When Schools Overlook Introverts 307
Esther Schindler writes: A few years ago, Susan Cain's book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking seemed to give the world a bit of enlightenment about getting the most out of people who don't think they should have to be social in order to succeed. For a while, at least some folks worked to respect the needs and advantages of introversion, such as careful, reflective thinking based on the solitude that idea-generation requires.
But in When Schools Overlook Introverts, Michael Godsey writes, "The way in which certain instructional trends — education buzzwords like "collaborative learning" and "project-based learning" and "flipped classrooms" — are applied often neglect the needs of introverts. In fact, these trends could mean that classroom environments that embrace extroverted behavior — through dynamic and social learning activities — are being promoted now more than ever." It's a thoughtful article, worth reading. As I think many people on slashdot will agree, Godsley observes, "This growing emphasis in classrooms on group projects and other interactive arrangements can be challenging for introverted students who tend to perform better when they're working independently and in more subdued environments."
But in When Schools Overlook Introverts, Michael Godsey writes, "The way in which certain instructional trends — education buzzwords like "collaborative learning" and "project-based learning" and "flipped classrooms" — are applied often neglect the needs of introverts. In fact, these trends could mean that classroom environments that embrace extroverted behavior — through dynamic and social learning activities — are being promoted now more than ever." It's a thoughtful article, worth reading. As I think many people on slashdot will agree, Godsley observes, "This growing emphasis in classrooms on group projects and other interactive arrangements can be challenging for introverted students who tend to perform better when they're working independently and in more subdued environments."
Social media (Score:5, Insightful)
Did in being an introvert. SM (as opposed to S&M, which is for another topic) is the current be-all-end-all to a great many people. It's sort of like AOL was the internet back in the early 90s, SM is the internet.
But for introverts, who don't feel like posting every aspect of their life for all to see (I am one of those) we are overlooked in this mad rush to get 10,000 "friends" or 20 million "likes" and I feel it's infecting schools as well. Not directly, but in the way of thinking that everything (learning) must be done in groups, or socially, or collaboratively, which is not the way we all think or learn.
Re:Social media (Score:4, Funny)
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Not me. This place is so full of trolls and shills it's really not much fun any more. Discussions like this are OK, but if it has anything to do with Linux it'll be filled with all kinds of caustic anti-Linux comments from MS "evangelists".
That's what moderation is about. F'rinstance, I was making a joke about Slashdot being antisocial media, and someone (possibly an introvert) got offended. Besides, I think it's worse for us Mac users. You get all of the MS shills and the anti-Apple haters. MS has it's detractors as well. Just roll with the punches.
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Not me. This place is so full of trolls and shills it's really not much fun any more. Discussions like this are OK, but if it has anything to do with Linux it'll be filled with all kinds of caustic anti-Linux comments from MS "evangelists".
To be fair though any article that mentions Windows pulls down all of the caustic anti-Microsoft comments from the Open Source equivalents.
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Yes, we need to get rid of AC posting in its entirety. Screen names are all the anonymity we need.
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Re:Social media (Score:5, Interesting)
Not really, it assumes you give a damn.
I can't tell you how many stupid platforms I've been subjected to at work which seem to labor under the bullshit premise that my work, or anybody else's, is going to be improved by "teh soshul medias".
All those things with badges for participation and the like? I hate these things in real life, and I despise them in my work life. It propagates the stupid belief that by adding more volume of pointless content and getting recognized as a "good contributor" that it generates anything of value.
Introversion means you simply don't want 500 Facebook friends, don't see the structure of "social media" as enhancing anything, and actively want no part of it.
Somewhere along the line when companies started using this cap internally as if it was going to save the corporate culture and make us all more productive, they lost the plot. So now you have a bunch of magpies who use it because it's cool and fun, and a bunch of people who can't find anything useful because it's crammed full of inane garbage and notifications that someone liked someone else's post.
I'm not looking for "cool and fun", I'm looking for information to do my job. And I don't want it structured in such a way as to require me to sift through a bunch of "workversations" to find the useful bits among the rubbish. The signal to noise ratio renders the platform largely useless.
If this crap in the workplace feels useless and distracting, I can only imagine that in an educational setting it leaves a lot of kids thinking "why would I do this, how does it help me, and why am I being forced to use this crap?"
