students also follow rules so you say their name.
BRAVO on the reference to Childism. We must now fully appreciate just how damaged the adults are who embrace this corporate infanticide and then impose it on children and entire systems of schooling. We have seen this social/psychological annihilation before in recent history and we all know exactly where it leads. How many repeat performances of totalitarianism must there be before enough is enough?
I’m afraid this reader’s comments go way beyond the practice of Whole Brain teaching, and I’m not necessarily a proponent of the practice. I’m not sure where sex slaves and masochism fit in here. I’m just saying this is a huge leap. I’d like for the reader to provide research to back up her statements on how this practice produces such a screwed up society. I mean, really.
Well, Tad, thank you for some sanity. Most of the responses have been extremely melodramatic, and inside the gray room of insanity. “[i]nfanticide.” Please.
I use a modified version of Chris Biffle’s Whole Brain Teaching techniques. I adapt it so that all students can participate. It’s not “potty training,” or some dystopic “brainwashing” or “social/psychological annihilation”.
It’s done first thing in the A.M. It takes two minutes. When our opening is no longer needed it is dismissed.
What we, as a class, get in return, is an environment where no one impedes others’ opportunity to learn.
The over-dramatic responses are clearly from those who always follow the next best thing that comes up: “Childism.” That tone does incite more than a little apprehension. I get it. I’ve read it too. It’s a good snapshot of being a child and the effects upon the child from womb onward. The feeling and responses to growing into more response ability. Such as beginning a formal education. That is, at a time when they begin to interact as a group.
Yet, what animus. “They were ‘performing’ ,,,Master likes to see them dance,” said one person. So, maybe this person likes to see students “dance.” With negative connotation, of course. Maybe he wishes to be a “Master.”
Another respondent declared that her class just starts up and things are just humming along. Well, I do declare that there is one fine classroom. And I have the same kind of “self-discovery,” and other discovery opportunities in my classrooms. Likely much more tuned into their own learning. I’m happy for the respondent’s experience, but it’s not rational to think that students needn’t be guided to get there.
I wonder how many of the respondent who consider what I do as so “horrible” provide CCSS curriculum and instruction? If any of them do, then I question the validity of what they say.
And on and on.
Kuhio Kane, Ph.D
There are schools that are using similar techniques for much of the day. This is the era of the Great Grate.
And I’m very aware of the breath an length of WBT. I use it to frame classroom decorum only.
I am afraid I fail to see Whole Brain Teaching as child abuse. I use the basic attention getter and rules, especially at the beginning of the year, and never felt I was abusing children! Class-yes is like any other quick attention getter that substitutes the endless nagging for attention. It is like hand gestures or clapping that teachers have used over the years. I like class-yes because it’s fun for the kids and you can vary it. Maybe I am not aware of the extent to which some teachers of. To, but from what I have seen it is innocuous.
If you watch the Whole Brain Teaching videos on YouTube, be sure to read the comments. Many people LIKE the idea.
Frankly, I cringed. I forced myself to watchn3 videos. I wanted to see how different it might be with older and younger kids.
I don’t like regimentation or authoritarian teaching. At all. If I were required to implement this, I would have had to resign. In fact, if I had had to participate in the training, I would have walked out.
I once participated in a Literacy View week long series of professional development classes in SW Ohio. A speaker that is affiliated with KIPP was there. His technique was very authoritarian. I was 50 years old at the time and had never been subjected to that style of behavior. I was shaking and near the point of throwing up after listening to his loud condescension and regimentation.
I know some may agree with this, but I wouldn’t have subjected my children to this kind of torture and robotic nonsense.
There is one teacher at my school that “trains” his kids in a similar way. He thinks he has the answers to everything and tells kids to “man up”. I find him to be obnoxious and intimidating. I would have objected to having him as my child’s teacher.
I watched the “critical thinking” video and was horrified. And yes, there were mostly positive comments. All I saw was a lot of repetitive chanting in unison and very little critical thinking. And it was all about the rules and why they should be followed. Is that all there is to this method? Now as a teacher I understand the need for classroom rules and to have students understand the reasons, but this was crazy insane with over the top gesture and emotions, Everything was at level 11. At the end the students were told to tell their partner how much they loved playing the game. The students are even told what to like!!!
This explains A LOT. I wish I had this report many decades ago. It especially explains the behavior of a certain group who have grown up with these conditions
Alice Miller, in her excellent book “Drama of the Gifted Child”, also addresses this poisonous pedagogy. The question is, “How do we muster more mental health professionals to speak up and point out those behaviors in leaders that we can recognize as “destructive to themselves or others”, and put a stop to this abuse!
In Austin, our mental health community organized a forum during the Texas Counseling Association Convention in January. Most of the state legislators’ response was “Ho Hum”…..but at least there are now two committees re-visiting HB5 which has the potential to reduce high stakes testing in elementary school.
My opinion is that we need a US task force on children’s mental health. Could we include that with the “potential” Congressional hearings on Common Core.
I have noticed a gradual trend toward “totalitarianism” in school systems during the past three decades that I have been an elementary teacher. I think the high stakes testing has become an “obsession” and has created a toxic environment for children. I think those who perpetuate the abuse are either in total denial, or are “deviant”.
