NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/bit/listserv/csgl/1952

Text File | 1992-12-23 | 5.6 KB | 108 lines

Comments: Gated by [e-mail]
Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!paladin.american.edu!auvm!UIUC.EDU!G-CZIKO
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.csg-l
Date:         Tue, 22 Dec 1992 22:34:12 -0600
Sender:       "Control Systems Group Network (CSGnet)" <[e-mail]>
Comments:     Warning -- original Sender: tag was [e-mail]
From:         "Gary A. Cziko" <[e-mail]>
Subject:      PCT For the Rest of Us
Lines: 96

[from Gary Cziko 921223.0315 GMT]

Bill Powers (921222.0800) observes:

>As long as the list of people actually
>devising and carrying out experiments and modeling is limited to
>Rick Marken, Tom Bourbon, and me, the queue of possible
>experiments with HPCT is going to grow while the actual work done
>trudges along at a slow pace.

>When I last looked, there were 132 subscribers to this list.
>Permit me a moment of impatience: when are some of you people
>going to get out of your armchairs?

I can understand Bill's frustration that there are so few people on this
planet who are doing basic research on PCT.  But surely, while the modeling
is very important, I would like to think that there are lots of ways of
advancing PCT without doing the nitty-gritty modeling.  Look at what Phil
Runkel, Kent McClelland and Ed Ford have done with PCT--none of them
modellers.  As for me, while I am eager to learn as much as I can from
others' modelling efforts, I don't see myself doing this kind of research
other than for learning PCT and helping my students learn it.  I am
interested in trying to apply what PCT has already shown us about human
behavior to real problems that cannot wait until all the 11 or so levels
have been mapped out and fully understood (if ever).

For example, lately I have been considering how PCT could be used to
understand and help minority children in our schools.  It has been noted
(primarily by John Ogbu at Stanford and his colleagues) that cultural and
language differences are in themselves not obstacles to school success.
Many children (e.g., Asians in the U.S.) excel in U.S. a few years after
arrival here.  Others (e.g., Blacks and Native Americans) do not do nearly
so well.  Ogbu tries to make sense out of this by observing that the
voluntary minorities see cultural and language differences as obstacles to
overcome in order to succeed while involuntary minorities tend to see
cultural and language differences as a type of protective barrier to
maintain.  So it is not cultural and language differences which "cause"
academic failure, but rather the goals of the students.  I think that PCT
could be very useful in furthering our understanding of this.

I also think PCT could form the core of programs designed to help minority
students.  Take Black students, for example.  They should already be
learning in school about how many Black Americans were able to accomplish
remarkable things in spite of the persecution and discrimination they
suffered.  But do they learn HOW this was possible?  Do they learn how such
people were able to rise above the "disturbances" imposed by the majority
society and achieve their goals?  Of all the sociological and psychological
theories I know about, only PCT can make sense of this.  And PCT can also
give minority students the basis for understanding how they can also
achieve very "improbable" goals in spite of the disturbances they will
encounter and how the group statistics on drop-out rates and drug usage
don't mean a thing to a living control system which has other goals.

When I put my imagination loop in overdrive I can begin to see PCT at the
core of a new curriculum for minority children.  Starting with learning
about remarkable individuals of their and other minority groups through
literature and history and films.  Then learning about PCT and how this
remarkable new perspective on life explains how people control and are not
controlled by their environment.  And how PCT gives a new understanding of
stress and conflict and how to find alternatives to violence.  And then
getting into the kinds of things that Ed Ford does in having peolple
examine their needs and priorities and helping them get what they really
want out of life by looking at the world from the very top of their control
hierarchy.

If it is not clear that such ideas are needed in American schools NOW, take
a look at part of recent note from my sister who is a high school teacher
in New York City.

>I can't begin
>to tell you how my high school has deteriorated.  4200 students,
>metal detectors, 17 full time security guards and still one of my
>ninth graders was shot right on the front steps in October.  Kids
>sleep in class (when they come) or talk and curse through much of
>the lesson and the small group in each class that is still trying
>is so far behind in skills that I often feel its hopeless.

So while the modelling must be done so that PCT will have a firm base, I
don't think many of us with applied interests should or need to wait much
longer.  I'm still trying to get the basics down and finish up some
previously started projects.  But once I have the expertise and time, I am
going to apply what is already known about PCT to real problems.  Who
knows.  Maybe even the computer modellers will find results of such
applications interesting.--Gary



------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary A. Cziko                    Telephone: [phone]
Educational Psychology           FAX: [phone]
University of Illinois           E-mail: [e-mail]
1310 S. Sixth Street             Radio: N9MJZ
210 Education Building
Champaign, Illinois 61820-6990
USA
------------------------------------------------------------------