Eastern Psychological Association
Washington, D.C.
April 21, 2001
First let me say that this audience, the presence of all of you being here today, is a finer tribute to Fred Keller than anything I can say. I think he would be pleased. He was usually a modest man and would probably say something like "I didn't do that much, what is all this fuss about?" But deep down - he would have been pleased you are here in his honor. There, that's my first little insight for you. I am not totally sure he would be pleased that I am the one giving the speech in his honor. That may be the second little insight - but it is not going to stop me.
About a month go I had a dream, but it was not a courageous dream. It was the dream of a coward. I was worrying about what to say today. I dreamed I walked into this room - and there was no one here! All I had to do was thank Howard and fly home. The problem of what to say about a legend was solved. It would have made my life easier, but it would not have been fair to Fred Keller. You are here, so I have to say something. But what do you say about a legend? I could stand here, further enhancing the legend by heaping praise for 40 minutes, but that wouldn't be very interesting and might eventually become boring. I could try to deflate the legend a bit on the theory that even legends weren't perfect, but that wouldn't be gracious, fair or appropriate. So, I am going to do something Fred did quite often - change the title! He did do that frequently. Another little insight.
My title was "What do you say about a legend?" and as I said, I want to change it. Many years ago, just as I finished my term as chairman of the psychology department at Georgetown, I talked the Dean into giving the department a special stipend to bring Fred Keller and Fred Skinner to campus to give a joint colloquium. That event took place, only a few miles from here, on April 27th, 1973 - - - at 3:30 p.m.. That will be 28 years ago next Friday. It was held in Gaston Hall, a place many of you may have seen on television on occasions when a President wants to give a speech in a hurry. Universities make a good place and Georgetown is handy just down the street from the White House. In my twenty some years at Georgetown I saw several of those Presidential speeches, but the only time I know of when we had to issue tickets and have closed circuit television to two other halls was the occasion of the appearance of the two Freds, Keller and Skinner.
On that occasion both Freds were to speak about education and Fred Keller chose as his title "10 Inflammatory Comments". Of course he blamed me for the title by saying I had urged him to say something "provocative", but the title was his, - and he loved it! There's a fourth insight, perhaps. So, the title I really wanted for today was "10 Inflammatory Comments about Fred Keller". I didn't use it because I was afraid no one would come, or alternatively everyone would come, or several people might have a heart attack thinking that possibly I might just make 10 inflammatory comments about Fred Keller. So let me get on with it. Of the 10 remarks I'll make, about half are from the "real" list and some are in fun. That way I'll hold back a few inflammatory comments, and perhaps when I am 80 you will invite me back to give you "the rest of the story".
#1. In his speech at Georgetown, Fred quoted at some length from the writing of a man he called " the great Comenius". For those not familiar with Comenius, his dates were 1592 – 1670; he was a theologian and educator and an early commentator on educational methods. He advocated gathering students in large groups and lecturing to them. Fred's first inflammatory comment was, "There has been no basic change in teaching practice since the 17th century". My first comment about Fred, as already hinted above, is, in spite of all appearances, he loved to be provocative. He had great fun that day being a bit devilish. His second inflammatory comment was "teachers are vastly overpaid since they are largely ineffective". You can well imagine that that brought a round of applause from Georgetown students, with a wry look from a professor here and there. Of course he was right about the progress of education - or lack thereof. He cared deeply about teaching and of all his achievements and titles that of "great teacher" should probably come first. We have recently learned that former Vice President Al Gore is going to be flying between Columbia University, my alma mater, someplace in Tennessee and someplace in California giving lectures at all three places from time to time. What more need I say? Even if he were effective, it can not possibly be the answer to any of education's ills. There are simply not enough ex-Vice Presidents. As a master teacher himself, Fred knew the "great teacher" solution was no solution at all and he sought other answers. I'll return to that quest later.
#2. My second inflammatory remark is, "Fred Keller had serious doubts and reservations about the efficacy of operant conditioning".
