tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61708576064341201542024-03-13T10:26:46.674-07:00IntrovertEdWelcome to IntrovertEd, a blog for introverted teachers and students. If you've ever cringed at the thought of group work, you've come to the right place.Prof. Scrof.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05318918653111788308noreply@blogger.comBlogger63125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6170857606434120154.post-58113359023192040242019-08-31T17:35:00.000-07:002019-09-06T17:29:13.171-07:00Among the ScholarsOne of my favorite introverts, my friend, my mentor, my inspiration, my Dr. McCambridge, passed away several months ago. I've been wanting to write a post about him for a long time, and I knew how I wanted to end the post, but I did not know how to start. Where do you start with anecdotes about a twenty-year friendship?<br />
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When I called for advice, twisting my finger on the phone cord, an anxious grad student holed up in my childhood bedroom like a teenager?<br />
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When I prepared to serve him a cup of coffee in my first apartment and he recognized the sound of the hand-me-down Corelle dishes (you know the ones, with those stylized flowers--you could get blue, green, or gold; my mom's had been gold)?<br />
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When I called from that same apartment to tell him I'd discovered, on one of the three channels I received over the TV antenna, <i>That Seventies Show</i>? I couldn't have articulated then that I wanted him to watch it because we were both Red-and-Kitty types living in a Donna-and-Eric world; at the time, I just said, "It explains everything."<br />
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When Masters Degree #2 was complete and I hated my one and only non-teaching job, declaring, "Well, it turns out that the only thing worse than working with kids is working with adults"?<br />
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When I was engaged and called to ask, "What if I become one of those horrible happy people and we can't be friends any more?"<br />
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When my toddler daughter, Victoria, to whom he referred as "Herself, the Empress of India," ransacked his living room and office with the dog named Esme--a literary name, from Salinger, but brought back into vogue, I'm convinced, by Daniel Handler in the Lemony Snicket books? "It's 'A Series of Unfortunate Events,' I had explained." "Well, that could be the title of my biography," he had wryly replied.<br />
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Or do I fast-forward to when I finally got to go to Oxford this summer but it was too late for any more phone calls or cups of coffee? When the recorded audio tour told me that the entrance to one of the buildings bore an inscription in Greek that referred to Luke 2:46, when the child Jesus' worried parents found him studying with the elders? How I stood there, the Walk-Man-eque audio device hanging from my neck, the touristy apparatus ridiculously incongruous with the tears in my eyes? How I heard nothing else after the British robot-voice said, "They found Him among the scholars"?<br />
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Maybe I should just say that I hope his part of heaven looks just like Oxford, and that, if I ever get to heaven someday, I'll look for him among the scholars.Prof. Scrof.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05318918653111788308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6170857606434120154.post-51426483567352382092019-07-22T12:22:00.002-07:002019-07-22T12:22:31.196-07:00Cinderella, Introvert PrincessSo, what I'm about to say is inevitably influenced by the fact that I've seen Moana about 100 times. Here it is: Moana is a bit of a pushy loudmouth. I know the narrative is that the new Disney princesses are bold and rescue themselves and that's great and I'm generally all for that. But I think there's something to be said for an old princess like Cinderella. Rather than thinking of her as a passive doormat, why not think of her as quietly self-assured? After all, she literally gets the last laugh: in that ending scene where the loud mean sisters destroy literature's most famous shoe, she just sits back and laughs like the bad bitch that she is and says, "But I've got the other slipper."Prof. Scrof.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05318918653111788308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6170857606434120154.post-8943063420313367952019-07-15T12:07:00.000-07:002019-07-15T12:07:07.559-07:00Why is everyone so angry? As an English teacher and writer, I have what seem, probably to others, to be unlikely feelings about fancy bookmarks. Fancy bookmarks, like fancy writing journals, while they seem like an ideal gift for people like me, actually cause me a lot of anxiety. They're so beautiful; what if what I have to say doesn't isn't worthy? I know, too, that lots of people prefer to write things like poetry in such journals, in old-fashioned paper and ink. Not me. Too much commitment. I like the forgiveness of the computer, with its delete key and its cut and paste function. I recently discovered an old poetry notebook of mine, and I had, at the end, resorted to printing out what I had written and paper-clipping it to the pages of a fancy notebook that I felt bad for not using--it was lovely, it had probably been a gift, etc. I have similar feelings toward fancy bookmarks; I read like I breathe air, and I can't be worried that a beautiful work of art will slip from the pages as my book bangs around the house or the car. I also feel committed to read a particular book if I assign it the fancy bookmark. Too much stress. Instead, I use the little subscription cards that fall out of magazines to mark my pages. They are a bit sturdier than the receipts you get at the library or the bookstore, but you still don't feel bad to lose them.<div>
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So even though I didn't buy the fancy bookmark I saw the other day in Barnes and Noble (I still remember the joy I felt when they first opened: "It's two stories! Like a department store, but for books!"), the quote from Socrates featured on it has made a particular impression upon me: "Wisdom begins in wonder." </div>
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When I think about public and academic discourse now, and, worst of all, when I see it on social media, I'm struck by the pervasive feeling of anger. If I were to ask, naively, "Why is everyone so angry?" I know the answer I would get. But I think something else is going on; I don't think one person, one name, is enough to explain all the anger. Life has always been hard, injustice and evil always rife. </div>
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I think of my students, growing up amid all this anger. How would everything be different if we approached life from a place of wonder? I hope that on my best days, I can bring a little bit of wonder back to the pursuit of wisdom. </div>
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Prof. Scrof.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05318918653111788308noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6170857606434120154.post-28677286628577576782016-03-20T12:28:00.001-07:002016-03-20T14:56:49.833-07:00Holy Carnegie!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
If you're a teacher, you've probably seen this meme pop up a few times in your social media feeds: </div>
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It reminded me of something my former professor Tom McCambridge once said, which was an idea to the effect that the only way education could really work would be to have kids meet with teachers individually, just the way doctors and lawyers meet with their clients individually. Or the way tutors used to teach the wealthy (individually or in small sibling groups) before everyone went to secondary school. But now everyone would have such a tutor. </div>
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I always liked that idea, though you can't idealize the schedules of doctors and lawyers. My primary care physician told me she has to treat one or two patients every fifteen minutes. That sounds pretty harrowing. </div>
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But I also thought about one of my graduate school instructors, who had been educated in the U.K. For his Masters degree in English, he never attended "class," he told us. Instead, he had met individually each week with his advisor. </div>
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All these things kept coming to mind recently because I teach online now and lots of people are using the Carnegie unit formula to make all sorts of analogies for what we should do in our online classes. "In the classroom three hours a week for a three-unit class? Great. Be on those discussion boards three hours a week for your online class!" But my class is not a class in discussion; it's a class in composition. How many times have I been frustrated in my face-to-face class because so much time is wasted doing only the things I can do with twenty-five people (group work, whole-class discussion) rather than individual reading and writing consultations? Finally, the online environment doesn't chain us to the three hours of lecture plus six hours of homework formula that's been the law and the model since so long ago. </div>
