B.F. Skinner, help!

Whatever happened to plain psychology? It used to be so simple. It was based on observation of behavior, especially in terms of stimulus and response. Ring the bell and the dog salivates (that was Pavlov, not Skinner).

Behavioral psychology really didn't have that much wrong with it; it was simple. Prevent the bad behavior from happening and reward good behavior. But we can't say bad behavior anymore, because it might offend someone.

It used to be that reprimands and discipline for children meant that children were better behaved. In the animal kingdom, mothers discipline their young all the time. It's a matter of survival. Humans have gone from disciplining to abusing or becoming permissive, depending on who is the judge. What we have now is a horde of youngsters with terrible manners, rotten posture, no common sense and wired to the hilt. ADD, ADHD, borderline autism, etc. are the keywords that describe behaviors now.

Don't get me wrong; I've seen my share of children and people with bonafide mental disorders. In my day, we had (as far as I can remember) kids that were mentally retarded or had other learning disabilities in school. They went on a little yellow bus somewhere and we didn't engage with them much. Then there were the bullies, the baddies and the sissies and the tattletales. Of course, we all worked our way around those guys. If someone hit us in school, we would go home and tell our parents and our moms were on the phone to the bad kid's parents in a New York minute. People handled problems themselves. They talked to each other. If something got bad enough at school, the kid causing it would get sent to the principal's office. We were all scared to death of the principal. I don't even remember any of the principals; we never saw them. The principal was like God, sitting in some throne in an unseen place. Even as a middle aged Boomer, I still get the willies going to ANY principal's office. I get nervous in school offices. And I'm a teacher! The office was forbidden territory in my school days. We respected the teachers.

While we played outside and managed to survive recess with all the jungle gyms and exercise equipment that apparently kills kids now, we had a "monitor." This might be a teacher or a teacher's helper, but still it was an authority figure. At recess we all stayed away from the boys with taps on their shoes. Those were the bad kids and we knew it. They were the troublemakers. They were tough. They wore leather jackets to school. And I am speaking of third grade! The kids with taps hung out together, sneered at the rest of us and killed insects with a magnifying glass and the sun. They liked to burn stuff, especially if it was alive. But they limited their murderous antics to insects and leaves. We let the playground monitors handle those guys while we played kickball and tetherball and dodgeball and climbed on the bars. It seems we were very active, always moving around, and there weren't many fat kids in school.

The best days in school were Wednesdays and Fridays. Wednesday was hot dog day. We didn't have to dig into our lunch boxes to trade with another kid who had something we wanted. We could buy hot dogs, with or without mustard. Friday was ice cream day. A guy would come with his cart and we would buy our favorite ice cream treats. I liked the Big Sticks the best.

We would guzzle water from the water fountain that probably had lead in the pipes. In general, we seemed pretty normal and healthy and life was simple. I don't recall any of us getting salmonella or some horrible disease from drinking water from the fountain. Either I'm dreadfully out of touch or most of us lived through it. Judging from my peers that are still alive, most of us didn't die from anything we did in school.

It seems that now, every discipline problem is a mental illness. An ill-equipped parent has a problem dealing with an unruly kid and is afraid to discipline the kid because just about any discipline is considered child abuse. A few years ago when I was having a garage sale in the States, I saw a mother "disciplining" her toddler girl by explaining why she couldn't do such and such...the mother used all of the right "I" statements and stated clearly how the baby's behavior made her FEEL, and she went on with this amusing discourse while chasing the child all over the place. The little girl was no older than two. I wondered if this mother had any friends. And I wondered why she didn't have the kid in one of those fancy backpack things. Most likely because the little girl would clobber her for any kind of attempted restraint that would stifle her creative expression and scar her for life.

Sadly, the revolutionary days of behavioral psychology are over. Behavioral psychology only applies to rats now. Humans have apparently transcended B.F. Skinner's work by turning everything into a mental illness. That way, no discipline is required. Only medication and talk therapy. From what I see on the airwaves and internet, all three hundred million people in the U.S. are engaged in talk therapy, but who is listening? That's something I couldn't figure out. But then, I went to school in the primitive days. Maybe I can find a Gen Y with no known mental disorder to explain it to me. The problem with that idea is that I can't understand a word they say for all the tongue piercings that make clanking noises and lisps when they talk. They get very impatient when someone can't understand them the first time. As far as I can tell, nobody is really saying much of anything worthwhile, it's a lot of complaining and whining and buzzwords, all basically saying, "I'm so special."

Don't think it isn't noticed elsewhere; South of the Border here, school is still simple, if very expensive. Kids wear uniforms, they can't attach metal to their faces or color their hair or any of that completely necessary survival behavior until they finish school. People here are generally "uneducated." That means they can talk about anything, because they have been busy living and not thinking. Mind you, they are rarely right about stuff, but they at least try! Perhaps I ask the wrong questions, which is entirely possible. One good example is, I once asked someone what the time was. He looked at his cell phone and told me. They don't wear watches here. Living here feels like it was when I was growing up; and it's refreshing.

