"discussions on teaching methods tend to be plagued by overgeneralizations both with respect to the way they are classified and with respect to the way they are evaluated" (MacKenzie, Eraut, & Jones 1972, p. 124). When one compares pedagogical methods, some startling facts come to light. One, for example, is that methods vacillate between a behavioral approach which considers the learner as a programmable mechanical device, and a humanistic (or pseudo-humanistic) approach which is undisciplined and considers the learner as a malleable self-directed positively motivated and intelligent social and cultural unit. Talk about monolithism!
Two, curricula and methodologies are essentially teacher-centered or pre-determined curriculum-centered, as opposed to being learner-centered. They are developed on the basis of a linear and group-addressed program, rather than on a semi-linear or even random program derived from individual learners' feedback. They illustrate the traditional top-dictated organizational structure of pre-democratic societies, business management, and state education. Yet, "language is a social as well as an individual phenomenon... It mirrors the culture... is culturally acquired" (Finocchiaro & Bonomo 1973, p. 1).
Three, in practice, student's overt behaviors are observed and measured, whereas covert behaviors are ignored or lightly passed over or deplored... when perceived or intimated by those whose job it is to help modify behavior. To behaviorism, overt behavior is the very subject-matter of psychology, precisely because one can observe it, measure it, and shape it. It is an atomistic theory for which reflexes and the conditioned reflex are the basic units. The trouble is that the human being, though composed of atoms, is a complex system all parts of which are dynamically interrelated. "Atomism is in essence an analytical doctrine. It regards observable forms in nature not as intrinsic wholes but as aggregates" (E...