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It's not that I think my students shouldn't interact with each other. I love discussing literature with them and hearing them discuss it with each other. I loved being in English classes as a student and participating in discussions. Everyone knows that good writers must read a lot and talk about their reading. </div>
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But the hard truth is that, to write an essay, a person must sit and be thoughtful and write alone. And the teacher must sit, also thoughtful and also alone, and read it. I can only read one person's essay at a time. I can discuss that essay with that person. Or maybe, at most, we could have three people and all have read each other's essays and be having a conversation. Large groups and the long hours in class prevent teachers from being able to give enough feedback on writing. I like being a college teacher more than a high school teacher because the college schedule gives me more time alone, both to provide meaningful commentary upon my students' writing and to prepare meaningful lessons for the time that we are together in large numbers in class. </div>
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Lecturing to large groups of passive receptacles has long gone out of favor. So, why are we still using the Carnegie unit, which is based on that model of teaching? The Carnegie unit assumes a group of homogeneous, traditional students motivated enough to actively listen to that lecture. (It also assumes that one mode of delivery is best for all subjects.) We no longer assume that the lecture part will still work; why do we continue to assume that the three hours together will still work? </div>
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In online classes students and teacher are not all effectively locked into a classroom together for a set amount of time. With this freedom, writing professors could spend more time providing better feedback on their students' essays and giving them more individualized attention than they can in their face-to-face classes. </div>
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The Carnegie unit is an outmoded concept that should not be constraining the ways we imagine our online classes. Or our on-ground classes anymore. </div>
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And who knows? It may not. As grades have become untrustworthy and students are now to be measured on student or course learning outcomes, will anyone care ultimately HOW a student achieves the outcome, as long as he/she does? The idea that everyone needs the exact same amount of time in class to achieve any particular outcome seems impossible to defend in this day and age. </div>
<br />Prof. Scrof.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05318918653111788308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6170857606434120154.post-91942370894405470102016-03-19T21:54:00.000-07:002016-03-19T22:01:11.190-07:00Is publishing perishing?Introverts make excellent eavesdroppers.<br />
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I overheard one of my more senior colleagues complaining to another senior colleague awhile back that his post-tenure review committee didn't seem to appreciate all the time he spent doing scholarly writing. He viewed that work as the bulk of his service to the college and professional development. Instead, the evaluators wanted him to participate on more committees. <br />
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I admit that the colleague making the complaint is notoriously curmudgeonly. He knows he should make nice and show his face at a few more meetings and the occasional holiday party.<br />
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But, with that said, I was still bothered by his situation. In a sense, the evaluators were suggesting that the only real professional development, the only meaningful involvement on campus, was the kind done in groups. Going off by yourself and writing couldn't possibly be helping anyone.<br />
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So, while professors at the four-year schools, especially the research institutions, are cracking under the weight of expectations to publish, we at the community college level could now be chided for it. While they were living the old "publish or perish" ultimatum, was publishing going to perish among those of us in the <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/06/in-the-basement-of-the-ivory-tower/306810/" target="_blank">"basement of the ivory tower"</a>?<br />
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It reminds me of a little meeting all new hires had to participate in when I first joined the tenure-track faculty at my community college. A then-administrator explained that, now, my duties would be primarily teaching and so rather than being a scholar in my field (English), as I had been as a grad student, I would now be a scholar of education.<br />
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A little part of me died inside.<br />
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It was kind of insulting, both to my students and to me. It was as if she was saying that my students would all be at such a low level that they wouldn't benefit from my studying a literary specialty but would rather benefit more from me picking up endless gimmicks to convey elementary material to them.<br />
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It was as if she was saying that nobody needed me to be an expert in my field. (I thought of the other old-timer's response to my colleague the curmudgeon: "Committees? Any schmuck can join a committee. Not everyone can publish the kind of stuff you do.")<br />
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Telling faculty that no one needs them to be a specialist is a great way to get them to forget what they love about the field and get burned out. When I first started teaching high school and expressed my dismay at what my life had become to one of my former English professors, his advice was to be sure to read every day. Buried in homework, I thought he was crazy. But he had said to pick up some poetry every day, even if it was just for ten minutes: "Remember what you love." And now I see that he was right. If you can't keep up with your scholarly interests, if you can't be excited about your field, students won't find you very inspiring. <br />
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<br />Prof. Scrof.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05318918653111788308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6170857606434120154.post-70070777400221710922016-03-15T09:42:00.000-07:002016-03-15T09:46:35.651-07:00NumbersSometimes, I say to my students, much of English is math. My course is out of 1000 points. If you get 0/100 on something, your grade's going to take a big hit. Especially if you're already on the brink, getting a 75%. The grade is a simple calculation. Add all points earned, divide by total points possible. Move decimal point two places to get percentage. Simple.<br />
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But people don't believe. Or they just deny basic mathematical fact. "I've gotten mostly C's and D's, but can I still get a B in this class?" We always want something other than numbers to be at play.<br />
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Sometimes there is. Students always like to hold out the hope that extra efforts and a special dose of creativity will push them from 69% to 70%, from 79% to 80%. Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't; after all, people whose grades are low are usually not the type of people to be putting forth the kind of effort that will push them over the borderline to the grade that they want.<br />
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While grades are pretty simple math, we often treat group work as if it's a matter of simple math while it isn't at all. This occurred to me as I read a couple of essays last week when my self-proclaimed introvert students explained that they liked the small group work we do in class because they felt more comfortable speaking in small groups rather than in front of the whole class. I was surprised, which seems weird. Introverts love one-on-one and small group communication, right?<br />
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Maybe I was stuck in the instructor's perspective: I don't know if I'll ever totally get over the uncomfortable feeling of not being able to be everywhere at once, directing the lesson in an orderly fashion. I don't like hopping from group to group, never knowing exactly what part of the reading we'll be talking about next.<br />
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But then I thought back on my time as a student. I didn't like small-group work then, either. Why did my students like it while I didn't?<br />