We should call the Common Core Environment what it is…Abuse…..and we should call those who perpetuate the Common Core Environment what they are….Perpetrators!
The goal in “brainwashing” is to have absolute control of the subject at all times, both physically and mentally. After a time they will become absolutely dependent, obedient, and loyal. During the period of their indoctrination, they do not have freedom for their own original thoughts, nor do they have relief or escape from the non-stop mind controlling drill.
When I read about the Common Core Environment and others similar to it like Whole Brain, it reminded me of the “torture” techniques taught to US military personnel at The School of the Americas! It caused me to think its time for Amnesty International.
“Whole brain” teaching is bad?
We have a problem with definitions and deeper meanings.
Excuse me, I’m just a teacher and average lawyer. When I hear “whole brain teaching, ” I think of Robert Fulghum and his message, which I think was very accurate with regard to good, serious, and thorough education, including:
Especially that “learn some, and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.”
I don’t think I’m unusual in that. I learned through the years that education programs that go after the whole person are superior to those that aim at only part of the person. Isn’t that “whole person” education? Isn’t that “whole brain?”
So when we criticize “whole brain” education, can we include a description of what it is we find abusive, so that I don’t think we’re crazy?
Watch the videos.
Thanks, Deb, I did. That’s “whole brain” like a firing squad execution is “behavior modification.”
The videos show boot camp. That’s not education suitable for younger children on average, for exceptionally talented children, nor for children who need special assistance.
Marching bands need that sort of discipline, sometimes. But the marching isn’t what makes it musical, nor is a marching band representative of all music, nor even all band music.
That stuff is no more general to education than marching band is to all music.
Yes my kids marching band regimentation was essential for performing in a group with precision. I get that. I would not tolerate that with a classroom situation. I would not teach that to students. It is like boot camp. And I would not like boot camp. I find it demeaning. I have seen too many jerks try to push authoritarian ideas onto others when they don’t deserve respect. If you like it, fine. I would not put my kids into that situation for classroom discipline.
If it works so well, why did they need to practice 25 minutes before making the video?
like a firing squad execution is “behavior modification.”
LOL
About 40 years ago, we were noting that a lot of the stuff that was being promulgated (especially for inner city kids, which is where I taught for 28 years) was basically “Skinnerism.” It was odious then, and it’s odious now under whatever nouveau locution is used to give it a new marketing lease on life in the 21st Century. “Tiger Momism?” Whatever. Anyone who has ever bothered to spend time working with an listening to children (you don’t even have to have your own, although it helps) knows that the joke about “Instructions not included…” is true. All the crazy claims otherwise fall in the face of that one real child who isn’t like the others, who of course aren’t like the other others, either. All three of my sons like baseball, some more than others. All three collected and catalogued baseball cards (we do Topps for sentimental reasons). I wish I had saved those old 1950s ones, but who thought we were using “collectables” for bicycle motors back then…?
And so it goes. My eldest today is still working doing coding out in California, while his first big project, our substancenews.net website (which he programmed while a senior in high school), is still robust going into its eighth year.
The next guy is really addicted to killing cyber zombies, not networked with friends for hours a day. But since he also reads a lot, likes math, and is getting straight A’s, what’s the problem. He’s also studying how to be a catcher.
His younger brother, when they aren’t fighting (do all brothers do this most of the time, or just some some of the time?) would rather be deconstructing things and then trying to rebuild them (and since he’s still only in third grade, with mixed successes). Also, paper airplanes and studying how to pitch. His father has warned him not to throw anything but fastballs (after all, you can learn four of them like his eldest brother did) and to learn a simple changeup until he is about 17. Better for his growth plates.
And I only have three kids of my own, after a career (28 years) in Chicago classrooms during which I rarely had fewer than 140 kids in my classes.
Once we reject the ideologies that flourished into the 1930s and early 1940s, then had to be destroyed by force, we insist that every society measure the value of each human being. Not just the “bright” ones, or the blond haired blue eyes males. Not just the white ones or the guys.
But it’s clear from history that every society’s ruling class, whether fed dollars by the Waltons and Gateses or Deustchmarks by the Nazis, is going to try and get away with some “Race To The Top” standardization plan, and quickly behind it will come the child abuse that is always part of these “learning” systems that substitute coercion for real choice and tyranny (masked at times, until it shows it fangs) for democracy and freedom.
My sons are all proud of the fact that both their grandparents fought (in the U.S. Army) against their generation’s Race To The Top. They also understand why their father became the first conscientious objector in Elizabeth New Jersey during the Vietnam War. And, now, why they are opting out of all this Chicago-style child abuse masked as “standards and accountability.” And I’m glad they enjoy baseball, was disappointed that they didn’t want to continue their piano lessons, and assume they will continue to master the complexities of spelling as it exists in 21st Centiury American English. What could possible be better?
Behavior modification ala SKINNER is low level stuff and doesn’t last once the punishment is gone. People recoil later if blame and shame, fear and punishment are used. I have seen this far too often.
Wise words.
It’s the same thing with rewards. If given prematurely or on a predictable schedule, rewards undermine motivation and students stop engaging in the desired target behaviors. Behavior Mod does not work with intelligent kids who’ve figured out the game.
