"Make good choices."

Begun on 2/5/12 at 8:28 P.M.

This is part of a new behavioral modification program implemented in the last few years at at least one school in a particular district. Actually I think I have heard this said in another district, too.

Making good choices might is same as making smart choices - it requires the virtue of prudence. One needs to learn how to choose in accordance with ends, and to set goals for one's self. But is it possible to develop prudence when the child hasn't attained the age of reason yet?

Internalizing standards may require, beyond outward conformity, the understanding the reasons for them. But it is not apparent to me that for children below a certain age that this is a better method than "traditional" discipline and its emphasis on obedience. ("Stop talking" versus "You need to learn in order to do well, go to college, accomplish x, y, z.") In fact, it may be worse, in so far as the reasons offered are the goods/goals of mass education and the associated goods/goals of the modern industrial political economy. At one district the expectation that the students will go to college is strengthened. For example, teachers are encouraged to display their degrees in their classroom.

This approach at behavior modification does not imply the lack of discipline or punishments, usually referred to as "consequences" for poor behavior. The same set of non-corporal punishments are available to reinforce making the "right" choices and that line of moral thinking. (Keep in mind that academic success is gauged by performance in the modern classroom - there are few alternatives, especially for boys. How are many children not being set up for failure and destruction of true self-esteem?)

Do the "creators" of this method appeal to some sort of psychological or scientific basis for such an approach to behavior modification? Has it been incorporated into child psychology/child education classes for the M. Ed? We are aware of how the insights incorporated into tradition and "common sense" wisdom regarding children has been discarded in favor of scientific pretense.