Chapter 9: Behavioral Conditioning for Schools and Capitalism
from the book "RootEd: How Trauma Impacts Learning and Society" by S.R. Zelenz
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.” Edward Bernays, Propaganda
Behavioral Conditioning in Schools
If coercion or external motivation is such a deterrent for learning, why do schools use it? Many would argue that they spend far more time with classroom management than they have time to teach various methods on how to read or do maths (or any other subject). This has become such a focus that there are significant books and strategies encouraged by teachers and for teachers on how to manage classroom behavior. This is where behavioral conditioning in school becomes paramount.
Noam Chomsky has been known to speak on the topic of how the education system was “designed to turn independent farmers into disciplined factory workers” and that the society as a whole believes that:
People are supposed to be passive and apathetic and doing what they are told by the responsible people who are in control. That’s elite ideology across the political spectrum - from liberals to Leninists, it’s essentially the same ideology: people are too stupid and ignorant to do things by themselves so for their own benefit we have to control them. (Kasenbacher, 2012, para. 11)
Additionally, schools track behavior records, and generate profiles on students which frequently label their behavior. This occasionally results in recommendations for medical intervention, such as drugging the child into compliance through medical approval. The sheer number of students medicated for behavior issues in American schools since the late 1990s’s is staggering. Between 2011-2012, The National Center for Health Statistics reported that 7.5% of children in the United States between the ages of 6 and 17 were prescribed medication to control emotional or behavioral challenges (Howie, Pastor, & Lukacs, 2014). The number of children under the age of 18 that are prescribed psychostimulants increased six-fold to 4.2% from statistics taken between 1988-1994 and compared to 2007-2010 and that 1.3% of the children were prescribed antidepressants (National Center for Health Statistics, 2014).
What has resulted since the initial educational efforts of schools in the early 20th century has now become something which has been used through various media and social media platforms to manipulate behaviors of individuals throughout the world in order to create behavior patterns that fulfill the goals of the persons responsible for such campaigns. Cambridge Analytica is a perfect example of how tracking behavior patterns of individuals and collecting their data can be used to create very targeted campaigns to change their behavior and manipulate them to choose something they may not have otherwise. This includes choosing things that are actually not in their best interest or the best interest of the nation (Amer & Noujaim, 2019). At this juncture, any former protestation over the manipulation of minds for corporations has now been much more deeply transferred to the benefit of governments as well. This is additionally reinforced by school districts who force teachers to sign documents saying that they will never say anything against their government. This perhaps is intended to prevent teachers from inciting dangerous behaviors, but it also reinforces following what they are told, and reinforcing children to do what they are told. This is not the way in which democracy can function.
Over the last century, the world has seen numerous countries challenge the ruling classes. This resulted in revolutions that in many cases turned into dictatorships, communism, fascism, and other states where a vocal demagogue could easily persuade the masses to follow his lead in order to change the way that society has endured under the former leadership. In America, the increased exposure to schooling has directly correlated to decreases in challenging the ruling class. This was not the case in late 19th century America. Those with little or no schooling were able to organize trade unions, a large-scale working people’s cooperative, and many other political movements that forever changed the trajectory of America including breaking the power of large banks in order for farmers to obtain easier credit (Levine, 2018).
John Taylor Gatto (1990) stated while accepting the New York City Teacher of the Year Award,
The truth is that schools don’t really teach anything except how to obey orders. This is a great mystery to me because thousands of humane, caring people work in schools as teachers and aids and administrators, but the abstract logic of the institution overwhelms their individual contributions. (Levine, 2018, p. 95)
Psychologist, Bruce E. Levine, has spoken extensively about these shifts in America and finds that schools teach compliance to hierarchy, obedience to authority devoid of actual respect, trains students to regurgitate information, socializes passivity in students and teachers, and for all to blindly adhere to reward and punishment systems implemented by authority figures (2018). One of the most concerning aspects he addresses is how people in our society currently pretend to care about things that are unimportant to them while simultaneously incapable of changing a life unsatisfying to them (Levine, 2018).
Jonathan Kozol, an educator and outspoken critic of the American education system excelled in his elite prep school career and later Harvard education. Kozol claims that children learn quickly that they will not succeed in school by expressing themselves, and that dissent must be channeled into polite discussion (Levine, 2018). Levine further highlights how Kozol states that institutions teach inert concern, which insinuates that caring is ethical by its own merits, but “disobedience is immature” (Levine, 2018).