How could I possibly say that? I'll tell you.
Those of us who had the privilege of working as lab assistants in the famous introductory psychology course, with laboratory, at Columbia saw this clearly each fall. And there were so many who were either students in that course or assistants in the lab. This is dangerous, but I must mention a few names: Fred Frick, Jim Dinsmoor, Joe Notterman, Charles Ferster, Murray Sidman, Bill Cumming, Dave Eckerman, Harlan Lane, George Geis, Charles Catania, Tony Nevin, Thom Verhave, Don Cook, Bill Stebbins, John Boren, so many more, perhaps some in this audience whose name I did not mention. My apology. That course, another of Fred's innovative achievements, and the course for which he and Nat Schoenfeld wrote their introductory psychology textbook Principles of Psychology, influenced the teaching of psychology at dozens of colleges and universities for a generation. I hope there are still courses modeled on that effort.
During the first week of that course, each pair of students learned where the vivarium was, they were assigned a rat, learned how to handle the animal, learned to transport the animal to their laboratory cubicle and shown how to operate the equipment. Fred Keller was calm. During the second week, students put their animal in the experimental box, introduced a lever, and simply observed the flow of behavior - the so-called operant level. Fred Keller was calm. Then came the third week - conditioning the bar press response. I need a drum roll here. Each day of that week Fred would come out of his office, pace the hall, and pop into the lab every three minutes. With anxiety draining his face of color he would whisper to a lab assistant, "Are any of them pressing yet?" Assured that it had only been three minutes and the answer was "No," he would mutter "of course," return to pacing the hall and inform anyone passing by, "None of the animals are pressing yet." The strain in his voice was obvious. In succeeding visits he would learn that an increasing number of animals had succumbed to the inevitable, he would look somewhat less glum and say, "I'll be back in a minute." Returning to the hall he would inform everyone and anyone, with a smile, "Most of the rats are pressing now." But there would always be one hold out. That final non-responsive animal took a terrible toll. In the paw of that animal hung the fate of reinforcement theory. Would the Law of Effect hold again this year? When finally all animals were conditioned, Fred would positively strut about announcing, "They are all pressing, they are all pressing," as if announcing a miracle. But there was always that doubt. Fred was never sure operant conditioning would work again next year.
#3. While talking about Fred's moods, I might just as well stay on the topic. I would like to tell you that Fred was a calm, even tempered, tranquil man. He wasn't. In fact he could be quite excitable. This didn't normally bother us much because of a wonderful woman - his wife Frances. As long as I live I'll hear Frances' voice calmly saying "Now Fred". It was like magic, oil on water; that is all it took, Fred would calm right down.
If anyone should be being honored here today it should be Frances. I am so glad she is here today. Frances is the one who deserves the "Hero of Psychology" award. She calmed the waters so many times, mothered several generations of students who still love her, me included, and she has gamely sat through literally thousands of hours of all of us talking on and on endlessly about psychology. Frances, I don't know how you did it!!! I suspect his son and daughter, John and Ann, also deserve medals.
I only saw Fred really furious four times. I'll talk about two of them. Once was when he learned a former student of his had published a paper with invented data. His wrath was terrible to behold and after that initial outburst I never heard him speak that person's name again. Data were sacred to Fred. I was never sure he felt that strongly about a deity, but he surely held science, honesty and data in high regard.
As an aside, Fred published very little in the way of experimental research. One of his few data papers was titled "Light-aversion in the white rat" which always seemed so appropriate to those of us who remember him sitting in his office, the shades drawn, and an enormous green eye shade visor to protect him from what little light there was. He didn't much like strong light. I think he found light aversive!!