Non-educators who impose these awful, archaic, behaviorist programs, based on doling out extrinsic rewards and punishments, don’t get that it’s intrinsic motivation which propels lifelong learners. That is not even on their radar, and they do not have the skills to maintain and support student’s natural curiosity and love of learning.
What extrinsic rewards or punishments are you talking about? There are none. You just get kids’ attention and that is it. Again, I don’t know if charter school teacher use WBT as a way to punish students, but in my district we certainly don’t. It is NOT a way of teaching. It is not a way to motivate students.
It is the same stuff promulgated by Thorndike and Skinner, once known as the dark arts side of Psychology. Just as Bob Shepherd has commented on 1984 not being a public policy manual, A Clockwork Orange was not meant to be an exemplar of great schooling. This is pure behaviorist conditioning, not education. Remember, China’s fine engineers couldn’t make a rocket work until we helped them. We now want to make kids mere stimulus response machines. We should be concerned about what is being proposed. Once again, notice, the reformers proposing this wouldn’t subject their children to this, would they?
Whole Brain Teaching is NOT a conditioning system. It’s a method of engaging all students in the learning process. Not only are you using kinetic energy tied to learning, it engages children in a fun way. I feel the author is way off base and hasn’t a clue regarding Whole Brain Teaching. See Chris Biffle. This whole child abuse meme is getting way off the cliff. Showing a lot of sentimentality without reference to pedagogy. This author is clearly lacking strong background research.
Would you subject your own child(ren) to that?
Shill.
Shill? Name calling. Do you model that behavior in your classroom? Some of the techniques actually engage best those students who haven’t the structure in their lives outside of the classroom, nor support in many cases, that would encourage them to become connected to learning. WBT does not override critical thinking and independent consideration with subject materials. It is used a a framework for classroom behavior. It is very helpful in getting those who wander, yell out, leave the room w/o permission, etc. Rebellious behavior is not changed by punishment. This system does not create robots. My son was given this method in lower elementary. It taught him to focus. And there was plenty of time for free-form critical thinking. The exercise in the video instructs to behavior and class rules. Today, my son is a music teacher. His brother is a physician. Didn’t seem to kill the wonder in their heads. Don’t scream out about something you don’t understand. What you saw in in the video is generally the extent of WBT for the day. It informs students to appropriate behavior. So, would you name call people at a workshop? Seemingly, by your response, you would. You’re the bully.
Name calling = calling it like it is. Anyone who can say that WBT is not a conditioning system doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously. You might as well tell me that Toyota doesn’t make cars. The fact that WBT is a conditioning system is so obvious it doesn’t even deserve debate.
BTW, you didn’t answer if you’d subject your own children to WBT.
Dienne, You are absolutely correct and I appreciate your calling it like it is. This is a prime example of Skinner’s operant conditioning. If you look at the other videos, you can see how that continues throughout the children’s day, too. As a former Kindergarten teacher, I was truly appalled by the conditioning and indoctrination that I saw for five year olds subjected to “WBT” –which actually discounts at least half of the brain.
If KK’s kids are grown professionals now, most likely, they were not subjected to these no-excuses military style tactics all day long throughout their childhoods in charter schools, where they are chiefly implemented with poor children of color.
Which half or more are you speaking of? Do you know? I’ll bet not. Have you studied early childhood development (beyond being a parent)? Have you studied Developmental Biology, Psychology? I’ll bet not. You haven’t any idea of how I use WBT. In fact, I use a modified version and use it only as a two minute exercise that teaches to appropriate place behaviors and general classroom rules. I only have one. If you are interfering with someone’s opportunity to learn, then you are acting inappropriately in our classroom. When the short, two minutes of restating what is expected so that our class maintains an optimal environment for expression and learning. The kids laugh as they do it. No, not like good slaves, as some commentators have stated. But a room full of kids going over the expectations. When its’ no longer needed, we ditch it. Your responses have exposed your ignorance.
Kuhio Kane, Ph.D
Kuhio Kane – In response to your comment:
My background research for the article includes 30 years as a licensed mental health professional working with children. My speciality is child trauma/PTSD and crisis intervention. Much of my clinical work is based on University of Washington’s research on personality disorders (Dr Marsha Linehan), which is considered outstanding in the US, as well as that of Dr Bruce Perry of the Child Trauma Academy in Houston. The Mental Health Assoc of S. Pennsylvania has consulted ongoing, since their statewide task force focused on helping teachers, parents, and community recognize “invalidating’ environments for children. An “invalidating” environment in childhood is recognized by this research to lead to Borderline Personality Disorder young adults. (Typical behaviors that would be observed in young adulthood are: co-dependence, depression, anxiety, inability to think for oneself or make decisions, emotionally immature, addictions (work, mates, or substance abuse such as alcohol, food, sex, drugs, work relationships, mates), fear of abandonment, dissociation, constriction, regression, mood disorders and thought disorders) It is typical for BPD to be self punishing and easily victimized. They are not usually prone to violence.
