The awkward moment when...

I'm not usually a fan of sentence fragments or of the weird Facebook cliches out there, but the postings that go, "The awkward moment when you realize xxxxxxxxx," usually make me laugh. My Facebook sentence fragment would be, "The awkward moment when you realize that your introverted temperament is not appreciated in student teaching."

Okay, so maybe it's not as funny as some other Facebook "awkward moment" posts, but I bet I'm not the only introvert who has had such a moment. I should've seen it coming, given that everyone introvert is made to feel like a freak during high school. But between high school student-hood and high school teacher-hood, I had spent four years at a small, liberal arts college being an English major. I guess I got so lost in the pleasure of being among others who enjoyed sitting and reading books for hours on end that I forgot that other world existed, that is, the general population, where it has been said that extroverts outnumber introverts by 3 to 1 (interestingly, though, one of the comments on this book review from the American Library Association says that the world may be more evenly split among introverts and extroverts-- must definitely check out the book Introvert Power, referenced in the comment--but even so, extroversion is so valued by our culture that introverts still feel huge pressure to change how they act).

Anyway, part of my credential program involved observing a grade I didn't want to teach before student teaching in a grade that I did, so I ended up in a seventh-grade classroom. At this particular low-income school, the principal would breeze into certain classes and give his once-a-year inspirational talk, Jaime Escalante-style. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I enjoy watching extroverts animatedly deliver ideas. It was when he watched me teach that the problem arose. When we met to discuss the lesson, he made it obvious that he was searching for a nice way to call me boring. The words he used were "calm" and "professorly."

It is really too bad that these two words took on a negative connotation in this man's mind and, from what I've experienced, the collective mind of the broader educational world. I'm also glad I wasn't discouraged permanently by this prejudice. Remaining my calm self, I've heard from colleagues, friends, and students (particularly developmental writing students) that they appreciate my "calmness." It makes them feel at ease when they are flustered. I think "calm" is a wonderful quality to bring to the classroom, and it's sad that "calm" was reduced to a euphemism for "boring."

I was also sad that someone who seemed "professorly" was viewed as out of place in K-12. As I grew up, I remember having and liking lots of different kinds of teachers with lots of different personality types. Being a reflective person myself, I also idolized my professors and the contemplative life that academia stood for. The daughter of first- and second-generation college students, I was always raised to believe that college was sacred; it was the American Dream achieved if you studied hard and did well in college. Funny story: my maternal grandfather's younger brother was the first in that family to go to college. When he graduated, one of his professors offered to have my great-uncle's parents lodge at his home. My great-grandmother was reportedly so nervous to stay in a stranger's house, a non-Italian's house, a PROFESSOR's house, that she slept all night in her corset to maintain as much propriety and respect as she could. In short, I thought "professorliness" was something to be sought for, but this middle school principal reduced the word to a euphemism for stuffy, tweed suit-wearing, out-of-touch, ivory tower types.

I'm glad I have a job now where my personality is embraced. My wonderful colleagues like me for who I am. But I want to clarify that I'm not always calm. I do get very excited every day about my subject matter. Susan Cain has written that when the need to communicate arises and the subject matter is one we feel passion about, we can actually change our style and act like extroverts. I must be doing this a lot. A few weeks ago, I was giving examples of topics to write about for the comparison-contrast essay in the developmental writing class. I said that I might contrast myself with my middle-school best friend, who was very outgoing. I classified myself, as so many have over the years, as "shy."

So I nearly teared up with joy when one of my students interrupted me to exclaim, with a genuinely incredulous expression on her face, "You were shy?!"