B. F. Skinner, an American behavioral psychologist, is known for his many contributions to learning theory. His Behavior of Organisms (1938) reports his experiments with the study of reflexes. Walden Two (1949), a utopian novel, describes a planned community in which positive rather than negative reinforcers serve to maintain appropriate behavior; the novel stimulated the founding of some experimental communities. In Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971), Skinner attempted to show that only what he called a technology of behavior could save democracy from the many individual and social problems that plague it. (An early example of this technology is the so-called Skinner box for conditioning a human child.) A teacher at Harvard University from 1948 until his retirement, Skinner was for some the model of the objective scientist, for others the epitome of the heartless behaviorist who would turn people into automatons.

Skinner has written some books that are about theories and principles of behaviorism applied to social or philosophical questions. Unfortunately, these books overlooked what Skinner did best - behavioral analysis. This book sticks to that and how to apply it to education, a field where it can be very useful. I use his techniques with my students. Skinner is also very familiar with the field of Education and implicitly responds to other educational thinkers like Dewey, etc.

Skinner often gets a bad rap (and is frequently confused with Pavlov whom he couldn't be more dissimilar from), but he is actually one of the more progressive educational thinkers of all time and was instrumental in raising the standard of care for intellectually disabled people and was adamant about educational reform.

He opposes the use of punishment (which most other educational psychologists and philosophers still support) and is quite frank about the fact that we use the threat of force or law to keep children in school. On the other hand, Skinner is not wishy-washy about being firm in the classroom.

He is practical. He comes up with procedures for keeping a classroom orderly and the kinds of drill and skill techniques that enhance learning and enhance motivation. Unlike his other books where he talks about Behaviorism, in this one, he shows how to employ these techniques in a classroom. And boy, does it ever work.

A caveat - Skinner comes up with what is essentially a computer program for immediate reinforcement, which was prescient of recent developments. Personally, I've seen these programs in action - they're egregious and they don't work because they ignore the grammatical and creative portions of writing to focus on what can be tested the most easily - spelling and vocabulary vis-a-vis fill in the blank questions. They also can't measure something a human finds simple which is the crux of good writing - writing to your audience. To be honest, I'd skim those chapters, unless you want to understand why these programs are in schools.

Still, this book is not to be missed by any educator capable of reading it. Skinner writes very clearly and his ideas and insight are not to be missed. It is one of the best books ever written on Pedagogy and easily the most scientific.

By: Mike@Amazon.com