Behaviorism At Its Finest

In a number of my undergraduate education courses at Southern I have been asked to answer the question which developmental model do you think works best, which developmental model would you use in your classroom, etc. Each time this questioned is answered the majority of the class, including myself, all say some type of constructivism is best, because it treats students as individuals and helps them develop their learning with each other and the teacher. In a constructivist classroom, the teacher figures out what the students know, and construct the new material in a way that would add on to their students' knowledge. The students also work together in a classroom to learn new perspectives; by working in groups students have the opportunity to learn a new perspective on certain subjects that they might not have considered had they not talked with their peers.

Although most people would agree this is the ideal scenario for a classroom, most schools don't focus on this approach. Instead we see behaviorism. A clear motto of the behaviorist approach is teach it, learn it, test it; and that's how students are supposed to learn. When we talk and discuss this in class, everyone says this isn't useful because kids aren't learning to know the content. They're learning to know it for a test and move on to the next subject. So why use this in school? In today's society in schools, tests are the most important aspect of the school; not how the students learn. Our teacher's main purpose is to test so our test scores go up and our school does well. It's a shame that most teachers know the behaviorist approach isn't ideal for our students, but it's the way we continue to teach. It is evident that something needs to be done in order to change the way our students learn. Schools should focus more on the best learning style for the students instead of what make the school look best.