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Well, introversion isn't just a numbers game. Sticking an introvert with just any one or two people doesn't mean the introvert will have a good rapport with that person/those people. Often, in K-12, students have gone to school with the same people for years and there can be years of history between those people, good or bad. In college, you could be paired with a total stranger; you might bond, but you might not. At least in college, students are less clique-y and more open to actually having an intellectual discussion--that is, in college, you might not be deemed a nerd for actually wanting to participate in the group's assigned task rather than socialize.<br />
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Part of it may also have to do with the fact that I'm an oldest child. As the stereotype goes, I always got along better with older people than I did with my peers. In a whole-class discussion, at least the teacher wanted to hear what I had to say and would usually respond in an encouraging way. I knew how to relate to adults. The rules were explicit and easy. Throw me into a group, and I had to spend most of my time figuring out the rules of teenage socialization rather than dealing with the content.<br />
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In whole-class discussion, the teacher's presence could protect me. Even though I had to speak up in front of others, those others were usually quiet and if they said anything insulting, the teacher would hear and deal with it. But in groups, it's noisy. The teacher wasn't there to shame my classmates into polite toleration of me or whoever the speaker was. <br />
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When I read about collaborative learning, the research always assumes a benevolent collaborator. In the real world, that's not always the case.<br />
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As they say, it's a jungle out there. Yes, introverts love one-to-one or small-group communication, but an introvert gazelle isn't going to enjoy hanging out with a lion, even if there's just one of him/her.<br />
<br />Prof. Scrof.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05318918653111788308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6170857606434120154.post-30412610205101764922016-02-10T10:06:00.001-08:002016-02-10T10:06:16.572-08:00Liquid ExtroversionI love Mondays and Wednesdays this semester because they are my online teaching days and I can be my introverted self all day long. Because I don't need to be in as mad a dash to get to campus as I do on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I stop at Starbucks and get a larger size coffee than usual so I can save half of it for the next day, because that's when I really need it, when I'm face-to-face.Prof. Scrof.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05318918653111788308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6170857606434120154.post-47628658143283090602016-01-15T13:55:00.003-08:002016-01-15T13:59:41.537-08:00The first week of school: how to exhaust yourself by teaching almost NO content at all!Every semester, I fall for it. To make myself feel better about going back to work after a vacation, I think, "Oh, well, it's only the first week. I don't have to really study or prep. It's mostly going over the syllabus and the writing process and adding or dropping people."<br />
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When I think that, my brain selectively forgets that I'm an introvert. All my new students will be strangers. I will have to chit-chat with them during icebreakers.<br />
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Some of these total strangers will appear to be mad or sad when I tell them I cannot add them. I will not know if they are sincere in the urgency of their requests. As a highly sensitive person, I will be troubled by this.<br />
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I will be on the spot constantly at the beginning. I have to set the tone by going through the administrative procedures sternly on the first day. When things loosen up a little, I will still be on the spot because even if I'm not giving direct instruction, I'll have to speed around the room, making sure everyone is on task because behavioral standards are set during the first few weeks.<br />
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It may sound crazy, because as soon as writing starts coming in, the grading starts, but I actually look forward to curling up with a cup of coffee and reading their "Your Personal Literary History" essays and their "Introduce Yourself" poems. I guess we could call those activities the introvert's favorite icebreakers-- the ones you do alone! And while the get-to-know-you activities in class do help me some, I find that I don't really learn their names until I have read their stories.Prof. Scrof.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05318918653111788308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6170857606434120154.post-82159722955772054902015-09-15T12:54:00.002-07:002015-09-15T12:55:12.470-07:00When the content is hard......introverts might need to lecture it first.<br />
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It strikes me that when I'm teaching something new or a piece of literature that's complex or very in-depth, I feel like I need to lecture about it (or do a teacher-led whole-class discussion) a few times before I'm comfortable with group work. I learn best in a focused manner, and a focused way of teaching helps me master the material. As they say, you don't really learn something until you have to teach it to someone else. Once I'm comfortable that I won't forget my main points or get confused, I'm more comfortable opening things up to group work in which things happen more helter-skelter and out of order and during which time I can't be with everyone at once. Now, this probably wouldn't be a problem for an extrovert teacher who learns by interacting with others. It may help him/her master new material by diving at it from different angles, moving from group to group. So, an extrovert teacher might be able to start with group work right out of the gate. But an introvert may take awhile to work into a more student-centered style of teaching.<br />
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Teacher-centered is almost always presented as bad. I would ask that those who evaluate beginning teachers to consider whether or not those teachers are introverts and rather than label a new teacher who lectures as a bad teacher, help support them in the transition. Teaching is notorious for expecting new teachers to have the same load and the same expertise as older teachers. Let's modify our expectations.Prof. Scrof.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05318918653111788308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6170857606434120154.post-7432876041562269632015-09-13T15:23:00.002-07:002015-09-13T15:29:36.374-07:00That line from GatsbyAt one of Gatsby's parties, Jordan explains to Nick, "I like large parties. They're so intimate. At small parties there isn't any privacy" (54).<br />
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Of course, I've found a convoluted way to relate this quotation to teaching. A few days ago, some friends and colleagues and I had a brief exchange on Facebook in which it came up that enjoying speaking to large groups doesn't necessarily mean that a person is extroverted. I find that, as an introvert, talking to large groups often means you're lecturing or leading a class discussion, both of which allow you to follow a topic in depth and in an organized manner, which introverts love. So, to throw a little S.A.T.-quality allusion at you, are large classes to the introvert teacher what large parties are to <i>The Great Gatsby's</i> Jordan Baker? I, however, when I lecture or lead class discussion, am not looking so much for <i>privacy</i> as <i>focus</i>.Prof. Scrof.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05318918653111788308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6170857606434120154.post-22185201420521358072015-06-06T12:38:00.001-07:002015-06-06T12:42:13.992-07:00Finally, some recognition!I'm happy to have a positive post, as I feel that lately I've spent a lot of time on here fending off attacks on things that introverts like.<br />
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I've now been to a professional development session in which introversion was mentioned as a valid learning style ("style" is the wrong word, probably, but I hope you get what I mean) that teachers should address. So, just as we should appeal to the traditional learning styles of auditory, visual, kinesthetic, we should consider introversion. It was an <a href="http://oncourseworkshop.com/" target="_blank">On Course</a> workshop given at my college by their representative Elaine Zamora, who is also a community college teacher.<br />
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I think the only other time I've heard about introverts in a professional development setting was in a temperament exercise in the school of education when I got my teaching credential about 15 years ago. Often, if we hear about introverts in educational situations at all, we're glossed over--oh, those people know how to do stuff on their own so let's ignore them; or, oh, those are the readers who always do well in school anyway, so they don't need any attention; or, worse yet, those kids need to get with it and learn how to be more extroverted to succeed in our society.<br />
