B. F. Skinner (1987) Whatever Happened to Psychology as the Science of Behavior & (1984) The Shame of American Education.

If individualized education programs are the key to improving America's education system, do we then dis-ban special education programs in schools of education instead of entire schools of education? or Would both general education and special education programs benefit from a overhaul in terms of teaching teachers to teach?


"There is a conspiracy of silence about teaching as a skill" (Skinner 1987). (p. 947)

Skinner talks about Psychology as a science of behavior. The three obstacles to Psychology as a science of behavior were Humanistic Psychology, Psychotherapy and Cognitive Psychology. He mentioned that these three approaches are more acceptable to us and have a better appeal than the behaviorists approach (p. 785). The behaviorist approach makes connections or causes events to external stimuli. Whereas the other three approaches seem to be about the internal causes. We are less likely to want to believe that we are controlled by something or someone other than ourselves or outside of ourselves. This is so true when we think about things that we are successful or unsuccessful at. For example, when I was learning how to play softball in junior high my coach stated that if a person has rhythm, meaning if they could dance, they are usually good at playing a sport. I had never played softball ever before but I knew that I could dance and I had rhythm. So, I automatically believed that I was good at softball. I never once believed that the verbal instruction given by the assistant coach was the reason why I knew how to catch a fly ball or a ground ball or even how to bat. I was very good at this sport that I had never played before in my life. It made me feel good to know that the fact that I could dance was the very reason I was so good at it. Even if it were not the fact that I could dance, then it had to be innate. The short period that the coaches spent in explaining the techniques in my mind could not have possibly been enough to make me as good as I was. Maybe I was born with it. My expertise in the sport as far as I was concerned was not as a result of outside stimuli.

In B. F. Skinner's (1984) article The Shame of American Education he talks about the role a cognitive psychologist can play in education. He stated that they can help to construct tests that can tell us what a student has learned and how to better teach them what they did not learn. This connection between the cognitive psychologists role in education is very similar to what school psychologists attempt to do through the use of Curriculum Based Assessments. These assessments are used to help us assess what a student knows and what he or she does not know. It gives school psychologists as well as teachers a baseline of where the student is and how to structure instruction or prescribe an intervention that would work to assist the student in the areas of weaknesses.