Social media is rewarding if you want to be constantly validated as participating in a group and have a video-game level of "accomplishments", and it's utterly useless if you don't. It just ads a layer of pointless crap which has nothing to do with what you're trying to do ... but it satisfies some clueless halfwit who saw a seminar which said that social media would make everything better.
Give me the tools to do my damned job, and don't impose some framework where I have to pretend to want to have a social conversation to extract every single piece of information. Because it makes for terribly organized information which is less useful the more stuff is around it.
Other than making some people feel better about things, I'm not convinced social media helps you accomplish a damned thing.
I sincerely hope the trend that everything is social media ends soon -- because it's annoying as hell, and in my experience, not substantiated in terms of what it actually accomplishes.
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I would argue that group learning is a flawed way of learning whether you're an introvert or extrovert. On paper it would seem logical that group dynamics would be that the first person to figure something out would then relay that information to his/her group peers. Unfortunately this requires advanced reasoning skills that most people do not possess. Instead, the loudest person in the group usually dictates the answer and others accept it for flawed reasons, such as, "he/she must know what they're talking
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I am an introvert without a Facebook account (or Twitter, or Instawhatever). And I love social media.
I kind of want to be left alone, or rather, I want to choose when and how I interact with people. With most people seemingly socializing through Facebook, it is a snap to opt out of unwanted social pressures and small talk if you aren't also a user.
Facebook casts a long shadow. It is easy to disappear in it.
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There is a large difference between not wanting to post every detail of your life on SM and being introverted. In person, I can (at least appear) extroverted. It's a learnable skill.
I want people to be forced to learn math even if they have math anxiety. Why shouldn't schools teach social skills/how to interact with a group even if kids have social anxiety.
Re: Social media (Score:2, Insightful)
Many years ago some school in the northwest did a pretty substantial study of online relationships. When I saw that less than 3% of online friends had ever worked to help their friend with a real life problems, that's when I realized what a waste of time SNS is. They described the qualifier for this as things like moving, driving long distances, etc.
SNS is the Walmart of friendships. Convenient cheap and plentiful low quality friendship.
Re: Social media (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Social media (Score:5, Funny)
I heard it put very succinctly this way:
Friends help you move....
REAL friends help you move bodies...
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Re:Social media (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't really see SNS as anything new, and your characterization of them seems the opposite of what actually happens to me. People with few friends have actual, real friends on SNS. People with 10,000 "friends" and 20 million "likes" are actually quite isolated and distant from those people, and crave real life interaction all the more for it.
Sorry, but that doesn't jive with the social media addicts I know. Most of them are the kind that are doing social things all the time and still can't get enough because they can't be everywhere with everybody all the time, so social media is their way of pseudo-staying in contact with an oversized social circle. Like you're on a cabin trip with friends A and B so you couldn't go partying with friends C and D or be at family member E's celebration or colleague F's birthday party but through insta-face-twitter you're trying to take part in everything and let everyone take part in what you're doing anyway.
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You mean 'jibe'. Nothing of any significance has 'jived' since Barbara Billingsworth on the movie Airplane.
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That's because you're younger (school age or out of school not much more than 5 years).
Take a look at my UID, then guess again.
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Well, in response to the poster above him, his UID would mean he joined Slashdot by the age of 10.
His usage of a low six digit UID isn't the pissing match it usually is (though all in good fun), just a reference point to dispute a claim on his age.
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According to Google the average for a Facebook user is 338 friends.
And 300 of those are salespeople.
My wife had a couple dozen Twitter followers, until she tweeted "I'm not going to buy anything from any of you." Now she has about 5.
Flipped Classrooms (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Flipped Classrooms (Score:5, Insightful)
I can see how "collaborative learning" and "project-based learning" might be problematic for introverts
It's been my experience that those terms have a much more sinister meaning in real life that they appear on the surface. "Collaborative learning," "project-based learning," any kind of focus on groups or group projects, and so on are often a teaching buzzwords for "Put all the kids in a group so the smart kids can carry the dumb kids and then on paper it looks like everyone is doing well." Here is the way a "group project" worked at my old school:
1) Put at least one smart kid (like me) in each group (with the dumb and mediocre kids)
2) Smart kid does all the work because he/she actually wants an "A"
3) Dumb and mediocre kids do fuck all, learn fuck all, and accomplish fuck all, Mostly they just nap or play on their cellphones while the smart kid works.
4) Group gets an "A" because the smart kid works his/her ass off
5) Dumb and mediocre kids get an "A," look on paper like they're really improving and learning
EDUCATION!