It is my professional opinion that the school environments using methods of Behaviorism ( like that of Whole Brain, Common Core, and other similar ones) are indeed “invalidating” environments for young children. The autocratic control of the teacher prevents freedom for intrinsic self discovery that children acquire from using their own imagination and curiosity, which is actually “real” learning that imparts knowledge. Conditioning young children in this environment is high risk for personality disorders of the B Cluster:
Narcissistic, Borderline, AntiSocial, and Histronic PD. Personality disorders begin about the age of 5 when children first begin to express their independence and individuality, but are “shut down” in the oppressive environment of absolute control that is typical of
Behaviorism (Whole Brain, Common Core, & other Boot Camp etc).
The disorder does not usually manifest until young adulthood; however, the early signs in children are usually anxiety, depression, loss of spontaneity, loss of humor, and loss of imaginative play.
You may want to speak with your local science teacher to get a clear understanding of “conditioning”. Clearly the methods used by Whole Brain (stimulus > response in a controlled environment) is classical conditioning per B.F. Skinner. This conditioning, when used as standard practice for training or ‘teaching” young children represses their social emotional development, and prevents development of their authentic “self” (identity). This most often results in personality disorder (mental illness).
Respectfully,
Cherie Foster, PhD
“An “invalidating” environment in childhood is recognized by this research to lead to Borderline Personality Disorder young adults,” “mental illness” ?Really?
I am against VAM, CCSS, HST, etc. I’ve taught at university for 20 years and 20 in grades 7-12 teaching all subjects. I was also the school counselor. (Shall I use up more space with references and studies regarding child development? Nah. Why? To impress or to try and win the argument? Don’t have the time.
I got my PhD cred too. In Developmental Biology and Childhood Development.
WBT sets up a framework that a classroom learns within. A behavioral framework. Like rules thousands of teaches pin up on their walls. I certainly do not teach English Lit. or Shakespeare using such technique as found in WBT. Nor any subject material. But as far as classroom rules go, I do use this method. It’s not what you say so much as how you say it. How you get others involved.
I see it as a game that we all are a part of. I have never had any negative remarks as to how I conducted my secondary ed. classes. Constant propagandizing and repressive techniques do, indeed, lead to “mental illness,” as you said. You have convinced yourself of a view, and that’s that. Yes, I do pay attention to Skinner et al. I do not participate in authoritarian “bullying” that would interfere w/ self-discovery nor stifle curiosity and discovery. But I see a lot of teachers who do bully their students who haven’t a clue as to what WBT is all about. And that “validates” the constant behavioral issues in their classes.
“You may want to speak to your local science teacher. ” Really? Again, Really? See, you haven’t any idea who I am. That you assume I no nothing of science. Insulting. You need to know who your talking to, even down to, be for you start whipping out your agenda and orders. I am the science guy in my community.
Thanks for your dialogue. I haven’t the need to keep it in mind.
Regards,
Kuhio Kane Ph.D
you’re, not your. And a lot of other stuff. I mean, I must amend my comment. You are in the role of clinician. How many years have you been a teacher in classrooms?
Cherie Foster, PhD
“It is my professional opinion that the school environments using methods of Behaviorism ( like that of Whole Brain, Common Core, and other similar ones) are indeed “invalidating” environments for young children.”
I am very interested in how to correct behavior, because so many in our school have aggressive/provocative behaviors to which there is no solution. So your response sparked my curiousity with the following questions.
1. You ended by saying “young children”. Do you mean kids K-12? Do you consider it acceptable practice for adults if not kids?
2. What kind of behavior modifications would you say are acceptable to validating a child’s environment?
Teachers have used “bribery” to get kids to do their work, follow directions, stay in their seat, be quiet in the hall, turn in homework, eliminate swearing, displaying aggressive behavior, etc. which I don’t see as validating a child’s environment either.
3. I teach at a school where many kids come to us already with an identity crisis, PTSD, and mental illness which some are undiagnosed. Would brain-based learning be more damaging than their current psychological state of mind?
To answer your question – Would brain-based learning be more damaging than their current psychological state of mind?
I do not know what you mean by “brain based learning” since all learning apparently is brain based.
When children come to school with disorders that you describe that are apparently signs of trauma, they need immediate intervention from trauma trained mental health professionals. Too often the signs of trauma (regression, emotional dysregulation, dissociation) are mistaken for “misbehavior”, and the child is “punished” for “bad behavior”, causing re-traumatization. All teachers and administrators, especially those in disadvantaged communities, should have ongoing trauma training. Trauma that is unprocessed does not go away but increases the child’s risks of mental illness.
My reference to “young children” referred to elementary school age.
Older children have usually developed better coping skills for stress and peer support systems, while the younger ones are more impacted by chronic traumatic stress from an “invalidating” environment. They are more dependent on the teacher and less on peers.
To answer your question about how to “correct” a child’s behavior cannot be a standard answer, since all children and their circumstances are different. I like to remind teachers that 80% of behavior that children learn is from modeling their caregivers, which means parents and teachers. That is why Positive Behavior Modeling is recommended and encouraged in all schools now, as opposed to the punitive reward/consequences that we know does not foster positive growth in children, but instead models negative behavior for children. When teachers give ambivalent messages, such as telling the children to respect each other, but the teacher is modeling “bullying” behavior, it causes emotional confusion. Some psychologists call it “crazy making”.