It was previously mentioned that many nations that overthrew their governments were subsequently found to fall prey to communist dictatorships and fascism. This may also appear to align with what Noam Chomsky was referring to regarding people not knowing how to lead. There is truth to that as they have not had experience with leadership, nor have they received any formal or informal training on how leadership works. Former training was isolated to employment alone. There was no collaborative opportunity in their nations that offered any concept of democracy nor how to facilitate it effectively. The population was still programmed to be led and the most motivating voice that rose from the crowd drew their attention easily as they had already been trained to follow what appeared to be grand leaders from their former monarchies. None in the populace had any real experience with leadership and no knowledge of how to navigate a changing political landscape. Those who projected that they knew what to do easily persuaded the masses to believe them by telling them what they wanted to hear, regardless of their ability to fulfill those promises.
Much of the last century found many nations, including the United States, flooded with propaganda materials. The propaganda was designed to manipulate population behavior to support the goals of the government so that it could have more support than resistance to fulfill its numerous agendas. One such propaganda tool that emerged was the television. Just as the form of public schooling is content, so is the form of television broadcasting. Today, we would see the same in our online media and social network advertising exposure. Cambridge Analytica used our personal data to design propaganda designed to target individuals who were deemed persuadable in order to manipulate them in a particular direction to help facilitate political goals. This content was not necessarily factual. It was designed to invoke an emotional response as emotions tend to drive behavior. This is a conditioning process that utilizes the human trauma response to generate predictable behavior patterns.
Educational institutions are masters at engineering attitude and habit training. This is achieved through the structure and reinforced through punishments and award systems. Alexander Inglis wrote in his book (1918) “Principles of Secondary Education” that the purpose of education was to make people predictable in order for the economy to be rationalized. Make people predictable in order to accomplish this goal. Since humans are not predictable, the primary goal of school is to achieve this goal. Since he wrote this book in 1918, it has become very obvious that the vain attempt to control human behavior is not so easily achieved. Schools have resorted to corporal punishment and the medication of children in order to reinforce this goal. If you were to ask any school administrator or teacher today, they would tell you that their number one issue is still classroom management. This will never change.
Darwin’s “Descent of Man” motivated much of the decisions in the educational and business managerial systems when he stated that the overwhelming majority of human biology is fatally corrupted and cannot be improved because it is so far gone (1871). Much of what he wrote resulted in numerous atrocities in the last century such as locking up mentally ill persons, keeping them away from the remaining population so that they do not corrupt society. These gave many leaders the idea that they could manipulate the development of human improvement. This also resulted in breeding experiments and extermination of those who were deemed inferior in Nazi Germany (Spitz, 2005). In Nazi Germany and the United States, there were entire groups of people who were involuntarily sterilized so that they could not reproduce (Spitz, 2005; Wills, 2017). Many leaders were convinced they could achieve the perfection of the human race by taking measures into their own hands. The very first President of Stanford University, who held the position for 30 years, organized a class that would politically and intellectually take leadership over these decisions (Mendizza, 2009).
Darwin was not the first to address the ineptitude of man. John Calvin, French theologian, pastor and reformer in Geneva during the Protestant Reformation (1509-1564) stated, “that the damned are many times larger in number than the saved. The ratio is about twenty to one. There are too many damned to overwhelm with force, so you have to cloud their minds and set them into meaningless competitions with one another in ways that will eat up that energy” (Mendizza, 2009). In 1669, secular philosopher, Benedict Spinoza wrote that there were no damned or evil people because there was no supernatural world. He was more interested in the disproportion between those who have good sense, those who have what seems to be permanently irrational thinking, and those who are truly dangerous (Spinoza, 1669). He suggested an institutional school structure system as a ‘civil religion’ to eliminate formal religion, which he felt was irrational and dangerous, and to destroy the imagination of the irrational to prevent maximum damage (Spinoza, 1669). He also suggested that without this, people struggle against the chains and potentially cause local damage without doing fundamental structural harm since they cannot think beyond what they know (Spinoza, 1669).
As mentioned in a previous chapter, institutional schooling began in Prussia. In the early 1800s. Johann Gottlieb Frichte, a German philosopher, addressed the nation by explaining that Prussia’s defeat with Napoleon was a direct result of soldiers taking decisions into their own hands instead of following orders (Frichte, 1808). His suggestion was that a national system of training would prevent those in the underclasses from imagining any other way to do things (Frichte, 1808). The very first institutional form of mass shooting occurred in 1820 (Mendizza, 2009). Class structure (social class) seemed rather fixed, according to Darwin (1871).
