Dangerous Minds Essay

366 Words2 Pages
Dangerous Minds The definition of learning is the act of acquiring knowledge or skill by study. One of the behaviors that the students learned in this class was that they can control their lives by making choices. Therefore, with any challenges that they have to face, there is always a choice of which path to take and to never give up. An operant conditioning that Ms. Johnson used in her classroom was to give the students rewards for their good behavior and class participation. She also kept reinforcing the fact that they should believe in themselves and strive for better things in their lives. The difference between Raul’s parents and Durrell’s grandmother is their belief in what an education would do for them. Raul’s parents were excited about the possibility of their son graduating from high school. Not only would he be the first in his family to graduate from high school, but it would open many doors for his future. Durrell’s grandmother looked at education as a hindrance for him. She thought that going to school took away from the time that he could be working to help pay the bills. She could not see far enough into the future to realize that education is the key to better jobs and higher pay. I don’t think Emilio could have saved his life by reacting differently to Shorty because of the classic conditioning in both of their lives. They both were conditioned in their lives to fight for honor; kill or be killed. Emilio could have very well changed the outcome of his situation if he had reacted differently to the way that the principal responded to him when he went to him for help. The operant conditioning that was enforced by Ms. Johnson should have taught Emilio to stand up and fight for what he believed was important in his life. The negative reaction from the principal made Emilio regress to the original conditioning set
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