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To have my temperament validated in the same way that we try to validate other kinds of diversity--cultural, gender, religious--was a breath of fresh air!<br />
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The introvert-friendly activity we did at the workshop was simple, but had a big payoff. On Course calls it the "Silent Socratic Dialogue," which means that a student and partner each write on a prompt. Then, they exchange notebooks, read their partner's writing, write a question, exchange books again, answer the question, exchange books, read answer and write another question, etc. While we only took about five minutes each go-around to write our questions or answers, you could easily do this for longer. Even if you only did the five minutes, however, it's a lot more time than the introvert typically gets in an oral conversation where the rapid-fire back-and-forth takes seconds.<br />
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It was great to see that collaborative work need not be noisy and rushed.<br />
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And, as Elaine mentioned, sometimes in conversation we're so worried about coming up with a clever response that we don't really listen (this is an especially big problem for introverts, I think, and probably part of why they dread small talk). This silent dialoguing allowed us introverts to focus on our partner's words and take our time to reflect on our responses. Prof. Scrof.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05318918653111788308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6170857606434120154.post-79082998952675138332015-05-31T22:32:00.000-07:002015-05-31T22:32:06.097-07:00What "counts"?Sometimes, the difficult thing about teaching is that the bureaucratic climate turns us instructors into the "point grubber" students that we dislike dealing with.<br />
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Lately, in distance education (online classes), the conversation has been about what constitutes "regular and effective" contact with students. So, the point grubber's question becomes, of course, what do I do in my online course that "counts" as "regular and effective contact" as far as colleagues, administrators, accreditors are concerned? From that sprang a discussion on our campus as to the time an instructor logs into his/her class should be equivalent to the amount of time that would normally be spent in class in a face-to-face course of the same number of units.<br />
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Okay, that sounds logical. But consider this: when I'm in a face-to-face class, sometimes I'm talking to the whole class at once, sometimes to small groups, sometimes to individuals. Online, the equivalent of talking to everyone at once would be posting lecture, news items, or discussion postings, and everyone can see those materials, even if not at the same time. So, for the purposes of hours in class, those activities would "count." But what about small-group or individual consultations? What would be the online equivalents of those?<br />
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For writing teachers, it's easy. I can do videoconferencing with screen sharing and talk individually with students about their papers. I can hold small-group discussions or demonstrations (MLA review, for example) with this same videoconferencing and screen sharing tool.<br />
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But the situation came up where a colleague held lots of group study sessions by videoconferencing and she called them "office hours," because they were optional and, I suspect, also because traditionally, in a face-to-face class of 27 (or in her case, 57), you don't meet with individuals or small groups for an hour at a time while everyone else just sits there waiting. If people want that kind of one-on-one attention, they have to go to office hours.<br />
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So, here's the problem: "office hours" don't "count" as the hours you'd spend in "lecture" in a face-to-face class with your students. So, all this extra work my colleague is doing holding videoconference study sessions doesn't "count." If these study groups don't "count," will she have to forgo them to do other activities that do "count"? Will the activities that "count" tend to be large-group activities? What worries me about using the face-to-face class lecture hour analogy in an online class is that it could bias people against the sort of individual and small-group activities that introverts thrive on and which we finally have time to do in an online class because the lecture is typed up. The time I would normally spend delivering it can be redirected toward working with students on their writing.<br />
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So, how would we online instructors have to set it up so that individual activities like writing conferences would "count"? Perhaps if they were required for every student, they would "count," but would that be a feasible time commitment, even with the time that's freed up by not having to deliver lectures anymore? <br />
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Overall, my hope is that, as we define the expectations for this nascent online learning environment, we don't limit the possibilities based upon the old lecture-hour model just because it's all we know or, worse, because we have to keep teachers under surveillance to make sure that they're not trying to get away with doing less work. I hope the discussion of what constitutes "regular and effective contact" focuses on what's best for students, not what "counts" for teachers.Prof. Scrof.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05318918653111788308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6170857606434120154.post-42414714121203279102015-04-30T23:35:00.001-07:002015-04-30T23:46:03.492-07:00Dear Administrator, Don't Flip Your Meeting...At Least Not All the TimeAs I sit here and write this less than two hours away from the deadline I gave myself (and which I, in a fit of foolishness, told my students so that there'd be living humans to hold me to it), it strikes me that in some ways I'm a lot like them. (I procrastinate when I'm afraid or insecure. I have things I worry that I'm not good enough at.)<br />
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But in other ways, I'm not like them. And that is why I don't want administrators to "flip" their meetings. See <a href="https://chroniclevitae.com/news/980-dear-administrator-flip-your-meeting" target="_blank">Dear Administrator, Flip Your Meeting?</a>, by David Perry.<br />
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Let me back up. First, I'd like to say that I think English classes are the original "flipped" classes: you do the reading (the intake of ideas) at home, and the active discussion (output, exchange of ideas) happens in class.<br />
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But I feel like when educators say "flipped," they mean that class should consist of fast-moving, small-group work, as if that's the only kind of learning that is "active." The author of "Dear Admin" equates lecturing with "relying too much on students to function as passive receptacles for information." And, of course, he cites, as evidence, Studies.<br />
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Ah, yes, the almighty Studies. OK. Let me back up again. I believe the Studies. I facilitate collaborative learning in my classes. I have seen it work with my students. But the I suspect that the Studies are done on students.<br />
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I am not a student. I am a professor. Yes, I know, we're life-long learners, everyone is a student of life, yadda, yadda. But you know what I mean. I'm a professor. I'm someone who chose to spend long hours alone reading, studying, and writing. Many of my students would not choose a life like this. It is not in their disposition.<br />
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However, I think many professors are like me. The conditions of study and work that our career paths require demands a disposition opposite that of many of our students. I think this hits us community college professors especially hard. We have the focus, the single-mindedness, often the introversion that is necessary to be subject matter experts, but some of our students come to community college precisely because they do not have a single-minded focus or the inclination to be reflective and contemplative.<br />