Behavioral psychologist, Wilhelm Wundt, began the first Institute for Experimental Psychology at the University of Leipzig in Germany in 1879. As we can see, the world at this point in time was ripe with change. Pairing the emerging study of psychology with the expansion of compulsory education would later lead to further experimentation on children and for the purpose of behavioral training and control.
Classical conditioning was the first of what would be many attempts to manipulate the learning process. Classical conditioning is most commonly recognized as Pavlovian training, named for the psychologist who identified the way in which animals could be trained to respond to bells. Ivan Petrovitch Pavlov, a Russian psychologist, did his experiments on dogs in 1890. His first attempts were to measure salivation response in dogs when presented with food. He soon discovered that the salivation response would eventually occur as a result of hearing the scientist's footsteps in anticipation of the food that would soon arrive. The eventual realization was that dogs do not need to be trained to salivate. However, they can be conditioned to salivate through repetitive behavior triggers (Pavlov, 1926).
John B. Watson, behaviorist, believed that classical conditioning could explain all human behavior. He performed what is known as The Little Albert Experiment in 1920. In this experiment, a 9-month-old baby was exposed to various animals to set the normal response pattern that the child had no fear of animals. In order to condition the boy, a white rat was used. Every time the white rat was presented. Dr. Watson would make a very loud noise with a metal bar to scare the child. After numerous instances of this sound paired with the white rat presentation, the baby soon showed fear of the white rat with or without the sound (Watson & Rayner, 1920).
Burrhus Frederic Skinner would later take the front stage with his experiments that demonstrated programmed actions could be accomplished if the subject were properly trained through reward and punishment scenarios. Skinner differed from the classical conditioning behaviorists. He believed that humans also have a mind with more complex events worthy of study. He was more focused on looking at the cause of an action and what consequences resulted. His method was later called operant conditioning. Operant conditioning focused on how pleasant experiences in direct response to a behavior would encourage future continuation of the behavior, just as negative and unpleasant experiences in direct response to behavior would discourage future continuation of the behavior.
B. F. Skinner based his research on another behavioral psychologist, Edward L. Thorndike, who determined learning theory at the Teachers College in 1898, which became the foundational focus for educational psychology. Thorndike identified that "responses that produce a satisfying effect in a particular situation become more likely to occur again in that situation, and responses that produce a discomforting effect become less likely to occur again in that situation” (Gray, 2011, p. 108–109). So, it is easy to see the way in which education evolved. It began with theologians and philosophers and was later to be adopted by psychologists and behaviorists. What has transpired since the behaviorists has only enhanced tactics that still support these psychological theories. There has been no further evolution in the psychology field to address education outside of the introduction of behavioral disorders and prescription medications to control behavior. This has resulted in even bigger profits for those who have their fingers dipped in the educational institution pot.
Private corporate foundations have been invested in the management of forced institutional schooling since the first Congressional Commission, called the Walsh Committee, in 1915. Justification for these actions was the ultimate goal of a utopian society and stable social order. It would appear that despite these goals over 100 years ago, forced educational schooling has failed to provide such results. In fact, it would appear that they have produced behavior due to the escalation of mass shootings on a regular basis across the entire nation
Behavior Control Takes Precedence Over Learning
As previously mentioned, most teachers feel that classroom management takes a large portion of their efforts and time. Some feel they have things under control due to very strict protocols and institutional programs that are designed to remove disruptive students. Although attendance in school is compulsory, learning is not. It is encouraged through examinations, which are tied to government funding of schools. This motivates the administrators to pressure teachers to be efficient in their teaching and this has pressured instruction to teach to the test, rather than encourage genuine critical thinking skills. Yet, even with the most basic skill, literacy has fallen in recent decades to pre-20th century rates.
At the start of World War II (1939), literacy rates were found to be 97% of the adult population. When looking at the twenty-year survey of literacy rates in America, we can see that 20% of adults were illiterate in 1870. From that point forward, rates stayed similar, with a brief decrease followed by improving rates by 1979. High school also became more commonly pursued after World War II. This may have played a role in improved literacy rates. More years in school, improved textbooks, and more professionally trained educators played a role in improvements.