Re:Flipped Classrooms (Score:5, Insightful)
This is to get them all ready for the work experience....
Re:Flipped Classrooms (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Flipped Classrooms (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Flipped Classrooms (Score:5, Interesting)
"Collaborative learning," "project-based learning," any kind of focus on groups or group projects, and so on are often a teaching buzzwords for "Put all the kids in a group so the smart kids can carry the dumb kids and then on paper it looks like everyone is doing well."
That's probably the most cynical way of putting it. A well-organized group project with proper evaluation and assessment can do more than that. Part of the problem is finding suitable types of projects for group work. Projects that are open-ended, exploratory, require experimentation (and often benefit from people with different ideas for approaches) -- group work can be good there.
With younger children -- who haven't yet become so utterly cynical about education and haven't bought into the American malaise of anti-intellectualism -- groups of different ability levels can be incredibly beneficial. It's a common approach in many Montessori and private school classrooms, where grade levels are often combined to everyone's benefit. The younger or slower kids watch the older and smarter kids, and they often have an innate capacity to help each other learn together.
Here is the way a "group project" worked at my old school:
I empathize with your description; I recall many similar situations in school myself. Part of the problem is the cultural divide I mentioned above -- many older kids and teenagers simply don't value excellence in education.
But another major flaw in your description is the lack of an appropriate assessment. "Dumb and mediocre kids" shouldn't get an "A" just because the overall work of a group gets an "A." Learning should be tested via a separate assessment -- whether an individual report or a test on the material learned through the group project or whatever.
Group work shouldn't be a vehicle to give everyone an "A." It's a different learning strategy, which can sometimes be helpful with proper guidance from a teacher. The results of the group should not be substituted for an individual assessment strategy, and if you had teachers who did that, you're probably correct that it wasn't the best method of education.
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I am a teacher. My pay - and my very having a job - is measured on how many of the students I teach get an "A" according to the metrics used by the administration. By having the smart kids carry the slower kids, I can guarantee the maximum number of students receiving that "A"; even though the standardized testing used to measure their performance is individualized, the smart kids can impart enough temporary knowledge on the slower ones to make the grade. What should I do?
Re:Flipped Classrooms (Score:5, Insightful)
Resign.
Re:Flipped Classrooms (Score:4, Interesting)
I empathize with your description; I recall many similar situations in school myself.
Fortunately, I was almost always in the advanced classes so group projects involved enough smart kids that it was collaborative rather than one person doing a lot of the work. Group projects were rarer in the few classes without advanced versions where I was foisted in with the general population. The one time that wasn't the case was when I was in drama during my senior year. My class had a number of the students who took part in the theater extracurricular activities as well as those that did not. For our first group project those of us in the extracurricular theater made groups largely because we were all friends with each other the teacher let us do that but warned us that we would only be allowed to do it once and that warning occurred during our extracurricular theater project not during class. Those two group projects were the best of the classes by far. After that we split up into other groups without indication that we had forewarning that we wouldn't be allowed to stay with the same group. Some of the students showed measurable improvement for the second group project and I feel that the two biggest parts of that were having first seen the experienced groups do their project then also the presence of one of the experienced students served to motivate through confidence.
I personally think that everyone has their natural aptitudes defined by their soft skill set that's difficult to judge and measure and this in turn influences how well an individual performs in hard skills. The major issue that I have with group projects in primary and secondary education is that most people haven't yet had enough time to start to understand their own aptitudes. Identifying who can and who cannot can be difficult outside of narrow categories so you can end up with those situations where people with no aptitude for the task at hand being tossed into a group with one person with the aptitude and knowledge.
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A well-organized group project with proper evaluation and assessment can do more than that.
The problem is "well-organized". Some people learn some things just by seeing an example. Other things they don't "get" and need to be taught.
In the classroom, a group where different people have different skills and the members will learn by seeing how others do things will work well.
But when some of them are in the "I just don't get it" set (for whatever skill is needed) they wont gain anything from the group.
My hy
Re:Flipped Classrooms (Score:5, Interesting)
I hear you there. In high school I struggled so much with "How are ya?" As a depressed person living in my head with a huge amount of anxiety, the true answer to that question involved minutes of conversation. Knowing that nobody wanted those minutes still took me several seconds to blast over and discard, then trip and stumble through an answer before landing on something. It took a lot of work to just be able to say "good", even when that wasn't the true answer, or even an appropriate response to the question asked. They are just simply social barks of no meaning.
