My Sixth Response to Fraley

Dear Reader,

This is my sixth response to “On Verbal Behavior: The First of Four Parts” (2004) by Lawrence E. Fraley. When a teacher talks WITH, and, therefore, connects with, the students, the students experience and know very well that such a teacher is, of course, totally different from the teacher who talks AT them, who, therefore, disconnects from them. Students tell me some teachers are better than others, but they have never told me another teacher created Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) in their class-room like I do. I don’t write this to brag, but I want you to know my students tell me this every semester.

If students are given the opportunity to speak (as they are in my classes), they divulge their other teachers are sadly mainly engaging in Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). They even ask me to teach their other teachers to have SVB with them. Furthermore, they tell me how surprised they are, as they effortlessly and joyfully learn more in my class than in any other class. Also, many of them express a sense of relief as well as disbelief about the fact that I don’t punish them. At the end of each semester, they are aware the wonderful learning environment we experience as group, is not magically created by me because I am such a great teacher, but by everyone’s participation in and understanding of SVB.

How different my experience with my students is from someone like Fraley. I appreciate the fact that he is honest about it, but I can tell from his writing that he isn’t successful in connecting with his students. He laments the “superstitious student”, who “already knows, with a certainty born of faith, that a verbalizer would have to be the same mental agent that a speaker is understood to be.” Rather than considering his own forceful way of talking (NVB), Fraley prefers to believe that his students can’t understand behaviorology because of their previous beliefs.

Please, read the following long quote very carefully and realize that the NVB speaker is always blaming the listener for not listening!!! “The instructor who insists that a verbalizer is only a body that exhibits verbal behavior is making that pitch to a student who knows, with comfortable certainty, more about it than that instructor is prepared to concede. As far as that student is concerned, that instructor is constrained by some narrowing rules of scientific logic from moving conceptually into a wonderful and awesome domain where that unfettered student is free to roam. While a natural scientist may view that student’s mystical thinking as forays into a fool’s paradise along paths of self-deception, the fundamentally superstitious student has a different view. Such students interpret their own frequent reversions to superstitious interpretations as their way of keeping a finger on the pulse of reality during their temporary detours into the sadly limited world of natural science, which they are undertaking to gain insights into the often appalling limitations with which natural scientists burden themselves in order to do their necessary if somewhat dehumanizing kind of work. While superstitiously indoctrinated students theoretically can be purged of their superstitious behavior, the necessary programs of reconditioning are typically so intense and so time consuming that the arrangements for them are more characteristic of protracted therapy than of academic instructional programs. As a matter of economy, science instruction, if it is to be effective and efficient within the constraints imposed by traditional instructional operations, must be directed to students who have been kept relatively free of superstitious indoctrination. However, the selection of superstition–free students for programs designed to produce effective scientists is difficult within a superstitious culture.”

Let me now unpack for you what Fraley, the person who supposedly knows how behavior really works, unknowingly, is referring to. Any instructor, who “insists that a verbalizer is only a body that exhibits verbal behavior” and thus, is repeatedly “making that pitch to a student”, is: 1) a verbally-fixated, 2) outward-oriented, and 3) struggling NVB speaker, who doesn’t recognize the simple fact that the sound of his voice has an aversive effect on the listener. Stated differently, Fraley describes a teacher who is struggling to keep the student’s attention. If Fraley directly tells his students (and I have no doubt he does) that their belief in an inner self, who presumably causes a person to speak, is “superstitious”, he is not doing a good job at shaping their behavior.

It is interesting, however, that Fraley admits that the student “knows, with comfortable certainty, more about it than that instructor is prepared to concede.” Fraley, the instructor, the verbalizer, should learn, during the interaction, from his student, the mediator. Such learning will only occur if he is able to receive feedback from his students about how they (probably with eyes glazing over) experience his lecture. This is a very common teacher/parent/couple problem: we want others to listen to us, but we are not listening to ourselves, that is, we engage in NVB.

What now follows is Fraley’s justification for sounding horrible and dominating his listener. “As far as that student is concerned, that instructor is constrained by some narrowing rules of scientific logic from moving conceptually into a wonderful and awesome domain where that unfettered student is free to roam.” (This is comparable to a parent, who would punish a child, but insist that it is for their own good.) “While a natural scientist may view that student’s mystical thinking as forays into a fool’s paradise along paths of self-deception, the fundamentally superstitious student has a different view.” Fraley doesn’t realize that his students, like he himself, already have endured much NVB in their behavioral history and that his teaching is just more NVB.

“Such students interpret their own frequent reversions to superstitious interpretations as their way of keeping a finger on the pulse of reality during their temporary detours into the sadly limited world of natural science, which they are undertaking to gain insights into the often appalling limitations with which natural scientists burden themselves in order to do their necessary if somewhat dehumanizing kind of work.” Due to NVB, Fraley speaks of “the sadly limited world of natural science.” To someone who knows how to engage in SVB, nothing is more exciting and liberating than “the world of natural science.” It is because of NVB that Fraley is basically burdening himself and is apparently only experiencing “appalling limitations.” It is only because Fraley isn’t capable of addressing the SVB/NVB distinction that he would even describe his work as “somewhat dehumanizing.”

I strongly disagree with his analysis, as I know with SVB many things become possible which are simply impossible with NVB. Also, I find it unpragmatic (and appalling) that Fraley and with him legions of behaviorists, when they can’t have their way with pushing behavioristic jargon on people, start using bombastic terms such as superstition, indoctrination and purging of behavior, while, supposedly, we are only talking about conditioning. “While superstitiously indoctrinated students theoretically can be purged of their superstitious behavior, the necessary programs of reconditioning are typically so intense and so time consuming that the arrangements for them are more characteristic of protracted therapy than of academic instructional programs.” SVB is not therapy, but a totally different way of talking!!!

Fraley now makes a ridiculous, elitist’ proposal as he is clearly suggesting behaviorology should perhaps only be for the ‘happy few.’ He writes “As a matter of economy, science instruction, if it is to be effective and efficient within the constraints imposed by traditional instructional operations, must be directed to students who have been kept relatively free of superstitious indoctrination.” There are no such students (!) as we are all, whether we know it or not, admit it or not or are aware of it or not, conditioned by NVB. Fraley seems to realize something is wrong with his statement…“However, the selection of superstition–free students for programs designed to produce effective scientists is difficult within a superstitious culture.”