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This doesn't mean I don't love them. It doesn't mean I don't appreciate them. It's just that I am different. And I don't think that I learn the same way as they do. I don't think the results of Studies on them will always apply to me, or even to some of them, especially as people like Susan Cain now estimate that introverts may make up up to half the population, as opposed to the one quarter that was previously believed. One of the reasons I hated small group work as a student resulted from the educators having been told that we students were all the same and would learn better from our peers than from the teacher. Well, I felt different than most of my peers, and I didn't trust them. I didn't want to be vulnerable (and that is what one becomes when learning) in a group of people who didn't "get" me or who, in the past, had outright ridiculed me. Small groups are supposed to let the shy ones speak up, but this logic works best if you assume that the teacher is the intimidator. What if the peers are the intimidators? <br />
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Let me back up again, lest I sound too much like the small-group hater and the lecture-lover. I should say that meetings in my department, the English Department, are rarely lectures. We discuss everything. Some might say too much, winking-smiley-face.<br />
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But I know and trust these colleagues. I have been with them many years. I am, or try to be, well-informed about what we discuss. (I'd like to point out that the kind of environment that we have in my department doesn't just happen by putting strangers into groups; I fear a lot of active learning research focuses on the how-to's of grouping but ignores the very real parts that authentic interpersonal communication and the interplay of the teacher's and students' personalities play in learning.)<br />
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But sometimes I'm in a meeting of the broader campus community. I don't know these people as well. The subject matter is unfamiliar. I would like a captivating person to explain it to me, to help me understand, and then I would like to reflect on it quietly and at length before commenting upon it. In this case, for an administrator to, as Perry suggests, send me inscrutable data in an e-mail for me to tackle alone for the sake of "flipping" the meeting and not lecturing at me would, I believe, result in just the type of "information-dump" that David Perry wishes to avoid.<br />
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Sometimes, after a day of "facilitating," a day of orchestrating other people's learning experiences, I want someone to cater to my learning style. On the other hand, perhaps you could say that sometimes I just get tired--that after a day of creative choices, of discussing complex social issues, of always wondering what is the right decision--from which direction to lean in assigning a grade to what I should say to that girl who came to class today with a black eye--, sometimes I want somebody to just tell me what to do, how to understand a given piece of information.<br />
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Maybe I made my point best when I said recently to my wonderful dean, who has always respected me even though we have very different temperaments, that, just as traditional lecture excluded many students in the old days, so too can group work in our own times. We introvert educators (both those teachers who are introverts themselves as well as those teachers who educate introverts) should be vigilant that <i>that</i> doesn't happen.<br />
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<i>That </i>would be a kind of "flipping" that no one should want to see.<br />
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<br />Prof. Scrof.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05318918653111788308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6170857606434120154.post-55369397754437062872015-03-25T11:40:00.001-07:002015-03-25T11:52:34.099-07:00Lecture or Conversation?On Friday, at my college, I attended a wonderful Flex (professional development) activity, by <a href="http://www.soulwater.org/homepage.html" target="_blank">Dr. Jaiya John</a>, poet and foster youth advocate. His "talk," if such an inspired performative expression of ideas can be called "a talk," got me thinking about my introvert's crusade to combat the almost universal maligning of "lecture" that pervades pedagogical circles.<br />
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Just as I struggle to call Dr. John's "talk" a "talk," I certainly wouldn't call it a "lecture," at the risk of making it misunderstood. Any educator who hears "lecture" nowadays hears its negative connotation as well.<br />
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In a nutshell, Dr. John talked to us (the audience of about 40 people) for an hour and a half.<br />
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Yes, that's right. We listened quietly to another person's voice for 90 minutes.<br />
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And it was AWESOME.<br />
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Dr. John didn't do a bad lecture. He didn't drone on in a monotone or make it hard for us to see the topic's relevance to our lives and our society. He did a good lecture. He combined poetry, storytelling, explanation, gesture, eye contact, vocal variation, humor, and so much more to make us think about how to draw upon our own human vulnerability as we nurture people who have been through traumas that are hard to imagine.<br />
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And he did it for 90 minutes.<br />
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The subject was a complex one, and the talk wove personal experience, professional experience, a lifetime (so far) of reading, and more. It needed 90 minutes. At least.<br />
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But just because it was one man talking to a quiet audience for 90 minutes doesn't mean it excluded our participation. In addition to all the thinking I did while listening as well as the eye contact and nodding and other subtle audience participation, there would be a workshop to follow when we could talk to Professor John. He let us know that we could contact him anytime, and I plan to write him an e-mail soon with some of my responses.<br />
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When Professor John began his talk, he described instances when his students played the saxophone or sang for his social psychology class. My first reaction was, "Here we go again. Here's another person who's going to tell me to let the students lead the class."<br />
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But then he himself talked to us for 90 minutes.<br />
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And I realized that a class is a type of conversation. It's not always teacher-led, but it's not always student-led, either. Students shared their talents and stories, but Dr. John shared his as well. A classroom is a place to exchange ideas, not a place where students or where professors, whose voices provide a valuable perspective the perspective of how our discipline illuminates the world, are silenced. A classroom values everyone's voice. When I lecture or give direct instruction, or when I ask my students to read ("lecture" is reading, or the <a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=lecture" target="_blank">gathering--as indicated by the fascinating etymology of the word--</a> and dissemination of ideas, which can be done aloud or in print), I am asking them to spend a lot of quiet time taking in someone else's ideas. But what makes this okay is that I want to read my students' long and thoughtful responses when they write their essays, when they give their presentations. I would never malign Dr. John as a "sage on the stage." He brings sagacity to the classroom and should share it; so do and so should our students.<br />
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Long and thoughtful presentation of ideas, written or spoken, plus long and thoughtful response: this is scholarly conversation. And it takes time. Sometimes 90 minutes or much, much more for just one person's part of the dialogue! Scholarly conversation takes time. So much of the active and cooperative learning educational methods touted today are based on a different type of conversation: casual conversation. The 10-minute small-group discussion in which there's a rapid-fire exchange of ideas is a type of conversation, but not the only type. In fact, in my classroom, I sometimes want to get away from the paradigm of casual conversation. In our world of random and rapid sensory assault from all sides, it is especially important to introduce students to that other type of conversation, the scholarly conversation, the one that requires time and concentration, the one that they don't see happening everywhere (or perhaps anywhere) else.<br />
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<br />Prof. Scrof.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05318918653111788308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6170857606434120154.post-91235996695511439762015-03-24T22:02:00.000-07:002015-03-25T10:38:52.061-07:00Babies: The Antidote for the Introvert's Dread of Small-TalkI recently read the posting <a href="http://binkiesandbriefcases.com/moms-are-people-too/" target="_blank">"Moms are People, Too,"</a> by Stephanie Giese, on one of my favorite blogs, <a href="http://binkiesandbriefcases.com/" target="_blank">Binkies and Briefcases</a>. It's about how, when you become a mother, strangers approach your toddler/young child and talk to him/her ("Oh, you're so cute! You love your blankie, don't you?") while ignoring the mother. The post was about how to get people to stop doing that.<br />
