Introversion

I happened to turn on the news last night; I guess it was a sort of Sunday Magazine more than normal news. I was soon hooked by a segment on introversion. They started with a test. There were seven items. I remember two: are you a listener or a talker, and, do you tend to not know what to say in social situations. That last one wasn't exactly the way that it was put, but that was the general idea.

The results were predictable. At this stage of life, or any other, I suppose, I don't really need test results to tell me that I am introverted. However, I think I was a little surprised to be such a full-blown case because I think that I came down rather solidly on the introvert's side on all seven questions.

Just last week, at line dancing, I found myself in a typical situation. I was seated between two groups of people and was part of neither group really ... or both ... take your pick. What I was doing was listening to first one group and then the other. That has occurred to me often, for I am much more of a listener than a talker. And that's typical of the introvert. They did say that introverts can be quite adept at talking on-subject: able to carry on a meaningful conversation with substance but not so good at small talk or starting up a conversation that has lagged.

Although, they couldn't get into the topic in huge detail in a ten-minute segment, I begin to suspect that such personality traits can affect how we learn. For example: I can't seem to learn a new line dance in a group situation. Rather, I seem to need to take the steps home and process them in my own way — at my own speed and in my own time. And I seem to see a similar thing occurring with my fiddle lessons. If I am introduced to a new concept, and it can be quite simple, it seems to fluster me. However, when I take it home, I am very likely to get the hang of it without too much trouble.

According to this program, about twenty-five per cent of us are introverts, and it is often seen as almost a stigma or disadvantage. People don't always understand us or may think that we're stand-offish or stuck-up, but that's hardly the case.

I'd like to follow-up on this a little bit. One of the two people that they interviewed, Marti Olsen Laney, has written a book called The Introvert Advantage. The other, Brian Little, is a professor at McGill in Montreal and previously at Harvard. In the video clips of his lectures, you would not likely have guessed that he is an introvert, but he explained that we introverts can gear up for the task but would tend to need more recuperative time afterward. (I found this pdf about Professors Little at canada.com.)

This idea of introverts needing recuperative time was new to me, but it makes sense. In my last few years of teaching, I often felt it very important to shut my door for ten or twenty minutes at lunch time and bask in the luxury of some quiet moments before the next onslaught. I suppose this would be anathema to many of my pedagogical compatriots who would make a beeline for the staff room and the comfort of a social situation, perhaps venting their morning's concerns rather than meditating quietly as I would. That's not to say that I am such a hermit that I would avoid the staff room entirely. In fact, I'd probably head there for a while after I had enjoyed my respite of solitude.

I rather suspect that more than twenty-five per cent of bloggers might be introverts. We're better at writing in our space than talking in shared space.

Here is an excerpt from the article about Brian Little on canada.com.

After a lecture, he often escapes to a washroom, where he finds an empty cubicle, sits down, pulls up his feet so nobody can find him, and takes a long moment to reflect ... the washroom retreats bring momentary peace and restore Little's true nature.

"He once explained this to Peter Gzowski on CBC's Morningside, telling the famous radio host: "After a talk, I'm in cubicle nine." Gzowski confessed that, after a show, 'I'm in cubicle eight.' "

... It's a fine balance, he says, because introverts do make good professors -- or radio hosts -- attuned as they are to other people's cues, constantly scanning the room to make sure they haven't lost anyone.

... The risk is that they can burn out, because in a sense you're acting out of character. That's why we really need those restorative niches. When you're 'on' with that degree of intensity, I think you would burn out very quickly, unless you're able to find those quiet moments on your own.