Introverts and Teaching: CHE article and former Forum threads

[mamselle]

This might fit on another board; if so, mods, please feel free to move it.

I read this article:

   https://www.chronicle.com/article/Teaching-While-Introverted/247963

and thought I recalled earlier threads on the topic in the old forum.


Indeed, there were at least three:

In 2009: "Advice to extroverts from an introvert"
   https://www.chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,62278.0.html

In 2011: "You know you're an introvert when..."
   https://www.chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,83919.0.html

and in 2013: "Can an Introvert ever make a good classroom teacher?"
   https://www.chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,127265.0.html

So, maybe any combination of responses: to the article (which seems very well-written to me), or to the points in the older threads, might be appropriate here.

Or anything else anyone wants to say...as usual!

M.

[San Joaquin]

Oh! Well...I....<mumble, mumble>...

[Treehugger]

As an introvert, I would say that the most challenging part of being an academic was not teaching, but surviving the interview process. I am fine being "on" nonstop for an hour or two or even three with other people, but not for an entire day!

Please, if you are interviewing someone and they need a bathroom break, do not go in with them and keep talking! Just let them have a few precious moments to themselves.

Also, I was so surprised to see that the departments I interviewed with seemed to think it was some kind of moral failing on their part if I was left alone at all during the day.


I also remember that at one point, I felt like my speech processing systems were breaking down. People were saying things (in my own language!) and I was just hearing phonemes and syllables not words or meaning. It wasn't nerves, it was just overload. I don't think this has ever happened to me before (or since).

[waterboy]

As a die-hard introvert, I can pretend to be extroverted for a while, but I definitely need to shut the office door for stretches. It sort of disappears when I teach - I think my performance side appears.

[mamselle]

I usually have to pull back for a little while in groups; I just want my own company for a bit.

I've also on occasion had to say, once to a roommate, and once to a close friend, who were each blithely yammering on, "I'm not talking right now, in order to leave time for some silence, not to leave time for one or the other of us to speak."

The roommate in particular looked stunned. "Oh," she said. "I'm not used to having it quiet. I guess we could try that."

M.

[mahagonny]

I'm not sure whether the introversion/extroversion continuum is a real scientific thing. Meaning, if person "A" is more introverted than person "B", would every trained observer (psychiatrist or psychologist) agree on identifying them that way? Or is it just more a useful way for a person to accept himself as he is? Because the analysis depends on your self-reported information about what makes you comfortable or uncomfortable.
But if it is something you could objectively observe/measure, then I would go by this: if an extrovert and an introvert drive from Cincinnati to Buffalo together, and the extrovert appears to have to make an effort to be quiet, while the introvert has to make effort to keep the conversation going, then you could tell that way.

As for teaching, my experience is when you're working harder than the student is, which is most of the time, then it's draining. Whereas, when the student's working as hard as you are, it's almost not even work.

[Parasaurolophus]

As an introvert, I would say that the most challenging part of being an academic was not teaching, but surviving the interview process.

omg


So much dread. Like you, I can just about simulate gregariousness for a few hours, but... I run out of juice pretty quickly.

[mahagonny]

As an introvert, I would say that the most challenging part of being an academic was not teaching, but surviving the interview process.

omg


So much dread. Like you, I can just about simulate gregariousness for a few hours, but... I run out of juice pretty quickly.

Kava kava  tea, Kratom

[Ruralguy]

I think introversion/extroversion are quite well studied and confirmed. Just because its hard to tell two random people put into in a crowd  apart based on a scale of introversion, you could probably accurately determine who is at the extremes. In any case, as you say, much of the work in this area is self-reportage, but there are actual experiments, I believe (have to ask a psychologist). Just because I can talk with anxiety to my students and lecture fairly anxiety free in front of people doesn't mean I'm an extrovert, and I am not, as self-reportage would show, easily, actually.

My vision of Hell is a never ending cocktail party, and there's nobody I already know, so no ports of refuge. I'd rather be at the dentist.

[Parasaurolophus]

Kava kava  tea, Kratom

Absolutely not. No opioids for me, especially not the clinically-unproven and unregulated kind. Especially not the kind which will give me actual, serious withdrawal symptoms when I stop using them. My last long-term partner had a serious drug addiction, my youngest brother has an opioid addiction, another younger brother is an alcoholic, and a close friend and her mother recently developed Kratom addictions (thanks to an opioid-addicted boyfriend), which they discovered when they went into withdrawal.

I don't need any more of that shit in my life.


Besides, even coffee or tea gives me a migraine by the end of the day.

[mahagonny]

I understand. I'm not necessarily a role model.

Just imagine if academic job interviewees were getting tested for performance enhancing drugs (or drugs they hope will be performance enhancing) as some athletes have been.