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In principle, I totally agree. (I have even seen my own mom blow right past me and grab my daughter without so much as a "Hi, Diane"--not that I blame her; Baby V. is a lot more snuggly than I am.)<br />
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But, then, I realized that part of me--the introverted part--doesn't want people to stop doing that!<br />
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However, as Susan Cain and many others have noted, small-talk is very awkward for introverts. We don't like casually bouncing from topic to topic, thinking of entertaining witticisms on the fly. We like to reflect and have more intimate one-on-one conversations about topics that we feel passionate about.<br />
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So, you can imagine how happy I was to realize that, after I had my baby, I'd never have to struggle to make small talk again! Oh, okay, maybe not "never," but I at least have a few years of rapid-fire baby/toddler milestones to regularly report to others before she becomes another run-of-the-mill kid who can do critical things unassisted, like go to the bathroom and eat food with a fork.<br />
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Here are some great examples of the sort of small talk I can now make now that I have a baby.<br />
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To the neighbor: "She is trying really hard to crawl, but she can't just yet!"<br />
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To Grandma: "She tried bananas this week!"<br />
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To colleagues: "I've had to run out and buy twelve-month pajamas already!"<br />
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To strange lady in grocery (or any) store: "She's eight months old and is getting her top two front teeth!"<br />
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To everyone: "I'm so tired!"<br />
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For the first time in my life, I know just what to say and how to say it in a quick and casual conversation.<br />
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So, Friends and Strangers who talk to Baby V. and not me, I say to you, I am not offended! I don't want you to stop! Talk to my baby and I will happily answer you with what I think she would say. I'll use the adult-pretending-to-be-a-baby voice and everything!<br />
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Is it sad that I'd rather invent hypothetical baby's-point-of-view small talk than make my own?<br />
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I suppose you could be cynical and say I'm using my child to avoid an activity I dislike. But I say it's just an unexpected perk after things like, you know, labor and sleepless nights and all that stuff, that my bundle of joy is also the ultimate conversation piece--er, person. ;)Prof. Scrof.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05318918653111788308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6170857606434120154.post-27374488237334480292015-02-18T20:58:00.002-08:002015-02-18T20:58:44.492-08:00My College's New President: Out as an Introvert!Recently, we received an e-mail of introduction from the newly hired college president. He described his family, his hobbies, his career, and his goals for the college, as one might expect. After he mentioned that upon his arrival he would meet with employees, students, and community partners, he added, <span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">"<span style="font-size: 11pt;">All
of these social commitments tax my introverted personality, but I believe they are necessary to doing my job well." My first reaction was, "Woohoo! Go, introverts!" After all, it's reassuring to have someone with your personality type in a position of influence, in a someone's-looking-out-for-us kind of way. And I like to feel that I can in some way relate to an important new stranger I'll be meeting soon. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Then, I worried. Hm, now do we have to mention introversion in a sort of disclaimer? Like, "Hey, I might not be as charismatic as you might expect, but I'll get the job done!" Must we introverts forever be assuring people that we'll be OK <i>in spite of</i> our personalities, rather than <i>because of</i> them?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">But then I looked at the positive. He mentioned introversion! In a memo that was sent to every employee at the college. Which means he wasn't afraid that he'd be looked down upon after coming "out" as an "in-." Maybe the fact that the new college president felt free to mention his introversion is a sign that our society is moving toward more acceptance of introverts. The fact that the new president admitted to being an introvert shows that he doesn't feel pressure to hide his true self and pretend to be an extrovert, which is what lots of introverts habitually do to survive, especially in people-person fields like education. I know I do!</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">So, overall, I think the declaration of introversion in my new president's e-mail was an indication that things are moving in the right direction for introverts. Even though people need a warning that we're coming, at least we won't have to hide once we get there!</span></span>Prof. Scrof.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05318918653111788308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6170857606434120154.post-78084078327232607052015-01-17T17:33:00.001-08:002015-01-17T17:33:16.282-08:00An Introvert's Response to the 30 Million-Word Word GapSo, everyone is reading about it. The articles are all over the likes of <i>Atlantic Monthly</i> and NPR. Another study has found that children of low socioeconomic status hear 30 million fewer words than children of higher socioeconomic status. Of course, the point of publicizing this information is to encourage parents who might not otherwise do so to talk to their babies and toddlers. Most of these parents would have a very different educational background than yours truly, a college English professor. But, if you're a guilt-ridden neurotic like I am, your response to all the word gap articles that came out this week was to say to yourself, "Holy crap, I've got to talk to my child more!" <br />
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Basically, I'm hoping that this buzz about the word gap doesn't turn into middle-class people pressuring themselves (or their fellow parents) EVEN MORE into embracing the notion that children need to be stimulated every minute or they will be losing out on something. Or that a parent's (or, by extension, teacher's) job to respond to a child's every sentiment or satisfy his or her every curiosity.<br />
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On yesterday's walk, I was tormented. Would my introversion disadvantage my child? Were the days of quietly snuggling my infant gone? Must I change to become a proper vocabulary-building, choice-offering mother? Was I asking the baby enough questions? Furthering the conversation enough with my 6 month-old in her carriage? I exhausted myself with "What do you see? Is that a tree? What color is the tree. The tree is green! What else is green?" Gah. If walks were always going to be like this, I didn't want to go on any more of them.<br />
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Today, we walked quietly. What introvert wouldn't want to teach her child the pleasure of a quiet walk? I observed that my daughter looked all around and that, since I already talk a lot to her, it's ok for her to just look around sometimes. If I don't distract her, she has to think about what she sees. As she gets older, I will teach her that being quiet doesn't mean you're doing nothing. I hope other parents and educators realize that quiet does not always signal a lack of something. There are positive ways of being quiet. Being quiet can mean taking time to be observant and reflective. This doesn't mean to ignore your kids and hope they become contemplative little Buddhas. It means to teach them the good ways of being quiet. We can instill habits of self-reflection. Some inner-city schools have even had great success with teaching kids to meditate.<br />