Teachers who are relaxed and spontaneous with their students, as well as respectful and empathic listeners, will win the trust and “positive behavior” of their students more often than if they use threatening or “punitive” methods. Children will develop intrinsic motivation and a love of learning if their teacher allows them freedom to explore and use their creativity and curiosity. Imagination is the best gift a child has to help them navigate through life; however, in a punitive classroom environment that is judgmental and critical, where a child has chronic stress from boring work as well as fear and intimidation about their performance, imagination will become repressed when the emotions are repressed. It is a tragic loss for a child, like their spirit has gone away. I think of the loss of imagination in childhood as traumatic grief that may last for a lifetime.
Children need to make healthy emotional attachments to their teachers. This requires trust and mutual respect. Children cannot feel “safe” in an environment that uses “punishments” or “competition” based on their performance. They need to be able to depend on a teacher to help them, and not be afraid of disappointing the teacher. The best school environments in the US that I have observed that actually address holistic learning use Montessori.
Those same methods could be incorporated in all US elementary schools if enough parents recognized the need and demanded it.
Because of the current stress in school environments, I have observed that more and more teachers show signs of chronic traumatic stress. They appear emotionally desensitized, robotic and scripted, irritable, with loss of humor and spontaneity. They too will suffer psychological harm from that environment; however, with children, it will be more lasting and disabling.
Teaching is a very challenging but noble profession. Teachers need tremendous support from the administration and the community. I hope you and other teachers can weather this storm of education reform and not tolerate mistreatment and disrespect from the corporate powers that want to dismantle this great profession.
I wish I could be as optimistic as you are about positive behavior modeling. When you have kids who are at each other’s throats, taunting and teasing, bullying, arguements that leads to aggressive behavior to declare a winner, kinder kids throwing chairs and “f” bombs, not to mention the unthinkable things klds have done to teachers. I think it takes more than adults role modeling positive behavior. We’ve had trauma training as you suggested but I and others have realized that the problem is much too big for teachers to deal with. We have a trauma trained expert, but our problems continue. It is my opinion that you don’t get anywhere quickly by giving personal counseling when you have several who exhibit the same behaviors. You try to “cure” one and send them back into the class and they become recidivists, because of peer pressure.
IMHO, I believe that we need to have experts who will come in to do classroom counseling (lack of better word) everyday until they see a change in behavior. Many kids from low SES backgrounds lack social and language skills on top of psychological factors. Exuding positive behavior by adults is one thing. Having professional training in this field in another. With all due respect, perhaps this is area your profession could be expanded upon.
Agree with Kuhio. WBT is just a quick way to get attention and refocus a class not a conditioning method as horrifying as it is described here. As I said before, it is used rarely during the day and it is NOT part of the lesson. It has nothing to do with critical thinking-do you really think teachers use it to teach reading or writing or even math? I don’t know how they use it in charter schools, maybe they do use it as an authoritarian way of asserting the teacher’s role, but not in “normal” public schools. I guess there are always going to be people who take it to the extreme and I don’t know whether I would use in higher grades, but it works in elementary schools. Instead of raising yr voice and nagging, kids like to respond in kind and quickly. It just ends there, get their attention, maybe during reading workshop, or group work, say what you have to say to the whole class and then kids resume their work. What is wrong with that?
Chiara, there are many charters now throughout the country that have adopted this as a model for instruction generally. And that’s a horror.
Whole Brain Teaching is another one of these fads that gives the teaching profession a bad name. Maybe if there were more rigorous preparation programs available for teachers, based on evidence-based practices, there would be less of the garbage like whole-brain teaching.
“Whole-brain teaching” is a misnomer anyway because we use so many parts of our brain everyday in daily activities and in school.
We should all be working on “reforming” the system of educating teachers to further professionalize teaching. Professors Anne K. Morris and James Hiebert of the University of Delaware have written some great articles. Here is an article describing their work: http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2011/mar/shared-instructional-products-031811.html.
Reading this causes me to disagree with Bob Shepherd. 1984 “is” a policy manual.
B.F. Skinner’s Behaviorism is sometimes called “the Dark Arts of Psychology”, because it can be misused easily to influence the behavior of others. Even though Skinner didn’t define it until late in the last century, it has been used for centuries, esp in the military
in many forms of control, coercion and torture, and especially for “brainwashing”.
The goal in “brainwashing” is to have absolute control of the subject at all times, both physically and mentally. After a time they will become absolutely dependent, obedient, and loyal. During the period of indoctrination, they do not have freedom for their own original thoughts, nor do they have relief or escape from the non-stop mind controlling drill.
When I read several articles about the Common Core Environment and spoke with numerous teachers in NY, it reminded me of techniques taught to US military personnel at the former School of the Americas – Kids in elementary school sitting in desk all day without recess, or just a short recess, and doing independent work that is drill and drudgery, then more of the same drudgery for homework, and chronic stress from testing. It is a joyless environment that caused me to be depressed just hearing about it. I can’t imagine being an 8 year old keeping up that routine. I would have been burned out within a few months.
Looking at this video on Whole Brain and reading more articles about it as well as Common Core, causes me to think it is time for Amnesty International.
