Teacher as Therapist

by Ray Petty, David Nazro1995article

References and Quotes

Reference

Cleaning The Canvas

The therapeutic community is as close as your nearest public school. In the article Teacher as Therapist, a glimpse of Emile programmed on a national scale is available. Its innocently garrulous author paints a landscape of therapy, openly identifying schools as behavioral training centers whose positive and negative reinforcement schedules are planned cooperatively in advance, and each teacher is a therapist. Here everything is planned down to the smallest "minimal recognition," nothing is accidental. Planned smiles or "stern looks," spontaneity is a weed to be exterminated—you will remember the injunction to draw smiling faces on every paper, "even at the high school level."

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Reference

Programming The Empty Child

The creepy tone of this authorial voice reminded me of a similar modern voice used by a district school psychologist for the Londonderry, New Hampshire, public schools writing in an Education Week article, Teacher as Therapist (October 1995):

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Quote

Used in: Programming The Empty Child

"Welcome ... .” We get a good feeling on entering this classroom. [...] M&M's for every correct math problem [aren't necessary]. A smile, on the other hand, a “Good job!,” or a pat on the back may be effective and all that is necessary. Smiling faces on papers (even at the high school level), with special recognition at the end of the week for the students with the most faces [...] can be powerful [...] By setting appropriate expectations within a system of positive recognition and negative consequences, teachers become therapists. (p. 2)

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