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I guess what I'm trying to say is that I hope these 30 million-word word gap findings are not interpreted in such a way that contributes to the current atmosphere in education and parenting that learning can't happen without talking, without noise. Believe me, as a community college English teacher, I want kids to come to school with great verbal skills so, parents, talk away. But as our babies grow up, let's not forget to show them that words can also have rich lives in our heads and on the page.Prof. Scrof.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05318918653111788308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6170857606434120154.post-62564202103112089212014-09-29T12:59:00.000-07:002014-09-29T12:59:04.322-07:00"I like your hidden red."So, I'm a total sucker for recent years' hair color miracle called ombre, in which highlights of color are added to layers underneath rather than on the top of the hair. No roots show, ever! With the baby almost 12 weeks old, I decided to get some pampering and go to the salon for the first time since I had had her. I got some ombre streaks in my favorite color, a dark red. When I curl my mostly dark, dark brown hair, the red provides subtle, shimmery swirls of color.<br />
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A few days later as I pushed my cart down the aisle in the grocery store, a woman, after admonishing her kid to "get out of the lady's way," took a closer look at me and my brand-new ombre and said, "Oh, I like your hidden red!"<br />
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Thank you, Person in the Grocery Store, for unwittingly creating my favorite new metaphor for introversion! We may be quiet or even dark, but we all have our "hidden red."Prof. Scrof.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05318918653111788308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6170857606434120154.post-24379413047601996842014-09-25T12:00:00.002-07:002014-09-25T12:01:31.302-07:00Baby Introverts?Since my baby was born, I've been reading baby books of course, and <i>The Wonder Weeks</i> (van de Rijt and Plooij, 2013) had this to say in their chapter on week 12 of infant development: "Some babies are very aware of the world around them, and they prefer looking, listening, and experiencing sensations to being physically active themselves" (96). Hm, sounds like baby HSPs (Highly Sensitive Persons, to use Elaine Aaron's term) to me! But the bias is present against even baby introverts: "Most of the time, professionals, as well as friends and family, assess a baby's development by looking at the physical milestones, such as grasping, rolling over, crawling, sitting, standing, and walking. This can give a one-sided view of progress as it makes the 'watch-listen-feel' baby seem slower" (97).Prof. Scrof.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05318918653111788308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6170857606434120154.post-25955094426132206782014-06-26T12:03:00.004-07:002014-06-26T12:03:51.796-07:00En Masse at MassIt occurred to me one Sunday at church that the current educational establishment would think of the format traditional Sunday services as such a waste: all these people gathered together and not interacting! They're all sitting together quietly, perhaps "alone together," as Sherry Turkle might say. <br />
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I think this sort of thought comes from our modern world of isolation. We live in densely populated cities, but we don't know our neighbors. Lawrence Ferlinghetti said we were all suffering from "piblokto madness," isolatedly fighting our own demons in tiny cubic dwellings. When you look at it that way, it seems like, oh, my, all these people nearby and yet such loneliness! The irony! The tragedy! The same seems to be the opinion when you have forty students in a room and they are not talking to each other but rather are quietly reading or, worse, listening to a teacher, a "sage on the stage," one of the world's most gag-worthy educationalese put-downs for the teaching style in which the student is not the center of attention. <br />
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But for most of human history, everyone was clumped together by virtue of necessity. Tribes pitched their tents close and people huddled together for warmth. People were ALWAYS together. When church services and much later public schooling started, I would imagine that there were so few educated leaders available that people had to attend en masse; there were not enough priests or teachers to go around. In other words, people attended in large groups because they had to, not because this was the best way to do things or because the goal was collaboration. The goals included reflection, introspection, thoughtfulness--all things done better alone or in pairs or very small groups. For most of history, the wealthy had private tutors and there were no giant classrooms full of kids. Of course, this was due to elitism, but I think also because it doesn't work; those with no financial limitations chose to do education one-on-one or one-teacher-per-family. With the diversity of our student populations now, one of my ed school professors said that maybe (in a perfect world with no economic constraints) the way for education to really differentiate instruction and address everyone's needs would be to have educators work with students on an individual or small group basis, the way lawyers work with their clients. <br />
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All this is to say that the panic that ensues when we see a large space with tens or hundreds of people being quiet and not interacting with each other is uncalled for. Just because there's no talking or collaborating doesn't mean there should be or that nothing meaningful is going on. Prof. Scrof.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05318918653111788308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6170857606434120154.post-31479119160331874832014-05-25T12:26:00.001-07:002014-05-25T12:26:25.336-07:00The Culture of Blame: Or, Why I Walked Around My House Dazed and Weepy After Childbirth ClassAfter being in teaching for over ten years, you think I'd be used to people heaping blame upon me for things that are out of my control. You'd also think I'd know better than to take it to heart so much, knowing now, thanks to my most recent two therapists, that I'm a "guardian" personality and tend to, erroneously and unnecessarily, take responsibility for everyone around me instead of just myself. But, we introverts are so prone to rumination and self-examination that it's very hard to not turn this into self-blame.<br />
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So that brings me to yesterday's childbirth preparation class. I knew that the culture of motherhood was even more a culture of blame than the culture of teaching. But information and planning makes me feel comforted because I feel I have some measure of control over my life, so I went in excited and forgot to put up my defenses against the guilt-tripping (from without and within) that I should have known would ensue. I started the morning optimistically annotating my book, getting all the information I could use to create the optimal birth. Hm, even in that sentence you can sense the shift: now it was my responsibility to direct my birth. Despite the kind and elderly teacher's constant reminders that you cannot plan and that the baby will do what it wants, there was the underlying and contradictory implication that, nevertheless, there were a lot of things I ought to be doing, or else. This is how I began to hear the rest of the information:<br />
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<ul>
<li>Do the right movements and exercises and be aware of the latest developments in yoga ball technology or you'll create more pain for yourself...but don't be that crazed suburban momzilla who materialistically buys too much baby gear.</li>
<li>Your body knows what to do...but get a doula or you'll be sorry you and your clueless partner will be all alone while the overworked nurses scurry about. </li>
<li>"Birth is natural, not medical"...but so is death, so get to the hospital on time.</li>
<li>Pack the right things in your bag or you'll make yourself more uncomfortable...but don't clutter up the hospital room.</li>
<li>If you get an epidural, you might cause yourself and your baby these harmful side effects: yadda, yadda, scary yadda...but you'll be sorry if you wait to ask for it until it's too late. </li>
<li>Don't strut in on your high horse with your immutable birth plan...but know your patient rights and fend off the knife-happy, C-section-loving medical establishment. </li>
<li>You need to do whatever is best for the baby, but but know your patient rights and fend off the knife-happy, C-section-loving medical establishment. </li>
<li>You're no less of a person if you need medical "interventions," but all these could increase your risk of...yes, you guessed it: your innards cut up by the knife-happy, C-section-loving medical establishment!</li>
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By the end, I felt like every choice I could make was wrong. And instead of saying, "Forget it, I'll do what I want," like a normal person, what did I do? I blamed myself for taking the one-day class and not spreading this out over a few sessions; after all, it was my fault for overwhelming myself.<br />
<br />Prof. Scrof.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05318918653111788308noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6170857606434120154.post-54392402254579434782014-02-14T13:19:00.004-08:002014-02-14T13:19:45.851-08:00"Ay, chingao, I hate summer." The seasons and the highly sensitive.Yesterday, basking in my lounge chair in the yard in the deliciousness of a Southern CA day that was 80 degrees in February, I exclaimed to my husband, "It's like summer!" and the above title of this posting was his reply. Well, I figured, when you are a quirky person, you marry a quirky person, and sometimes they say things that nobody else says. I mean, who hates summer?<br />
