Dunce's App

Dunce's App
How Silicon Valley’s brand of behaviorism has entered the classroom
By Audrey Watters
The Baffler

'Harvard University psychologist B.F. Skinner claimed that he came up with the idea for his “teaching machine” in 1953 while visiting his daughter’s fourth grade class. Skinner believed that all learning was a matter of shaping behaviors and he contended that, much like the animals he trained in his lab, students should be taught through a system of rewards and reinforcement. Machines, he considered, could do this much more reliably than teachers. This machine, Skinner argued, would address a number of flaws in the education system: it would enable students to move at their own pace through lessons and, on top of this, students would receive immediate feedback on their work.

Skinner was unsuccessful in convincing schools in the 1950s and ’60s to buy his teaching machines, but anyone who pays attention to the claims made by today’s education technology industry will recognize Skinner’s promises. These are the principles behind much of what gets touted as “personalization” today.'