It would appear that efforts to improve education were successful. However, when we look at the most recent statistics of literacy rates in America, we see that these gains have taken a turn for the worse. This is after all of the major reforms in the 1980’s, 1990’s, No Child Left Behind, and the introduction of the Internet to the world. Access to information is clearly not a factor in decreased literacy rates. So, textbooks play no significant role since literally every type of information possible is available if one were to pursue it. This is far more information than what was available to anyone in the 1970’s, let alone the 1940’s.
Educational spending has increased substantially since the 1940’s and 1970’s, yet despite the effort to provide more support for learning, we do not see improvement. We see decreases in learning. The first angle of attack is to attack the teachers. Yet, today we find more and more school districts requiring teachers to be ever more educated. Many require master's degrees and continuing education classes to always stay current with the most recent strategies and trends. There are more education experts with doctorate degrees now than were ever available in the 1940’s.
The only major change that began as early as the 1980s, and exploded from the 1990’s on, was the use of pharmaceutical interventions to control behavior. This was not present before. That accounts for 9.4% of students nationwide diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder alone according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (CDC, 2019). There are numerous other diagnoses that can contribute to educational outcomes, including a very widely used diagnosis of Autism. Other interesting new diagnoses include things such as Oppositional Defiance Disorder. Most of these diagnoses will be described in medical textbooks as in relation to behavior, but especially as it pertains to classrooms.
Behavioral Conditioning for Capitalism
Why would we need behavior conditioning for schools? One would say in order to ensure students learn. However, it does not appear that this has been effective after the last century of educational reforms. We still have no progress. Perhaps there is something larger that this behavioral conditioning is designed for.
One could easily argue that this conditioning is preparing students for their future employment environments. This may have been true at some point, but as education has expanded, the purpose has become more and more muddled. Many justify the variety of subjects as exposing students to more for broader choice in their economic pursuits and employment options. Rare few truly specialize in the more complex subjects that are frequently required for high school graduation or college graduation. The higher the education, the more writing involved, and most of those degrees lead to professorships. As far as professional careers, the majority lead to teaching. There are experts in various fields who perform research independent of an educational institution, but they frequently work for government agencies or research laboratories funded by corporations who have very specific goals in mind. This can also influence the research and lead to commercial sale of products not adequately tested as safe for public consumption. Despite the consumer protections in place, there are a lot of failed products that find themselves in our consumer market.
Pressure to deliver in a short time frame takes precedence over safety and quality in many industries. As students, we find children trained to perform under pressure with a finite deadline as well. The competition to perform above all others is the primary focus. Whether the personal best is attained seems almost secondary to winning above others. For those who are on the production side of corporate structure, they often do not find themselves with the freedom to be innovative. They are given instructions or orders and expected to follow through. This can be under management that may or may not have better skills or knowledge than they do. There are many highly intelligent and skilled employees who find themselves incredibly hampered by their employment situation. They may attempt to do things on their own outside of the regular office hours, but they are limited with time and energy. This slows their development of new things, and sometimes dissuades them from pursuing anything at all. A rare few will push on no matter what. The system itself is designed to wear down employees so that they don’t usurp their employers and design something better, thus becoming competition.
What this has done is create a world where the population would rather purchase from big name corporations than from their innovative friends or family. Innovators find that they usually have to seek support from complete strangers who see the skills and expertise separate from the person as an individual. We have created a society that dismisses the individual. The loyalty is to corporations and brands, not individuals. This results in people desiring to be employed by these big corporations. It is a status symbol.
Why would there be a need to reduce competition? Well, the market price is influenced by access to goods. If there is an overabundance of a certain type of product, the cost goes down and the profits decrease. Production must increase to meet demand. This results in more expenses for the corporation. It is less expensive to keep competition low, manufacture a limited number of items, and keep prices high so that demand is high. This decreases the corporation’s overhead expenses and increases profits for shareholders. This also reinforces brand recognition and brand loyalty, while also motivating the best in their fields to desire to work for these companies rather than start their own businesses. Lack of funding is often given as reason for this, but most simply do not have the stamina to endure what it takes to start a company and ensure it thrives.
Was this an innate issue or was this conditioned? After a minimum of 12 years of formal compulsory education that would not allow students to innovate or challenge the status quo, it is easier to see that they very well had it conditioned out of them to follow the leader rather than to lead. There are leadership opportunities within schools, but they are limited and skill specific. Absolutely none of them allow for governance of an entire institution or large peer group. What these leadership roles equate to is management, not leadership. How can they when the institution is also management and not leadership?