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But then I began to think back to when I had unmedicated anxiety and OCD. At that time, I preferred cloudy days because I found them calming. The sun was just too much. Too bright, too in-my-face. And of course, many a bibliophile loves a rainy day by the fire to curl up with hot cocoa. So, instead of assuming I had seasonal affective disorder in reverse, I figured people who like cloudy, drizzly cold aren't that weird after all. <br />
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I even wonder if Europeans developed a written culture earlier than some warmer, nicer places that stuck with an oral culture because there's something conducive about cold, wet weather that helps with the kind of focused work introverts and reading/writing-centric cultures privilege, while maybe nice warm weather that gets people outside and around one another fosters interaction and extroversion, which would require more of an oral culture.Prof. Scrof.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05318918653111788308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6170857606434120154.post-14603246859720550332014-02-12T12:42:00.000-08:002014-02-12T12:42:02.739-08:00An Introvert Illness? "Don't make a scene."Another thing that has taken my attention away from my beloved blog is my sabbatical project. I thought reading and writing from home, in true introvert mode, would have me writing blog posts much more often, even though the topic of my research is not introversion.<br />
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My project is on fiction (for young adults) and narrative nonfiction (memoirs and such) of mental illness. (If you're interested, my proposal is available <a href="http://www.vcccd.edu/committees/sabbatical_leave/2013_sabbatical_mc_DianeScrofano_proposal.pdf" target="_blank">here, via my district's website</a>.) Overwhelmed by reading and thinking about that reading, I haven't had as many writing or blogging urges. I guess you could say my brain has been in input mode rather than output mode. Perhaps this in itself is introverted; I can think about ideas easily and with endless revision and no need to check and re-check for type-o's, etc.<br />
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But, anyway, as with most of my scholarly interests, there is some crossover. As part of my research, I've been learning about mental illnesses such as borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder, in which people are given to acting out boldly, and I began to wonder: is it possible that there are introvert mental illnesses and extrovert mental illnesses?<br />
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Let me back up. Growing up in our family, a family of introverts and Italian Catholics very much interested in upholding honor and avoiding shame, one of the adults' favorite admonishments to a misbehaving kid was, "Don't make a scene." One of the only saving graces of my OCD is that most of it consisted of the "O" part and could be hidden. My discomfort and shame, distressing as it was, could at least be private most of the time. Of course, this prevented my diagnosis and prolonged my suffering for years, but that's another matter.<br />
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I've recently begun to wonder how I would've felt if I had something like bipolar or borderline and could not hide my illness. Of course, everyone, regardless of temperament, feels shame after the excesses of, say, a manic episode, but would my shame have been greater as an introvert, as someone who grew up trying to "not make a scene"? Then, I wondered, would it be possible for me or my biological relatives to get such an illness? Or do some of the same chemicals that make me an introvert predispose me to an internally tormenting, invisible psychological problem like the obsessions in OCD?Prof. Scrof.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05318918653111788308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6170857606434120154.post-16800177728530836102014-02-06T10:02:00.004-08:002014-02-06T10:07:33.152-08:00The Pregnant IntrovertSo, a few things have happened that have interfered with me posting to this blog as much as I would have liked to, one of which is that I am now about halfway through my first pregnancy.<br />
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Sometimes I forget I'm pregnant. It takes a second to realize that the "How are you feeling?" is different from the everyday "How are you?" I'm not used to people being so solicitous, as I give off that solitary vibe and am not used to being the center of attention. And people will notice me even more as the bump gets bigger. Luckily, no one but close friends and family have actually reached out and patted the belly yet. ;)<br />
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I'm noticing some of the same things that happened when I was planning my wedding. Now that I'm pregnant, women who I normally have little in common with feel more comfortable chatting with me. In my twenties, most women my age were driven to distraction by the care of small children while I was driven to distraction by studying and teaching. We were often too tired to really have anything to say to each other. But, in a world where everyone does their own thing and there are few rules and conventions anymore, it was a pleasant surprise, when I began planning my wedding, at age 31, that women of all ages were suddenly taking an interest in my china pattern. And as non-traditional as my life was (I lived alone and worked), compared to those of lots of women I knew, I wanted a super-traditional wedding. The idealist literary dreamer who figured for most of her life that she'd never get the opportunity to have a wedding was going to have the fairy-tale princess experience or be damned! In the process of orchestrating said experience, I found that the older ladies in the family who could never relate to the strange bookish creature before seemed genuinely interested in this facet of my personality. The same seems true with pregnancy. While I often crave alone-time, I don't like to be lonely, and it's nice to have people show interest.<br />
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While I've mostly been too nauseous to feel like a princess while pregnant, now that I'm halfway through and my life seems to be returning to a semblance of normalcy (I'm even getting my appetite back), I am going to try to make the most of all the cliches that as an academic I'm supposed to eschew. For example, in about a week, I am going to have the cutest gender-reveal cupcakes ever.<br />
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<br />Prof. Scrof.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05318918653111788308noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6170857606434120154.post-18312036698522768302013-12-28T11:13:00.001-08:002013-12-28T11:13:24.953-08:00"Don't hover on me."This was a favorite phrase of my dad's. He would use it if we kids were reading over his shoulder or intruding in his personal space while he was building or fixing something. As I grew up, an introvert much like him, I realized that I, too, dislike it when people "hover" on me.<br />
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Perhaps this is why it is so uncomfortable for me, as a teacher, to "hover" on my students. When I first started teaching, I realized, to my chagrin, that many students are conditioned not to do their work <i>unless</i> you hover on them and that I would have to become a hover-er.<br />
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A recent example would be Essay Planning Day in my developmental English class. When I was a student, I would've hated and resented such a day. While I am thinking, especially to prepare a writing assignment, I like to be alone. I would not like a professor coming around and literally reading over my shoulder. I would not like to be interrupted with questions and/or suggestions. I would not like someone to conclude that because I didn't immediately write anything down that I was "off-task," a favorite educational phrase for not focusing on the matter at hand.<br />
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I instituted days like Essay Planning Day because I saw that they were necessary; my students were not necessarily going to prewrite on their own, and taking class time to do it did produce a better quality of writing. I wasn't shocked that the process was effective; I was, however, shocked that some people actually liked it--the hovering part, that is. I realized that, for some, hovering is simply concerned interest and helpful feedback. What an introvert views as interference, the extrovert may actually view as wanted attention, affirmation even.<br />
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Sigh. The culture shock continues!Prof. Scrof.http://www.blogger.com/profile/05318918653111788308noreply@blogger.com0