Burrhus Frederic Skinner, more commonly known as B.F. Skinner, was born on 20 March, 1904 in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. He was born into a middle class family where his home life was considered “warm and stable” (Barash, 2005). His father was a young lawyer working his way to the top while his mother was a housewife. Skinner was an active and outgoing child who spent most of his time outdoors building and inventing things. For example, he built a perpetual motion machine that did not exactly work and a floatation system that separated the ripe from the green elderberries when he went door to door for his business. (Barash, 2005). During high school while working at a shoe store he invented a device that spread the “green dust” that helps the broom pick up dirt.
Not typical of most rambunctious boys his age, Skinner enjoyed going to school very much. In high school, he took a class taught by Miss Graves to whom he later dedicated his book The Technology of Teaching. (Black, 2005). When he made a comment during her class that As You Like It was not written by Shakespeare but rather by Frances Bacon and she disagreed by saying he did not know what he was talking about, he went to the library and did extensive research on Bacon and his writings. (Black, 2005). Knowledge on Bacon’s championing of the inductive method in science against the appeal to authority was to serve Skinner very well later in life and his research. (Wyatt, 2004).
Skinner went on to attend Hamilton College in upstate New York where he received his Bachelor of Arts in English. (Black, 2005). He did not fit in to the typical college lifestyle. He did not enjoy going to football games or fraternity parties. He surrounded himself mostly with his schoolwork but found time to write for the school newspaper. Some of his articles were very critical of the school, the faculty and even Phi Beta Kappa. (Barash, 2005). To make matters worse, he was an atheist at a school that required daily...