But back to one of his near tantrums. It started with the slamming of doors and Fred shouting "I want them out of here, and I want them out of here today." It seems Fred and a graduate student named Don Moser, who regrettably died of leukemia shortly after getting his degree, were attempting to condition some turtles. The project had the potential of becoming Don's Ph.D. thesis, but Fred was deeply involved. Things had not been going well for weeks. Frances was not around. As we gathered to inquire about the commotion, Fred said simply, "There is nothing I've got that they want, and I want nothing more to do with them." With that he slammed the door behind him and was not seen again for several days. The turtles were never seen again. I suspect they ended up in the Hudson River or the soup. You did not tangle with Fred when he was truly upset and angry.
Perhaps this #3 deserves to be 4, 5, and 6 because if you think about it there were several insights included. Let me note one other point from the above: that is how well, how economically, how beautifully Fred said things "There is nothing I've got that they want." Who else could have dealt with the whole topic of motivation so succinctly? Fred was a master with language, particularly the written language. He wrote with such style, grace, precision, and charm as anyone who ever read his The definition of psychology well knows. It is a small book but is still one of the best histories of psychology, standing delightfully above the ponderous thousands of pages about the intellectual history of psychology written by others.
O.K., if the above was 3 through 6 this will be #7. I have mentioned operant level, and original conditioning, so next comes extinction. Now, none of us likes extinction very much, including Fred Keller, so I'll mention only one brief incident. Fred and Frances had invited Clarence Graham, his wife Elaine, Rosemary Pierrel, and myself, and if I recall correctly Nat Schoenfeld and his wife Sarina, to dinner at their home in New Jersey. Around cocktail hour Fred asked, in a very off hand way, if anyone would care to play a game of croquet before dinner. Now at some earlier time I had heard that Fred fancied himself a good, even excellent croquet player and had been known to brag a bit about his skills in this sport. Fred did not know that most of my family is Scottish; I spent a fair part of my youth in Scotland and rather grew up playing the game. Clarence allowed he would be happy to join in, as did I, and I think some others. I do not now recall the exact sequence but it went something like the first round to me, the second game to Clarence, the third to me, and perhaps the fourth to Posi or Nat. I do recall there was a zero score for Fred. Not a single pellet. Fred kept suggesting one more game, one more game, as Frances announced dinner was ready and on the table. Fred was very quiet and suppressed all during the meal.
Two further footnotes. First, a tribute to Clarence Graham who was the finest teacher I ever had. You didn't come out of Graham's course without a deep appreciation for the elegance of parametric studies. Secondly, I can say Graham was the best teacher I ever had as I never took a course with Fred Keller. He always claimed I already knew everything he had to teach, which certainly wasn't true, but he would never allow me to enroll in any of his courses. Since a little later Fred was going back and forth to Brazil, Rosemary Pierrel was my Ph.D thesis sponsor with an assist from Bill McGill in Fred's absence. They both seem to have done an adequate job and Fred was always able to say, "Don't blame me."
# 8. Fred sometimes failed to discriminate, or alternatively he had an outrageously broad generalization gradient. I just mentioned Brazil and Fred was appropriately proud of his work there. The Brazilians loved him. Fred knew ahead of time that he was going to Brazil, and for the year before going he took intensive courses in Portuguese at Columbia. My experience was different. I had about three weeks notice, went out and bought a Spanish dictionary (what did I know) and got on a plane. Fred learned in a language course; I learned on the spot because I was either hungry or had to go to the bathroom. "Now for a lad who rather grew up with a wee bit of a Scottish accent, learning Portuguese was no that easy I'll tell ya." It is interesting that our abilities with Portuguese, our two linguistic repertoires, remained different reflecting the different ways we learned the language. Fred could read, write and speak formally better than I could. My informal conversational skills were better than his. We made a good pair. Skinner was quite right to distinguish between the two repertoires.