It was a long time coming before I realize what you said above, that most of the time people aren't in the mood to engage their brains and have a serious discussion right as soon as you meet up, that you have to work up to that kind of thing.
In terms of learning, I've always been of the mind that you have to keep the difficulty proportional to the skill. I game a lot so they are useful analogies for me, but when teaching someone, you can't throw them in against a professional player and expect growth, you have to first teach the person to be average level and familiar before time with excellent players is beneficial in the slightest.
Ironically, middle and high school is probably some of the most treacherous and brutal social situations we all have to go through, and at a time when we are all weakest at doing so. Interacting with most sane adults is generally the best practice before people get thrown to the lions, but that never seems to be the way it goes.
In some ways I wonder that its generally easier to interact with adults because we have all been mostly scarred at one point or another in high school, and thus learn empathy properly, but eh.
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"Put all the kids in a group so the smart kids can carry the dumb kids and then on paper it looks like everyone is doing well." Here is the way a "group project" worked at my old school:
1) Put at least one smart kid (like me) in each group (with the dumb and mediocre kids)
2) Smart kid does all the work because he/she actually wants an "A"
3) Dumb and mediocre kids do fuck all, learn fuck all, and accomplish fuck all, Mostly they just nap or play on their cellphones while the smart kid works.
4) Group gets an "A" because the smart kid works his/her ass off
5) Dumb and mediocre kids get an "A," look on paper like they're really improving and learning
EDUCATION!
Yup, I had exactly the same experience. It made me hate all forms of group activities. It wasn't until I entered the working world where I began working with groups of people who actually wanted to try hard (because the low-performers eventually leave or fired). Now, the lower-performing members of my teams aren't slackers, but just folks with less experience who are actually interested in learning -- working with them is a joy. At work, it is normal for me to both learn and teach new things in any group ac
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Re:Flipped Classrooms (Score:5, Informative)
I've got some feedback to point you toward, NotDrWho.
The style of classroom you describe is used extensively by the University of Oklahoma School of Computer Science after a bunch of research. Several years worth of studies essentially found that the lower performing students in those groups would later take individual exams and score roughly half a letter grade higher than those who didn't work in those group projects... follow up studies attributed this gain mostly to being forced to be in proximity to the already-successful students. The already-successful students ALSO BENEFIT from the system, showing a notable jump in their own individual exam scores, but, more importantly, showing a significant jump in their individual *retention* of information a year later, attributed to not only having to learn the material but attempting to teach the material. The situation is pretty much loathed by the already-successful students, but the data has been repeated year after year that it is better for nearly all the students in the environment, both the top performers and the bottom performers. Moreover, over several years of exposure, a peer pressure effect builds up, and you get more and more students actively participating in the later years.
If you want to learn more, the term you should Google is "Readiness Assurance Tests"... these are tests that students take twice, once as a group and once as individuals, and your score is the average of the group and the individual. You can also take a look at these links:
https://ccistudentcenterblog.w... [wordpress.com]
http://slideplayer.com/slide/4... [slideplayer.com]
https://www.ou.edu/idp/teamlea... [ou.edu]
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The best 'group project' I did was in 7th grade. This includes years of engineering group projects in college.
The 3 group members were the top 3 in the whole school. Each of us took one task and did it. I hated dissecting things so I wrote the report. The kid that liked art drew and the 3rd guy did another part of the report and the dissecting.
We were all introverted and did much better doing our parts on our own, even if it was a 'group' project. At the end of the day it means we all did 1/3 the work since
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That's where these group learning projects go off the rails. You're not supposed to do all the work by yourself even if you are the smart kid; especially if you're the smart kid. The point of the exercise is to dole out responsibilities so each member has a role. And finding ways to g
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Well, that's the problem right there. Don't participate in the system and then bitch.
You could do the project and not turn it in in those situations. Cause fuck those guys.
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Although there are several ways that they can be delivered, the most typical model is where students watch instructional material online by themselves, then do their homework in class. It seems to me that this would be an ideal situation for an introvert.
Perhaps. But it depends on what you mean by "do their homework in class." If this just means students working individually on assignments while a teacher walks around and helps them, then yes, it's probably a good model for introverts.
