The Power of Introverts in a world that cant stop talking

M e g a n P ur c e ll M a r c h 2 3 , 2 01 3

I NTROVERTS AND EXTROVERTS : E XPECTATION VS . R EALITY IN THE CLASSROOM

Who Are They?
Introverts are drawn to the inner world of thought and feeling. Extroverts to the external life of people and activities. Introverts focus on the meaning they make of the events swirling around them; extroverts plunge into the events themselves. Introverts recharge their batteries by being alone; extroverts need to recharge when they dont socialize enough. Extroverts are the people who will add life to your dinner party and laugh generously at your jokes. Theyre comfortable with conflict but not with solitude.

CONTEXT AND QUESTION

A common scene within classrooms across the country the teacher poses a question, gathers few responses from an even smaller number of participants while simultaneously correcting behavior issues for those that are not paying attention or those that are talking out of turn. Too often, we as teachers yearn for student engagement and classroom participation. We ask students to talk to us and to each other, and even penalize them if they do not comply. Teachers employ these sequences of behavior and consequence because we generally look at a lack of speaking up in class discussions or collaborative activities as student apathy or unwillingness to engage in the lesson. According to Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that cant stop talking, Our lives are shaped as profoundly by personality as by gender or race (2). What Cain means by this, is that our lives, and the lives of our students, are shaped by their personality in ways we do not measure or even consider; in this case the power of being introverted or extroverted (or even ambiverted). These characteristics form and develop not only our perspective on the world, but also our behaviors within it; our students, thusly, display these behaviors as they are applicable to them in the space their world most inhabits the classroom. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My interest in exploring these two ends of the behavioral spectrum (introversion and extroversion) stems from a situation in which a student was switched into my class because he was not performing well in his current class. When asked what sort of issues he was having that led to this conflict, his counselor mentioned that this student is very shy and the class he was in put a great amount of emphasis on participating in class discussions an area he was uncomfortable with and ultimately penalized for. This situation caused me to think about how we treat students in a classroom in lieu of these two behavioral extremes. With teachers placing more emphasis on student participation in the war to combat apathy, I began to consider that the way we ask students to participate may not be the most supportive or beneficial for every child. I then began to ask the question, How can we, as teachers, restructure our lessons to accommodate both introverted and extroverted learning styles, so that both types of learners are given safe and supportive environments that encourage academic success?

The Data: Honors English: 7 Extroverts 17 Introverts 4 Ambiverts 1 Discipline Referral General English 16 Extroverts 10 Introverts 5 Ambiverts 32 Discipline Referrals

STRATEGIES
Classrooms in the present day are often set up so that extroverts can succeed; teachers ask for participation and often award points to those that comply (alternatively attaching demerits in points to those that do not). However, there are several strategies a teacher can use to make sure that students of both introverted and extroverted persuasion are being accommodated and given a chance to succeed. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1. Note that speaking is not the only way to engage in a les3. son (writing, tracking the speaker, providing nonverbal cues are also ways to show engagement) 2. Think-pair-share (the think time allows the introverts to work independently as they enjoy, but the sharing also allows the extroverts to participate vocally) New Groupthink (cooperative, small group learning)

In trove rt s v s . E x trove r ts

M e g a n P ur c e ll

Many schools are designed for extroverts.We tend to forget that theres nothing sacrosanct about learning in large group classrooms, and that we organize students this way not because its the best way to learn but because its cost efficient (Cain 253).

T R AC K I N G V I A P E R S O N A L I T Y ?
Experts once believed that shy personalities in children would lead to dire outcomes, while an outgoing personality would bring an individual social and financial success. These expert opinions largely influenced the way people approached the education of children in the 1920s-1950s. As Cain describes, The experts advised parents to socialize their children well and schools to change their emphasis from book -learning to assisting and guiding the developing personality (27). To this day, may schools still have a similar approach; with great emphasis being placed on student engagement, many teachers believe that talking is the only way for students to participate in the classroom. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Based on my amateur observations, viewed with the naked eye, I noticed that I work with two very different groups of students on a daily basis. One group of students have been tracked into the honors class; these students, as a whole, tend to be quieter, more focused, have fewer discipline issues and are arguably more introverted. My class of students that are tracked into the regular level class, however, tend to be chatty, unfocused, have more discipline issues and are arguably more extrovertedbased on the commonly accepted definitions of introversion and extroversion. These observations led me to consider the difference between classroom expectations and the effect of extroverted behavior has on the tracking of students. Based on my daily interactions with students, I expected the honors class to test more introverted than the regular class, solely based on the way they are reluctant to participate in class discussions, but often succeed when working on their ownmy regular students behave in an opposing manner. One then cant help but wonder if a childs personality affects the way they are tracked in school based on how those behaviors align with classroom expectationsthat is talking out of turn is considered a highly disruptive behavior and is frowned upon. It is easy to see that those with more extroverted behaviors tend to get reprimanded except in situations pertaining to discussion and ultimately discipline issues play a large part in the tracking of students along with their academics.

FINDINGS: EXPECTATION VS. REALITY

The data (on the front page), that I acquired through the administration of the Myers-Briggs personality survey, clearly shows that my honors studentsas expectedtend to be more introverted than my regular level students. I found that the honors students also have far fewer behavioral issues. However, basic observation shows that the honors students tend to respond more poorly to discussion based activities. These students do not perform as expected when given a question and are asked for an immediate response. As Cain notes, Introverts often work more slowly and deliberately.They listen more than they talk, think before they speak, and often feel as if they express themselves better in writing than in conversation (11). My regular students, the extroverts, behave just the opposite. These students thrive in discussion based lessons or activities and enjoy collaborating with others. However, extroverts also tend to get themselves into more discipline issues due to their behavior. Cain notes that extroverts tend to be assertive, dominant, and in great need of company (11). These types of behaviors do not generally fit within the context of the classroom and thus marginalize extroverts as disruptive and introverts as apathetic, neither of which are ideal as a student in the current educational environment. In order to succeed, I, as a teacher, need to implement activities with both independent and collaborative elements so that both types of students, the introverted and the extroverted, have a chance to succeed in an environment designed for their needs. I also need to recognized that behavior I think is disruptive or inappropriate for a classroom setting may not be a sign of delinquency, but rather an extrovert feeling trapped by the silence.

A species in which everyone was General Patton would not succeed, any more than would a race in which everyone was Vincent van Gogh. I prefer to think that the planet needs athletes, philosophers, sex symbols, painters, scientists; it needs the warmhearted, the hardhearted, the coldhearted, and the weakhearted. It needs those who can devote their lives to studying how many droplets of water are secreted by the salivary glands of dogs under which circumstances, and it needs those who can capture the passing impression of cherry blossoms in a fourteen-syllable poem or devote twenty-five pages to the dissection of a small boys feelings as he lies in bed in the dark waiting for his mother to kiss him goodnight...Indeed the presence of outstanding strengths presupposes that energy needed in other areas has been channeled away from them. - Allen Shawn

Resources and further readings:

Cain, Susan. Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that cant stop talking. 1994. Crown Publishers. New York, NY. Lawrence, Gordon. People Types & Tiger Stripes. 1993. Third Edition. Center for Applications of Psychological Type, Inc., Gainseville, FL.