You would think a bunch of introverted, content-loving professors would love to run out of class and cozy up to some reading material, but we often don't. Even a self-proclaimed introvert colleague said to a group of us, "No one goes into teaching because they want to grade papers. Everyone wants to be in the classroom."
I have a few hypotheses about why even the most introverted among us sometimes hate grading papers (and I think much of this applies also to why online teaching is not as fulfilling as face-to-face even though it's all reading, supposedly an introvert's dream):
- We need to get our students writing a lot so that every once in awhile there's a great burst of insight. Writing involves a lot of "throat-clearing" before you get anything good out. I think a CSUN prof is responsible for that metaphor. So, while we understand that we have to read a lot of "eh" writing, it's not something we look forward to.
- There are so many students and you have to go so fast.
- You can't just read or even just read and comment; you have to grade. There are so many factors to consider in writing. My rubric is a page long. And that's the abbreviated one. There's the constant stress of "Was I fair?" "Am I consistent with how I was grading yesterday?" This is especially bad for highly sensitive people or those who are constantly analyzing their inner workings.
- Most importantly, introverts are not cold-hearted misanthropes. I want to see my students smile. I want them to laugh at my jokes. I want to see the twinkle in their eyes when they get an idea. It's not that I don't want to talk to people. I want to talk to people in coherent ways. I want a classroom where only one person is talking at one time and we're all engaging in the same discussion.
Diana Senechal (in Republic of Noise) and Neil Postman (in his Amusing Ourselves to Death discussion of how 19th-century people used to attend three-hours-long lectures voluntarily) both have discussed how, oddly enough, a large group discussion or a lecture can appeal to the introvert. It has to do not with the number of people present but with the singular focus that exists in a whole-class discussion or in a lecture.
It has occurred to me that the idea that I, an introvert, prefer whole-class discussion to group work could be viewed as paradoxical. In a sense, I ought to love small group work. Isn't it supposed to let me make more individual connections with students? Doesn't it make more sense for an introvert to want to communicate with a small group rather than a whole class? Isn't it a fact that introverts like to connect with fewer students more deeply than with more students less deeply? I think why I disliked group work for so long was because I could not focus on one single group at any given time. I felt I had to constantly circulate and eavesdrop and worry about what everyone was doing. I felt like I had to be in five places at once, or move from place to place, switching gears constantly. (This may be a hold-over from worrying about classroom control all the time in a society where the teacher is always supposed to stimulate and entertain the students and students left to their own devices will default to "goofing off.") I enjoy group work most when I can turn off the "worrying about everyone" switch in my brain, spend ten to fifteen minutes with a single group, and engage deeply in their discussion. I explain why I want to spend focused time on each group and will not interrupt that and run over to another group if I suspect misbehavior. It's their education, and I'm not abandoning a good discussion to go police some goof-offs. They need to take responsibility. Just as a focused teacher deserves focused students, focused students deserve a focused teacher.
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