But back to Fred's discrimination problem. Again, he was proud of his Portuguese, and as far as he was concerned the world had only two languages. His rule was: " if it isn't English then speak Portuguese". Frances told me that once when Fred was asked to speak at a conference in Germany, in his every day living there, whenever someone didn't speak English Fred would lapse into Portuguese, much to the consternation of a lot of German waiters! One other instance of the same problem. Late in my career I became involved in the teaching of American Sign Language. I taught ASL at Georgetown with the aid of a deaf friend, Ricky, who did not speak and whose first language was Sign. One night we went to dinner with the Kellers. Ricky of course would sign. Fred knew no sign so - you guessed it; Fred spent the entire evening speaking in Portuguese leaving me to translate from Portuguese to English and to ASL simultaneously. It was one of the more exhausting evenings of my life. "I was just most glad there was no a Scotsman in the group." In Fred's defense, we were in a Brazilian restaurant in Georgetown, but he was pushing the gradient.
#10. Did you notice I cheated again? This is about how Fred Keller went after one of the biggest secondary reinforcers of them all. Not for himself, but for a friend.
In 1964, while I was still in Brazil, Fred and Frances returned. For some months we lived together in a lovely home on Rua Gaspar Lorenzo in Sao Paulo. We were preparing to move to Brasilia, then there was a revolution, our Brazilian "friends" ignored us for weeks, which I don't understand to this day, and we were ready to return to the States. Suddenly Rodolfo Azzi took me out for a cafezinho, whatever the problem was, it got patched up and we all moved to Brasilia. Now the new capital was a very new city at that time. There was only one hotel worthy of the name, the Hotel Nacional, and the three of us lived there for several months. It was also one of the few dining rooms in the city and the three of us would eat there most every night. Fred had a habit of saying, "You see that couple over there, do you know who they are?" Then he would spin, invent, the stories of their lives. "The man, the respectable middle age son of a wealthy family from Rio, was the head of the "Fundacao de alguma coisa" a foundation that gave away money to talented people (like our MacArthur Foundation), and she was a promising young artist from Buenos Aires who had been a grant recipient. Although they were both married, they had fallen in love with each other at the award ceremony five years ago, spent a magical weekend on the beach at Punta del Este outside of Montevideo, and now met twice a year in Brasilia because it was the one place in the world no one would catch them because no one ever came to Brasilia!!!" Fred's stories were not always right out of the movies, but they could become quite elaborate, often hilarious, even preposterous - he could be a very funny man - never crude, but sometimes just a bit risque. As a story edged in that direction, Frances would say her famous "now Fred" and the theme would return to the straight and narrow suitable for the elders of the church. As an aside, Fred Skinner would invent in somewhat the same way. Once we were both speaking at a conference in Mexico City and we were invited, along with Fred Skinner's wife, Eve, to the famous Anthropological Museum, where they closed the rooms so the three of us could wander at our leisure. Many objects were labeled "artifact of unknown origin, age and usage, probably of some religious significance". Fred Skinner would then say something like "it is obviously an agricultural tool invented by the Indians to cope with the devastating drought that engulfed the area in the 9th century and had absolutely nothing to do with religion". The two men were alike in many ways.
Well, back to the dining room at the Hotel Nacional. Since it was one of the few places in the city that had table cloths, at that time, foreign dignitaries visiting the new capital frequently ate in "our" dining room. One night we were asked by some university officials if two Nobel Laureates then visiting the university might join us for dinner. If I recall one was a chemist from Belgium and the other a Brit who had done something important in physiology. The conversation started out pleasantly enough. Then Fred Keller began to focus a bit. "How does one get nominated for a Nobel Prize?", "What is the voting procedure?", "How long does it take?", "You say it can become quite political, tell me about that" and so it went. Getting closer to the point Fred finally said something like, "Pavlov was the only psychologist to receive the prize, and that was technically for a different discipline. If one wanted to nominate a psychologist today, how might one do it?". I can't prove it, but there isn't a doubt in my mind but what that night Fred Keller was after a Nobel Prize for his friend Burrhus (Keller always called Skinner "Burrhus", as far as I know no one else did). What a loyal and generous friend Fred Keller was. I wish he had succeeded in that particular mission.
