Behaviorism

What is Behaviorism?

Behaviorists believe that learning is by observing demonstrated performances. They also believe that it is important to reward or punish learners for their performances within a good environment. They believe that by correcting the negative behaviours, they can predict what the learners would become in the future.

Experience of Behaviorism

The most unforgettable experience of Behaviorism I ever had happened when I was just a kid. I could not remember how old I was when that event occurred. It was a soccer match night, my father was so concentrated on the match that he forgot I was sitting right next to him, so he started to swear, using bad language whenever his favourite team was behind. I was sitting there, not understanding what was going on, I was watching my father’s reactions, thinking that I should do the same thing. So, I started to swear, no matter what was going on on the TV, I just swore. It was funny until my mother kicked it and saw me smoothy swearing, she immediately understood the situation and punished us both. This event was so remarkable because not only that was the first time I remember getting punished, it was also the first time I remember observing and copying behaviour from others. To rethink this experience, I find it so interesting because I did not understand the reason why my father swore, I just learnt it without understanding it, and the punishment from my mother actually stopped me from swearing. As an Asian, I can say that it is very common to see parents, teachers using rewards or punishments method to educate their children, and they tend to let their children learning by practicing over and over again. In most cases, the only matter they concern about is whether their students could get the correct answers. This method might seem effective as it can be effective for teachers and parents to teach large amounts of students at the same time. But, many students are like me, who do not really understand the questions, but we still have the way to get to the correct answer because of the large amounts of practice. we do not care to understand the question because we know that as long as we get the correct answer, we get our rewards. As a result, we only get motivated when there are rewards for our doings. To me, Behavorists are more like trainers than teachers. But still, I think Behavorists are the most effective when it comes to teaching a large class.