How to Shop in Mexico

Unless you speak fluent Spanish and know how to haggle, if you are an American you will automatically pay more for trinkets, jewelry, etc. Sad but true. I've learned through experience that when I am shopping in the second hand stores, unless I know the owners, I take a Mexican friend with me to negotiate for what I want. Once I've selected the item, I leave the store as if I was disinterestedly browsing and leave my friend up to the haggling.

The same holds true for shopping in the tourist areas. Most of the shop owners here in Ensenada will haggle a bit even with their countrymen, but in the First Avenue (Calle Primera) shops, the prices are high anyway because it is THE tourist place. Thousands of people a week come off of the cruise ships a week during peak season to swarm in and pick up a few knickknacks to take back home, so the shop owners are not hurting for business. Many of the shop owners are only bilingual when it comes to money, as in "such and such dollars." And make no mistake about it, they are math wizards.

When my doctor friend came to visit, one aggressive shop owner tried to charge her quite a bit for a pair of earrings. Being well traveled, she replied, "That seems a bit expensive." The shop owner was bilingual and told her she wouldn't find those earrings anywhere else. Knowingly, my friend said, "Well, I'll look around for something else and come back here later." She found a pair of earrings that she liked even better for a lower price after a bit of haggling.

This is the Mexican way. It is only when you really get to know people that you don't get ripped off, but it is true that in Mexico people see Americans and have dollar signs in their eyes. Why? American behavior. It's our own fault. For generations we've been coming here as tourists waving money around, wearing expensive clothes and shoes, and look like we are dripping with money. Not only that, many tourists wave money around and wantonly give massive tips to people just for information. It's amazing.

We can't blame the Mexicans for their idea of us. Tourists are the representatives of any country, and we've done a bangup job of creating the stereotype that we are from the Land Of Milk and Honey and have money to burn.

The Immigration Thing

For three weeks last month, I had the enormous pleasure of substitute teaching English at CETYS, which is a prestigious prep school/university here in Baja CA. I taught three classes of teenagers, about 75 students in all and it was not only challenging but fun and energizing.

I was amazed at the these young minds and how they probe into issues that concern them, and how aware they are of their own feelings. These kids tend to come from Ensenada's wealthiest families, and they understand the importance of education.

Now, a word about education in Mexico...it is EXPENSIVE. Unlike the U.S. and other countries, in Mexico parents have to pay a tuition for their kids to go to school, plus they have to buy uniforms and books. Given that most people in Mexico are only able to provide the basics for their families, most are not educated past the 8th grade, according to statistics. Here, education is a privilege, not a right or a requirement. The schools are also strict. There is no "No Child Left Behind" or Gifted Programs or accommodation for ADD/ADHD. Either you make the grade or you don't, period.

The schools don't have frills, either. No overseas trips, no special school lunch programs, nothing. This is bare/bones education. Many schools are underfunded and unkempt buildings that don't even have chalkboards or supplies for the younger children to use such as crayons, glue sticks and other supplies for creative expression. The pay for teachers averages $40/day or less.

Keeping that in mind, visualize a beautiful albeit small campus high on a hill above the city with an ocean view. A fresh breeze is always present, and the air smells of the fragrant flowers in the beautifully landscaped parking lot and campus grounds. This is CETYS. This is where I have been offered a permanent job teaching English, and I'm grabbing it. Certainly not for the money; the pay at CETYS won't support me, but the thrill of being a part of a better tomorrow for Mexico is enthralling. I am needed here. The rewards are many.

Getting to the point of this post's title, one day one of my classes was doing an exercise in interviewing. I told them they could interview me. First question was: "What do you think of the immigration issue in the U.S.?" I nearly dropped my teeth, thinking they would ask me something like, "Are you married? Do you have any kids?" Something simple. But no. You could have heard a pin drop in the room. I begged the higher powers for a good way to handle this question, finally winding up asking a question back: "I am going to ask you the same question...what do YOU think about it?" A lively discussion followed, along with debates that were very impressive.

The kids have the idea that Mexican immigrants to the U.S. is a good thing because Americans don't want to work in the fields and Mexicans are used to doing that. Americans don't want to do lowly production work. Basically, we are seen through the eyes of Mexico's young as a people who have no interest in getting our hands dirty. So they will. I am simply reporting what I experienced as food for thought, sans a personal opinion. I was blown away.

I look forward to teaching at CETYS and discovering more about how the young are thinking about the future of their country, their families, their unborn children. Teaching there is a privilege for me, a gift.

You can see the CETYS campus through a link I've provided in the right hand sidebar.