VIP & BAO.ORG

(1)     Sorry, Joe, under no circumstances would I participate in this
program.  It's no more, and no less, one more step in the direction of the
development of behavior analysis, and especially 'applied' behavior
analysts, into a cult.

To quote myself:

"We're great at explaining ourselves to ourselves and at neglecting to note
that there are many others with whom we should converse, to whom we may
contribute, from whom we might learn, and with whom we may
accommodate.  Behavior analysis must _not_ become a cult."

There is already far too much evidence that the process of cult-formation
is already too far advanced…

Today's NYT reports that 42 (1 out of every 6) of Philadelphia's schools
(most failing victims of educationalism?) are being privatized, most of
them contracted out to the "Edison" people, five to Temple University,
three to the Univ. of Pa, and the remaining fourteen to four other bodies,
with a variety of methodologies.  Do any of these apply the methodologies
of applied behavior analysis?  Will the able behavior analysts (both exptal
and applied) at Temple participate?  If not, why not?  How many such
schools and charter schools have behavior analysts set up, worked in _or_ with?

Are we talking only to ourselves, and not to parents, school boards, review
boards, and those politically responsible for education?

Shouldn't behavior analysts be out there running schools and teaching, by
example?  (Whatever became of Don Cooke's very beh. an. endeavors?)

(2)     I'd like to believe that I'm totally out of the loop, laboring
under a great misapprehension, and that the foregoing is altogether
wrong-headed.  Then, there's another reason I can't participate in
Nietsche.  I'm 86 and live on the end of a fifty or sixty foot oxygen
tube.  Emphysema precludes long-term commitments--of which I already have
too many!

W.S.V.

P.S.  I note that the record of Edison's schools is lousy.  Should behavior
analysts try to teach _them_ something?

W.S.V.



_____________________________________________
    William S. Verplanck          [email protected]
  An award-winning site: http://web.utk.edu/~wverplan/
    http://web.utk.edu/~wverplan/kantor/kantor.html
_____________________________________________