The adoption of a behavioralist stance in education--namely, that of the "specificationist" who attempts to strengthen the humanist position by examining the behaviors which educators are trying to shape and by finding the most effective methods of instruction for accomplishing these ultimate goals--can help rid the schools of their worst evils and improve the quality of education. This may be accomplished, first, by examining the behavioral characteristics of the liberally educated adult to see what behaviors should be encouraged in students; and second, by employing the following tentative rules for writing behavioral objectives which are useful in guiding instruction without becoming trivial: (1) write behavioral objectives only for higher level behaviors to avoid triviality, (2) state all behavioral objectives in binary terms--pass or fail, present or absent--thus placing emphasis on the success or failure of the teacher and not on the ranking of students, and (3) define behavioral objectives broadly (e.g., students will cut class less often, fewer students will drop out of school.) (MF)