The name really throws a person off. When I was reading some glowing reviews of WBT on some blog, I was excited to check it out. Needless to say, it was NOT what I expected. I’m trained in Responsive Classrooms, and I cannot fathom teaching my students that way.
Cherie Foster’s comments are completely consistent with my own observations of over sixty years
There is something SINISTER about Pearson, Whole Brain, Common Core, and the so called “education reformers” who are scapegoating children. I think this is called a predictable tragedy.
Having been one of the military’s earliest profilers, having a M.S. in Psychology, I can tell you these systems of treatment are all about control and gaining compliance. Is this what we really want? Once again, the key question will be who decides what is appropriate learning and what should be taught. Just because something can be done does not mean it should be done.
This is all about training for what the elites believe to be the barely educable children of the proles. It’s all about command and control. Demand absolute obedience. Train them in routines that make the absolute obedience reflexive. Monitor for gritful compliance. The more alienating the task, the greater the opportunity for the “young scholar” to demonstrate his or her grit.
Notice the subjects of the lessons in these “whole brain teaching” videos: mind-numbingly stupid stuff–the definition of “noun,” the form of the five-paragraph theme–made “fun.” By “whole brain” they must mean that they are engaging the reflex stuff governed by the cerebellum, but they are engaging little else.
This stuff is so wrong on so many levels that I don’t even know where to start.
Keep these moronic child abusers away from your children.
What is SINISTER about Pearson is that they delved into the dark arts of psychology to develop tests like STAAR to intentionally “frustrate”,”confuse”, and “intimidate” children. The psychological term for this is “crazy making”.
I watched this video on Whole Brain and almost had a panic attack.
If the teacher wanted to actively engage the children in a positive way, they could have been singing, rather than creating the chaos of all talking at each other. That video was disturbing because the teacher seemed gloat from his power of pulling the puppet strings.
The problem with using Behaviorism for teaching young children in elementary school is that they still have a developing brain. Since Behaviorism uses reward/punishment, it is judgmental. The
“critical authoritarian judgmental” voice of authority is then “hard wired” into their personality, causing them to feel they can never fully measure up. It leads to a lifetime of low self esteem and lack of “identity”, and causes them to be codependent.
I am speaking from experience. I grew up in a wealthy family with highly successful well educated “Narcissistic” parents. It tends to run in our family. I attended an outstanding high performing public high school in Connecticut. I never thought of my parents or teachers as “bullies” until late in life when I was in therapy for Anxiety Disorder and Depression, following a suicide attempt in college.
Now I realize that my parents and teachers were very domineering and I always had to “perform” as expected, or risk ‘rejection”. They always bragged about how “gifted” I was and I think that especially had a lot to do with my increased anxiety and fear of making mistakes and disappointing my teachers or parents. To stay in everyone’s “favor” I had to be “perfect”. No one ever gave a thought about how I felt or what I thought, as long as I looked good and performed well then I was accepted. I guess I was what you would call a “trophy child”. I was obedient, loyal, high achiever, empty inside and lonely.
Feeling like you are never good enough and can never measure up to other peoples expectations is a very lonely way to grow up. I never really developed my own identity, but learned at a very early age to please others. I spent most of my life searching for my identify in dysfunctional relationships, but not recognizing my “codependency”. I did not recognize when I was being disrespected or mistreated because that was “normal” for me. I was well into adulthood before I was educated in therapy to recognize Borderline behaviors and codependency, and to face my addictions and self punishing behaviors.
I would recommend that all teachers have therapy before being given the responsibility of shaping children’s lives. I can think of two teachers in particular when I was in elementary school who were like
“witches”, although at that time I thought they were always right. I lived in terror during those two years, and I know now that stress caused some trauma for me. I’m sure the teachers did not recognize they were “bullies”. They were both attractive and charming, but to be rewarded by staying in their good graces required perfection. Now as an adult I recognize their manipulation and mind games, something like Nurse Ratchett in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. Everything was about performance and competition, reward and punishment, and trying to stay on top.
My professional work as a graphic designer has allowed me to fit together the pieces of my fragmented self. I was able to regain some of my childhood spirit, since imagination can return when there is a safe place for healing. That has been enhanced by doing volunteer work and art therapy with autistic children in a special education class. Children give unconditional love freely, and theirs is the best medicine.
It is sad to see what is happening to children in schools now that the arts have mostly disappeared and been replaced by regimented testing curriculum. Fine arts should be included in all learning activities for children. The arts connect with positive emotions, and cause learning to be meaningful. The arts and nature are the best way to help children who have suffered trauma and family dysfunction. This is true because children who have been abused by adults do not trust people, but they can always trust nature and the arts. Actually all children need the arts for comfort and inspiration.
I am an artist and not a professional educator, but I wanted to share my message because my struggles seemed to be related to this article, and I wanted to reach out to those teachers who are also struggling. If you give your students opportunities to use their imaginations and natural curiosity to create and to discover things for themselves, they will be inspired to love learning, and you will have given them a gift for a lifetime. That should make you happy. And please, use your own natural talents and connect with your students. Don’t try to use “packaged” programs like this in the video that cause you to be a phony. Be true to yourself and to your profession.
