A Teaching Method That Doesn't Focus On Praise And Criticism

This episode of Hidden brain tackles the issues of how people learn and of teaching methods. First off, we make a trip through history to get to know the ones who studied this behaviour and who set the standards for understanding it — Pavlov and Skinner. Pavlov's theory was that behaviour is conditioned, i.e. if you press a buzzer and show a dog food at the same time, the dog will eventually salivate just at the sound of the buzzer. Skinner's view was built around the idea of reward and punishment. 

In the '60s Karen Pryor started preparing for training dolphins, so she studied the above-mentioned theories in order to come up with a good method. The technique of positive reinforcement and sounds is still one of the most efficient ways of training dogs. Leave out the verbal incentives, and you've got the clicker training. But why I am talking about dogs and dolphins, you might be wondering.

Well, because it works with people too. As frisbee coach and orthopedic surgeon Martin Levy — who uses the clicker technique — found out while mentoring his students, "this is a very good method of freeing people up, allowing them to accept new information, without all of the debris that comes along with it. I'm quiet, you're quiet. We're just learning a skill."