In practice, though, most "flipped" teaching involves more than just individual students working on their own in a classroom. Most instructors try to make use of various in-class activities and assessments that differ from a traditional "work alone on your own" homework a
Re:Flipped Classrooms (Score:4, Insightful)
My daughter's current Geometry teacher thinks "flipped" classroom is great. His definition:
My daughter is teaching herself Geometry because she's "smart" and "doesn't need help" so she can never get his attention. So I end up teaching her Geometry at night because he's the worst teacher she's ever had.
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LOL: best group project I ever had was when I was taking an online class. I had a lot less difficulty interacting and interfacing with the other students in my group, ONLINE. At least through the planning phase. In the DOING phase, I was basically the only person doing any of the work. Which is okay, because I documented everything, and the teacher saw the outcome and graded appropriately. Other than that - great team! great experience! 10/10 would solo that group project again!
(okay, maybe my sarcasm
Both types of learning are important (Score:5, Insightful)
Being around people is a large energy drain for me, but I do require some interaction to be optimal.
Re:Both types of learning are important (Score:5, Interesting)
Few people are fully introverted or extroverted and they shouldn't be encouraged to think of themselves as such. TFA makes a few reasonable points, but I can't help but feel that it is founded upon a false premise. A premise which stems from the way in which people misuse the results of Myers-Briggs and other similar personality-tests.
Running through the article is a belief that people must, in both education and the workplace, be allowed to work in the manner that best fits their personality types. That's not how the world works.
On Myers-Briggs, I show up as a mild-to-moderate introvert. I match some of the descriptors for "introvert" pretty well, but not others. However, what I've always been clear about is that this is not an "excuse" for anything.
Myers-Briggs and the like should be more about enabling the individual being tested to understand how they might need to change their own actions and behaviours to compensate for inbuilt tendencies; not to give them a list of demands for how the world should change to suit them. I found it a fairly useful exercise; I've been able to apply it at work to both play to strengths and compensate for weaknesses. But it's not an excuse.
Back at school, some of my most effective teachers were those who, as I now realise, understood my introvert tendencies and knew how to encourage me to stretch myself beyond what I was comfortable with. We all need that from time to time, especially when we are children. Those on the introverted side need to understand that it's not much use to be able to think if you can't also communicate and work with others. Those on the extroverted side need to be taught that there is a time when you need to sit down, shut up and listen. Most workplaces aren't going to be willing to indulge extreme behaviours on either side.
Group projects and collaborative work are, at best, tools that should be used in only limited roles in the classroom (albeit with wider scope at college level in some subjects). But that's mostly because of the potential for cheating or for some kids to coast by on the efforts of others.
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I agree that both types of learning are important. And that we need to learn to work outside our comfort zones, whatever they are, simply because in "real life" we're going to need to work in all sorts of environments.
I agree, too, when you say, "Group projects and collaborative work are, at best, tools that should be used in only limited roles in the classroom." We're talking about learning situations. That includes socialization, but it also touches on the best way for any given individual to soak up the
Re: Both types of learning are important (Score:5, Insightful)
The best explanation I have ever heard is that an extrovert gets energized by being around people. An introvert gets tired.
Worth repeating.
Being an introvert does not mean you hide in your room, hate people and avoid talking to everyone. An evening to yourself is bliss, whereas an extrovert would consider it torture. An evening in a crowd, talking to people you don't know, is hard work, whereas an extrovert would consider it the best party ever.
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Being an introvert does not mean you hide in your room, hate people and avoid talking to everyone.
I consider myself quite introverted, but some of my favourite hobbies are theatre and music (like playing in a band), which are rather social activities. I'm interested in things rather than people, but it turns out some of these things are best done with other people. The main difference is when others go to a bar after the day's rehearsals; I generally can't join them as I've already exhausted my social quota for the day.
In fact, I do have some social needs, but I find these are best served by actually
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I'm an introvert too, with a lot of the same traits ("if I am comfortable with you, I have a good time; if I just met you, I clam up" for instance).
However stage fright just isn't a problem for me. I can give a speech in front of a crowd easily. It's impersonal, so it doesn't really bother me, and the duration is usually highly limited. It's close, one-on-one interactions which really drain me, especially when they last all day.
Correlates to the rise of "political correctness". (Score:4, Insightful)
The most interesting thing to note is that the rise in these more group-oriented methods of teaching has happened in parallel with, but slightly lagging, the rise of what's commonly called "political correctness".