Enough of inflammatory comments and stories. My guess is several people are ready to walk out saying "what an odd talk, rather trivial, what were all those anecdotes about?" Such a comment reminds me of Fred's speech as president of EPA which he gave in April 1957. He was president of this organization in 1956 - 1957, which is one of the reasons for this tribute today. I don't know how many of you know that that speech became the first article, beginning on page 1, in issue #1, of volume #1 of the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. In that sense Fred started it all.
At the end of Fred's presidential speech, I walked out of the hall just in front of two people whom I overheard saying, "What a strange speech, who is interested in Morse Code?" "Not me" said the other person. It is true that Fred's speech "The Phantom Plateau" used some data taken from students learning to receive Morse code. But Fred was using those data as a vehicle; let me repeat that, as a vehicle to discuss habit formation or more simply learning. While Fred, for historical reasons of his having been a telegrapher and having later developed the "code - voice" method of Morse code instruction, did have a personal interest in Morse code, in this instance code learning was merely a representative of more general questions about the learning curve. In the same way that bar pressing was studied as a representative of behavior in general and of no particular interest for its own sake, something often missed by critics of behaviorism, those two members of the audience had simply missed the point of Fred Keller's presidential address. It was a beautiful and insightful speech about the learning process and one would not be wasting time to go back and re-read it 44 years later.
I never achieved the subtlety of Fred Keller, and lest I too be misunderstood, let me point out there were several ways I could have structured this talk. One would have been strictly historical and biographical: Fred was born on January 2nd, 1899 in Rural Grove N.Y., received his B.A. from Tufts in 1926, and from Harvard an M.A. in 1928 and a Ph.D. in 1931. He taught at Colgate from 1931 through 1938, and then at Columbia from '38 until his retirement in the mid 1960's. After retiring, he went on to positions at Sao Paulo, Brasilia, Arizona State, Western Michigan, Georgetown, and I believe held courtesy appointments at two or three other places after that. All this information is easily available, probably on the internet, and reciting it didn't seem to me to be the best way to spend this time. I would add Fred clearly did not know how to retire! He died on February 2nd, 1996 at 97 plus one month of age. Today he would be 102, plus two months.
A second way of developing this talk would have been to recite his achievements: teacher, researcher, writer, lecturer, educator, innovator, role model, nurturer of students. I would certainly have mentioned his famous undergraduate laboratory course, his ground breaking introductory textbook, his work with Morse code, his influential work in Brazil, his honors including having been President of EPA. But all these I have already mentioned. I might have said something about his skill as an editor. Fred worked closely with Don Cook on Don's thesis because it had to do with code learning and successive approximations to plain English. He worked with Schoenfeld on the writing of their textbook and Fred and I wrote the P.S.I. Handbook. The summer before Schoenfeld died, Nat, Don and I sat on the deck of my summer cottage and traded stories of what it was like to write with Fred Keller. And there were stories to tell. It was not always comfortable or easy to write with Fred, but we all agreed he was a better editor than any journal or publishing house editor any of us had ever dealt with. While perhaps a bit battered, we were all at least slightly better writers when Fred was done with us. The man could write and he could also edit.
Finally I could have told you about Fred as a person, his charm, his wit, his warmth, his temper, his inventiveness, his modesty, his boldness. He could be funny, he could be difficult, he could be inspiring, he could be idealistic, he could be stubborn and thorny, he could be lovable, and he was one great big powerful reinforcer to all of us who knew him. But I have already told you all of this as well. What I hope I have told you is something about a man who was both a great deal more complex and more interesting than the simple characterization of Fred as a grand old man and father figure. Of course he was that too.