Great advice, Laura!
The part of the brain that is used least is the cerebral cortex…the rapid pace of these lessons in compliance enjoin any reflection or thinking that may lead to questions or push back of any kind. This is stimulus response…parroting of an authority figure. These children are brainwashed into the place of vulnerability as they cannot think for themselves, now dependent on mimicry of authority and the confines of a box of imposed and memorized (3x a day), rules. Obedience suffocates choice, curiosity, imagination, individual expression, and the absolute necessity of the spark of rebelliousness.
WBT rule 5: “keep your teacher happy.” Without the ability to discern this also translates to…keep your “fill in blank” happy. The possibilities are endless: abuser, bully, harasser, pedophile…and so on.
Which is convenient, because at least in this case, the teacher *is* the abuser/bully/harasser.
Valerie, it has come to our attention that you have been engaged in thinking. Please report to Room 101 for rectification.
Or mom, dad, sister, brother, friend. Really? Pedophile? It just means, life it’s easier for everyone if we follow agreed upon social conventions, as simple as raise your hand for permission to speak since thee are 25 people in this room and we cannot be listening to each other if we are all talking. Pedophiles???
Chiara, there are schools all around the country, now, in which this method is the primary method of teaching throughout the day. And the children in those schools are being abused, severely abused.
Really??? You are insane!! And obviously have not actually paid any attention to the purpose of that rule!! That is the catch all rule. You can’t have rules for every thing. Kids are smart. Have a rule to keep hands and feet to yourselves and they will use their elbow!!! I have never read such insane ramblings in my entire life!!! My guess is you have not read the book and have not actually tried or been in a Whole Brain classroom so let me tell you have it works. You have a set of rules that the kids know. You use cute hand gestures to practice them. You see, kids don’t break the rules if they know what they are. Using hand gestures makes talking about them more fun and silly and fun and silly = kids remember them. Using mirror, I demonstrate a concept or definition I want the kids to remember using silly hand gestures that the kids mirror back. We do this many times, then I say “Teach” and they go over it with each other while I walk around the room helping ones that are struggling with it. Gives me time to interact with individual students while keeping them engaged. After that COMES THE PART NOT IN ANY VIDEOS!!! The part where you work on the skill. Maybe do an activity with manipulatives or whatever. That is the group part of teaching, then they have some small group work, I usually have something that they can do as partners, then finally comes the “worksheet” or something that they do totally on their own. You see teaching has many steps. I am shocked that the use of some goofy hand motions and repetition has people so out of sorts! How old are you people. I remember sitting in class repeating my multiplication facts over and over and over and guess what? I learned them and I am not scared and I do not need a shrink!!!!! You see, I teach special ed and I did not think my 5th graders could learn long division because I had tried and tried and they did not get it. Then I used Whole Brain teaching and a set of hand gestures with Dirty Monkeys Smell Bad (Divide, Multiply, Subtract, Bring Down). I watched one of my students go through those hand movements during the state test and almost cried. He was getting it because of repeated silly hand gestures, mirror and teach and repetition. I did not abuse him, I gave him a tool he did not have before!
Yessity, yessity! And some slogoneering too!
I wouldn’t have become a teacher if I had been required to learn and implement this hogwash.
My students learned that they needed to be self-motivated, that we were all learners together, that they sometimes taught me new things, that we all make mistakes and have aha moments, that when they got loud, I toned down and expected them to do the same.
It is all conditioning. I just felt kinder and gentler doing it my way. And I don’t think the kids learned any less than from Mr Big Mouth down the hall.
Teaching is for and about THEM not ME.
I know for a fact that my kids learned a lot more from me than they learned from Ms. Big Mouth down the hall. And I have yet to see a teacher who implemented coercive behaviorist tactics for classroom management, such as Ms. Big Mouth, who did not also use those same tactics for instruction.
Ms. BIG MOUTH lacks skills in classroom management, clearly. And a well managed classroom provides availability for optimal interaction, instruction. Your inference is that WBT is the same as “coercive behaviorist tactics.” I don’t know where you teach, but classroom management is more often than not of greatest necessity in the sense of learning place appropriateness. I use a modified version of WBT to form a framework of behavioral expectations. Not as some evil teacher making kids “dance,” or annihilating their wonder, discovery, self-worth, etc. It is laughable and the kids enjoy it. It’s a two minute opening for class. When it is not needed, I we ditch it.
What I do is clearly not punitive. What I see more often than not are kids being kicked out of class for certain behaviors I would consider non-consequential. I just give a sign and, most always, those disturbing others get back on focus. Eighty percent of what a child learns, especially in regards to behavior, is learned through what they experience outside of the classroom, and not in a safe, student-focused, well managed environment.
Kuhio Kane, Ph.D
One more thing: how is WBT punitive? Just because you post a sad face on the board? Really? I don’t even do that. There is no need. Kids just get used to refocus and pay attention. You do not do it during a lesson, usually during transitions if you have to make an announcement or if kids are taking too long, or during group work when there is a lot of discussion going on and y need to get everyone’s attention. That’s it.
Again, there are schools all around the country where various flavors of such responsive drill are being used as the primary teaching method, not just for refocusing or for, as another poster said above, setting some initial behavioral expectations.