But maybe it shouldn't be surprising that this has happened. Political correctness, as it's called, is the philosophy of suppressing individual thought and expression in order to create a cohesive, dull, uninspired collective thought that's devoid of originality. The best way to eliminate a person's individual intellectual abilities is to control and shape them from the very earliest years of this person's life.
Schools are, after all, the primary place where a society shapes its future generations. Teachers, most of whom have moved from school directly to college, and then directly to teaching in the schools they attended only a few years before, have never had any meaningful position or interaction outside of academia.
The concept of political correctness originated within the leftist-, socialist-, and communist-oriented segments of academia, most often from what are called the "social sciences" (but which tend to have absolutely nothing to do with science in any way). These college academics are the ones who taught the school teachers, thus seeding political correctness into the education systems around the world.
So we end up with the situation we have today, where all school-related participation must be at the group level. Individualism cannot be tolerated. It's not considered acceptable for a pupil to have his or her own thoughts, especially if they may disagree with or conflict with what the academic leadership has deemed to be correct. Any students who dare show signs of individualism are systematically crushed until they become part of the group conformity.
The current education system is just a byproduct of the pernicious attitude that colleges and academia has toward any free thought and free expression that doesn't exactly correlate to what these academics believe.
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Excellent analysis. Sorry, no mod-points or you would get them.
My take is that the west and especially the US somehow believes that they have "made it" and that originality, ideas and inventiveness are not longer required and now have to be suppressed as disruptive factors. This is of course the sure way to become a "has been" as a society.
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Well, it also happened as a lag behind the studies that show it's more effective at teaching everyone.
Group work in school (Score:5, Insightful)
Gods, how I hated that crap.
If I am going to succeed or fail in school it should NOT be based on the morons the teacher groups me with, but on my own capabilities.
In my memory of my school years, group work inevitably devolved into the rest of the group chatting among themselves while I did the work anyway.
Re:Group work in school (Score:5, Insightful)
School should be an environments where everybody gets to succeed triumphantly and fail misserably, with projects that are socially hyperactive, projects that require isolation and everything inbetween. They should teach self esteem and humility equally, let students learn their weaknesses as well as their strenghts and hand them the tools to deal with them.
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That is the most insightful comment here. Real life is going to throw all these situations at them and only training kids in the way in which they perform best is going to come back and bite them in the ass later.
Yes, working with other students can be extremely frustrating, especially if you are naturally introverted. But guess what: So can working with colleagues.
Re:Group work in school (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember the teacher let us pick our own groups... once. The three absolutely brightest students in the class and one upper-halfer who would all normally carry a group on their own joined forces, actually doing a quarter of the work each of good quality to begin with, getting good discussion, feedback and QA and some internal competitiveness and finally give the chance to excel meant we delivered a group project that was A+++. Meanwhile, many other groups who were used to at least having one useful team member were suddenly stuck with all slackers and less than gifted pupils. If it was merely graded it might not have been so bad but it also involved presentations in class, where it became painfully obvious to everyone how big the differences were. That never, ever happened again.
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In my mind, this is the ideal situation - it forces those people that don't want to work to get off their bum and actually do the assignment, rather.
The other way, with one prime student and a mix of bums, the bums never learn anything.
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Gods, how I hated that crap.
If I am going to succeed or fail in school it should NOT be based on the morons the teacher groups me with, but on my own capabilities.
In my memory of my school years, group work inevitably devolved into the rest of the group chatting among themselves while I did the work anyway.
I'm an introvert (INTP) and I actually enjoyed group work in small groups, when we could choose our own group. We had a guy that could calculate anything accurately and quickly (pre calculator), a guy that could build any experimental rig accurately, and a couple who could work out what needed calculating and building. Oh and a guy who thought up fun variations ... like "now lets try it with twice as much Sodium and boiling water".
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In my memory of my school years, group work inevitably devolved into the rest of the group chatting among themselves while I did the work anyway.
Yeah, because screw learning to delegate or communicate or anything like that. You're far better off doing everything by yourself for the rest of your life. When a group needs a leader you're off doing all of the work by yourself, but at least they know where to find you when they need someone to walk on.
Hated it too. 35 years, STILL surrounded by morons (Score:2)
I hated it too. 35 years years later, people STILL bug me.
> If I am going to succeed or fail in school it should NOT be based on the morons the teacher groups me with, but on my own capabilities.