There are two topics people may have expected me to make the central themes of this talk, one, the present status of experimental psychology and reinforcement theory in particular, and the other some evaluation of PSI, the Personalized System of Instruction. I decided not to emphasize either for somewhat different reasons. For Fred, and for me, experimental psychology meant Murchison's Handbook, Steven's Handbook, Woodworth's Experimental Psychology, which became Woodworth and Schlosberg and later Kling and Riggs. I have not followed the field closely during this past decade, but in a conversation with Jake Kling a couple of years ago I gather there is no longer such a standard comprehensive source defining something called experimental psychology. Perhaps it is progress, but it seems sad to me.
In a recent scientific periodical I read, "Children learn concepts in mathematics and other areas by using intuitive knowledge to generate a grab bag of strategies that gradually yield insights," according to the research of many psychologists. I don't have the slightest idea what that means. Is it representative of experimental psychology today? I don't know. I also have not followed developments in the more specific area of the experimental analysis of behavior. Whether viewed broadly or narrowly, it seems to me that you can no more build a science of psychology without the law of effect than you can have physics without the law of gravity. If that is true, then Fred Keller's influence and contributions will be enduring.
I have not said much about PSI - because I didn't want to. Fred and I had a rather minor difference on how things came about and a quite serious and major difference on what it would take to support sustained implementation of PSI. Fred thought the description, the idea, of PSI was sufficient to ensure its adoption. I thought a support system, such as a continuing resource center would be required. I wrote an article that commented on our more serious difference in 1992 and tried to correct a bit of history in another article in 1995. In both cases Fred was kind enough to send a complimentary letter including each time some comment such as "perhaps you were right". We certainly didn't disagree that teaching hasn't changed in any fundamental way since the 17 century and, that teachers persist in doing the same thing, apparently still hoping for different results, is disturbing in a clinical sense.
In PSI it is the teachers who ask the questions, the students who give the answers, and the teachers then say "you are getting warmer, you are getting colder". This is an oversimplification of course, but it does capture the magnitude of the change required. Instruction must provide for (1) presentation, (2) performance, and (3) consequences. Most teaching focuses primarily, often exclusively, on presenting information. But telling is not teaching. It neglects what the student does (if anything) and what feedback is provided (if any). PSI was devised as a process that would not leave any part of that three term contingency to chance. Chance is most famous for producing the normal curve and of course that is the distribution of the grades we usually get, even if now somewhat skewed for social reasons.
We know how to do better. Study after study has confirmed the effectiveness of PSI but not much has happened. Now and then I am encouraged when I see a call from “Literacy Volunteers of America” for people to enroll in a tutor-training workshop after which they will work one-to-one teaching people to read. What a good idea! The phrase of the moment is "leave no student behind" and therefore we must measure, measure, test, and test. That is fine, but what do you do when the test indicates a student has been left behind? Why, we must teach him of course. But how? That is the question isn't it. No one says much about that, but it is exactly the question we tried to answer. Perhaps if today's effort to find those students who are casualties of traditional instruction is successful, we will be forced to confront the question of how to teach them. Just perhaps we will come to realize remediation wouldn't be necessary if we had done it right in the first place. I remain ever hopeful.
It is time, past time, for some concluding comments.
I don't know if anyone noticed, but I managed to mention several names, eight of them former Presidents of EPA: Woodworth, EPA's first president and another of my graduate school professors, Schlosberg, Skinner, Graham, Keller, Stevens, Schoenfeld, and Riggs. All of them I knew, in most cases they were good friends, and I here acknowledge and salute them all. Actually, I have known five or six other past presidents of EPA, but in most cases they didn't fit in to the story I was telling, or in a couple of cases they were best not mentioned!
After Schubert died, one of his close friends wrote, "We never realized what a wonderful time we were all having." Reviewing all these memories I feel just a bit that way today. And yet, there were many many happy times, and on most of those occasions we knew things were good. Perhaps at times we over estimated how well things were going.
If Fred were here today I think I know what he would say. It would be: "Frances, Gil talked a little too long, he didn't get it exactly right, he overdid it a bit, but it wasn't all bad. I'll write this in my diary".
As Fred said in closing his Georgetown speech 28 years ago, "That is all I have to say at this time."