TV Guide is not considered one of the most scholarly of publications.
Yet even TV Guide called B. F. Skinner’s approach to education “the taming of mankind through a system of dog obedience schools for all.”
LOL
In case you want a student’s point of view. I am only one student though and other student’s opinions may be helpful. After all, you can’t really say that WBT affects children and not have a child give their own insight, right? No offense, but adults can only say so much.
I am giving One hundred thank yous for writing this article Diane. I am an elementary student in ALPS which is Accelerated Learning Program For Students. My teacher uses WBT and has made some of us what I would say “robots”. I really dislike this way of teaching as it has for as long as I could remember held me down. Something similar had been enforced on me since kindergarten and I became quite submissive. However, I have been able to “break free”, or at least am still in the the proccess. There are a few students in my class however who have not yet realized what has happened to them. I think the students need to come to a relization of this control, if they are not paralized to the point of total obedience. After this, WBT will not particularly become that big of a problem, but those of us (half of my class or more) who have realized and rejected the control are sort of rebellious to the teacher who uses this method of WBT. It is a nightmare, yet silent. A friend and I and multiple other students have brought our disgust to our teacher, yet she still uses it and gives us constant lectures on how we can be better. And “Picture Perfect” like the kids in the videos she shows us. I think she is scared that we are going to get out of control, and needs complete control over us. For any of you that are teachers, please don’t use WBT.
It has to stop. It is not helpful to advanced students, average students, or anyone else. You might want to use it as a way to make us kids your stress-reliever, but it is not going to do any good.
Adults say we are the future. I don’t get why they do such things if this is true. The future doesn’t look to bright.
Wow! Just Wow! I teach special education. My kids love Whole Brain Teaching. In the past before Whole Brain TeachingI spent weeks trying to teach the students the steps of long division. Found a Whole Brain Teaching method using acronym of Dirty Monkeys Smell Bad. (Divide, Multiply, Subtract, Bring Down) We use gestures and make it silly and they repeat it over and over, they teach it to each other using silly hand gestures. I had tears in my eyes when during the state test, I saw one of my struggling students doing the hand gestures to remember the steps. You folks seem to think that the whole class, every second is regimented like the couple of minute videos, not so, at least not in my classroom. These strategies are used as attention getters and memory assistance. Sure, it is important to understand “why” and think deep, but bottom line, you still have to memorize facts and steps to completing math problems. As for telling your partner how much you “love” something. My kids love this! I can tell if they really liked it or they are just saying it. If they didn’t really like it, I get really sarcastic faces and eye rolls. If these are noticed, we talk about that they liked and what they didn’t. Sometimes it is something I can change and sometimes they just didn’t like it (such as memorizing multiplication facts). I mean seriously!? You were able to Break Free from Whole Brain Teaching? It made you submissive?! Someone is seeing something I am not. My kids aren’t FORCED to act like little robots!! I teach them cute hand gestures and rhymes to help them remember things and we go over them together (mirror) and then they go over them with each other (teach). These are the introducing of concepts steps. The videos don’t show the next steps which are practice and solo work because the methods aren’t used. My brain does not comprehend how anyone thinks this is mind control or brain washing. I am using my voice and my hands and posters to teach. The kids use their voices, hands, bodies and visuals to learn Wow!
I find this review of WBT absolutely inane.
Yes, I use the techniques in my classroom. Yes, even tough kids respond to it…and they do so without abusive coercion. They do so because it’s fun for them, there is a purpose, and ultimately it relieves the stress and pressure I would definitely apply if they were being rebellious.
Call backs, the three-peat, and the scoreboard game are superior to the teacher look, holding a hand in the air, counting, taking away recess, yelling, belittling, sarcasm, or any of the other ideas of the past eon.
WBT will not be the cause of another brick in their wall or any of the suggested mental disorders. The opposite is actually true! Because I can quickly, effectively, and efficiently get their attention, and have them turn to the correct page, I can get them started on engaging stations or lessons, hold student conferences, meet with small groups, and BUILD genuine RELATIONSHIPS with students who know they are secure and safe in my classroom.
#WholeBrainTeaching
Have any of the detractors here ever visited an inner city early childhood classroom? There is no indication of a need for natural exploration of inner creativity by the kids. Kids aren’t really like that any more. Given the chance, they are rather … feral. So, yes, they need structure. So why not WBT? I guess it is in the interests of certain political groups to discredit something that is working and spreading to marginalized areas so that the poor and people of color don’t succeed. It’s that obvious. By the way, teachers don’t get paid to provide an enriching childhood to kids. That’s your job, parents. They get paid to achieve results which they can get with child friendly techniques like WBT. What’s preferable?- Achieving results in a WBT environment or let an already compromised child tear up a classroom and terrorize peers because, you know, we need to let kids be kids and the parents are accountable and school counseling works (wink, wink). Don’t blame teachers for kids who are already damaged when they step into class and the Danielson rubrics and Common Core shoved down teachers’ throats. If WBT is going to help kids learn in spite of all of that, I’m all for it. As for being upset that the chair throwers aren’t going to be allowed to be chair throwers under WBT, they aren’t going to get away with this at a job 15 years later either.