Maybe it "should" be on your own merit, but where I work, there are other people. When I'm working in a group with what you call "morons", I have to deal with that and figure out how to still get something done. For a while, I worked in a company that was only me, before I hired some people. When I was the only
Re:Hated it too. 35 years, STILL surrounded by mor (Score:5, Insightful)
forgot to mention, I'm a moron (Score:2)
Yeah in my post forgot to mention something.
Based on the dents in my, caused by low-speed collisions with trees, poles, and other immobile objects, evidence suggests that I may be q moron.
It is often the case that your predecessor was a moron. I have no doubt that's as true for my successor as it was for me. My successor's predecessor was probably a moron too, from his perspective.
* dents in my car (Score:2)
My post was missing the word "car". Bumping into light poles and trees in parking lots suggests that I might also be a moron. A moron who knows how to normalize a database, but a moron nonetheless.
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The only way to beat this situation is good leadership, something woefully undereducated in early schooling. If you take over the leadership role quickly, divide the work out based on your expectations of the members including pairing who you think will work OK together, and still divvy yourself a big portion to ensure success, you can manage to win these situations. If you don't have the charisma to do it naturally, your best choice is an appeal to authority. Estimate time to complete each task and then
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In my memory of my school years, group work inevitably devolved into the rest of the group chatting among themselves while I did the work anyway.
You are really not as clever as you think you are then.
I'm sorry, but in real life, you have to work with other people. And I much prefer getting other people to do work instead of me, even though I am definitely an introvert.
Re:Group work in school (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah! You should stop doing the work so everyone gets an F, including yourself! That'll show 'em!
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Have all my upvotes!
We all have to work together. (Score:3)
Everyone must get along, we must all work together. The loaner is a danger to society because they chose not to fit in. The individual doesn't matter. No one is better than anyone else.
It seems like instructions from Marx or a warning from Ryand.
Re: We all have to work together. (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually in my experience those that are the most mediocre have the least patience for other mediocre people.
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You are such a silly person. Marxism And Objectivism both saw themselves as a way to make people's lives better. They like every Utopian idea leads to creating a hell for those that do not fit in. Even the Star Trek Federation Utopia as creepy as hell when you look at it. The idea of locking mentally ill people on an isolated planet is just creepy as hell.
Only when you are young and lack wisdom, just a fool, or a narcissist do look on any utopian ideal with anything more than mild interest or amusement.
Or t
Same old story... (Score:2)
Now, let's hear it for us Introverts! Come on, get up and.... ooohh! Math Puzzles!
history is written by the winners (Score:3, Insightful)
In my school, *all* the smart kids were overlooked (Score:2)
The only kids who got any attention in my school were the dumb kids, the poor kids, and some minority kids. There were no programs for the smart kids, the introverted kids, etc. The only special treatment we got was from bullies.
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Government is for the smart? (Score:2)
Seriously, though, almost all of that stuff was for the popular kids, not the truly smart ones. My school growing up was horrible for this, but once a year they would throw us a bone. There would be a Saturday that was at a college campus and was for truly smart individuals. We all got to go and pick 'courses' to attend, given by college professors, on all kinds of cool topics for a
I can just see the extrovert teacher saying (Score:5, Insightful)
Introverts? Do you mean Slashdot users? (Score:2)
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Introverts? Do you Mean Slashdot users?
I believe you will find that they are congruent or if not that at least slash-dot users are a subsection there of.
not to put too fine a point on it (Score:2)
"When Schools Overlook Introverts" ...introverts are far, far happier?
Fuck all of you and your compulsive social bullshit. I'd *rather* be left alone, and as I come to know the world better and better, this impulse has only grown.
Buzzwords (Score:2)
...Michael Godsey writes, "The way in which certain instructional trends — education buzzwords like "collaborative learning" and "project-based learning" and "flipped classrooms"...
Can we add "introvert" to the list of buzzwords? I'm tired of hearing it.
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I'm going to add it to my list that i have in the cloud, so the synergy of my list will go to the roof.
I would like to leverage your list synergies along my business verticals in an impactful way.
Work vs play (Score:2)
The best model for education is to mirror environment in which skills will be applied in real life. Most of programmers do enjoy independent work for hours on end, yet need to effectively collaborate with many people to reach any career success. On the other hand, born extraverts need to know when to shut up, make reasonable choices on their own and produce some finished work.