The way in which society is conditioned to follow orders serves the marketing efforts of these corporations. Language choices invoke emotions, suggest identity, and pressure decisions. In fact, these same sales scripts are often used in classroom teaching strategies and suggested to parents to be used with their children to motivate behavior. Everyone is being sold a script that is designed to manipulate decisions and behavior. Rather than providing all of the information in order to make a logical decision, manipulative language is used to push the person to do what the salesperson, teacher, or parent wants. What this does is dismiss the intellectual faculties of the person being manipulated. When that person is not given an opportunity to question what is being asked nor given an opportunity to explore facts or options, the response from the manipulator is retaliatory in most cases. This is where guilt, shame, and projection come into play. Manipulation is intended to make the receiver feel as if they are a bad person for not doing what they were told. Whether that is fact, is beside the point.
This is also how marketing has convinced consumers to purchase things they do not need. This has resulted in the manufacture of millions of items that are not only unnecessary and frequently unused, but also fill our landfills and pollute the earth in ways that are literally destroying our environment. Those who question this are treated as traitors and dismissed as villains. All of this fits the narcissistic abuse cycle.
Student Resistance
Since behavior management is the primary focus of educators worldwide, there must be a reason for the behavior. Why would children need to be controlled? What are they doing that needs to be controlled? Why would they behave this way? What motivates their behavior? Ironically, these questions are never asked by school administrators or educators. There is a blanket assumption that children are inherently bad and that they need to be trained to behave as civilized members of society. This is reinforced with parents so that there is a unified front in this attempt. It is so extreme that pressure to put children in school at younger and younger ages is seen as an achievement and guarantee of success.
Parents are willing to pay large sums of money to have their children placed in schools as early as possible. Why would parents be so eager to put their beloved children in the hands of strangers when they are quite young? They have been manipulated to believe that their child will fail in life if they do not receive the best education possible as early as possible. As if there is a ticking time bomb above their child’s head that says they are too late if they don’t do these things as quickly as possible. Parents become quite competitive over this. It’s almost as if getting one’s child in a school early is a sign of competitive success. They win. They achieved the goal that was challenged before them. They don’t even question why.
Children go through separation anxiety because it is unnatural to separate a child from its mother at a young age. It is such a common issue that there are books and numerous resources to help parents expedite the process so that the educators (or childcare workers) can move forward with the tasks at hand with no further disruption. The sooner the child no longer needs the parent, the more convenient for the educator. No one questions what is best for the child and they certainly don’t ask the child what they want. They are irrelevant.
Younger and younger children are finding themselves diagnosed with the previously mentioned behavior disorders and recommended prescription drugs in order to facilitate the educator’s efforts with less disruption. No one asks why the child might be disruptive. That child’s experience is irrelevant.
As the child matures, they find that this manner in which they are always dismissed becomes so aggravating that they begin to cause much bigger problems both at school and at home. Again, no one asks why the child might feel this way. The child’s experience is irrelevant. It must be handled and taken care of so that the adults can continue with their plans for the child.
Some children eventually give in and stop arguing. At this juncture, the teachers and parents are pleased that the child has succumbed to the expectations and no longer questions why or whether it is OK that they are experiencing these things. They just do what they are told and get it done in order to move on to what they do want for themselves. Some parents allow the children freedom of choice in that, others do not. Some parents have children so over-scheduled that they become psychologically depressed and withdrawn. At this point, the child no longer wants to talk about it because they already know that no one will hear them no matter what they say. They realize their cage.
There are parents who are abusive and educators who are abusive. This is another level of issue that plays a role. However, the abuse is always tied to the narcissistic abuse cycle and thus very easy to predict and manage when those in charge are aware and can make protections for the child to no longer be subjected to the treatment. However, the system itself also uses the narcissistic abuse cycle in order to function. So, the child may only find themselves removed from the more dangerous version only to be left within the same cage, but less terrifying. This is easier to accept, if the child can accept that it is safe. Most of them do not. This is why they will not trust the adults who attempt to help them. They know that the whole situation is just another layer of the same thing. They know they will not be listened to and will never be given agency over their experience. Their need to survive will always take precedence over the need to please adults. The more the adults control them, the more the child will become destructive in response to the trauma they feel they cannot escape.