Ideal classroom will teach both group work and independent work, ESPECIALLY to students who are struggling with either. How you spend
Moore style? (Score:2)
There was a mathematician named R.L. Moore. He was an influential point-set topologist, but he's influential outside the realm of topology because of his teaching style [wikipedia.org]. Briefly, the professor gives out definitions, axioms, and statements of theorems (as well as non-theorems) in class. The members of the class work out the theorems, important examples, and counterexamples to non-theorems on their own, and then present their results to the rest of the class.
I'm an introvert. I hate group projects. For one I
Lets face it.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Focusing on the extroverts (Score:2)
It was like this in school for me.
Basically it lets all the psychotic little imbeciles feel like they're participating.
Meanwhile, I'm sitting there, mile ahead, trying not to be bored into narcolepsy.
Meanwhile, the idiot teachers are telling my parents "Oh! He's so intelligent! But he doesn't apply himself!"
Fucking public schooling was a nightmare for me.
And when I finally DID overcome my antipathy towards school and go to college, I found it wasn't any different.
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And when I finally DID overcome my antipathy towards school and go to college, I found it wasn't any different.
The difference is that once you hit college (sometimes even just high school) if you finish before everyone else you can usually get up and walk out without causing a problem... at least, for those classes which are structured with the participatory segment at the beginning. When I was in elementary school I got in trouble for looking at the other children instead of putting my head down on my desk and being quiet. Literally. That's the difference.
"Normal" introverts are overlooked (Score:3)
I read "Quiet" a few years ago, and the author really does make a good point. Outgoing, gregarious people like salespeople, athletes, politicians, and so on are the ones who get the most attention simply because they're always out there. Likewise, the ultra-introverted (read: borderline autistic) also get noticed because they're so different from this norm that everyone has in their head.
The problem with rewarding extroverted behavior in education or the workplace comes when you're dealing with "normal" introverts. I'm one of these guys. I really dislike group work, and I'm not at my best working with others. However, I'm not staring at my shoes all the time either...I just -prefer- individual activities and pretend to enjoy office politics, etc. when it comes my way. I just think people need to understand that extroversion is not the default choice, and that there are people who thrive with others and people who do best on their own. For a workplace example, take the open office plan -- no quiet spaces at all, designed to encourage "collaboration." Extroverts like me who prefer to work alone find environments like this distracting, but HR dogma is pushing these through at every company lately.
Open Office Plans (Score:2)
That said, I don't think it is actually done to encourage collaboration. The corporate world has just convinced people of that. Even all of the obvious extroverts in my office immediately slap headphones on and isolate themselves anywa
Group Projects (Score:2)
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Which is the rarest type of introvert (only 1-2% of the worlds population) is also the type with the smartest, most successful, creative people. Isaac Newton, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Nikola Tesla, Bobby Fischer, Stephen Hawking, Isaac Asimov, Roger Waters, Augustus Caesar, Chevy Chase, John F. Kennedy were INTJs. As one myself, I can tell you we see the world from a unique perspective, but are perceived as being weird by non INTJs. The school system absolutely was not geared up for us, too slow and boring.
I thought the INFJ's were the rarest? I've seen it several places, but here's a good table of them. [myersbriggs.org]
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Becareful with stroking your ego so much, you'll go blind.
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Right on the mark. This simplistic "personality typing" primarily serves to separate those with big egos from their money.
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only 1-2% of the worlds population
Wow, so only 100 miillion of you special snowflakes?
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Yeah it's just like real jobs where almost everything is a "group project".
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Most of my projects get deployed to production and last 3-5 years before fixes or changes need to be done. The group projects tend to have weekly bug fixes and strange corner cases tha
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I'm not sure this is the same thing. I think I am a considerably introverted person (probably more than the average introverted guy). It really wears me out in the office when people are talking with me or next to me for longer periods, and sometimes I leave home with a headache because of it. And I feel most happy and relaxed when I am working on my own.
But in school I enjoyed being involved in class, joining discussions with the teacher, asking questions, etc.
Not sure how this stark difference came to be.
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..., and since most introverts ... are smarter than everyone else,..
Why so jealous? You're not one, I take it.
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Oh please, al you have to do to get participation grades is ask a question once in a while, and since most introverts are assholes who think they are smarter than everyone else, just think of it as a game of "stump the professor".
That's like saying all extroverts are ignorant pricks who think going to meetings is the same thing as getting stuff done.