When Schools Overlook Introverts | Hacker News Reader

When Schools Overlook Introverts

theatlantic.com

218 pointspepys147 comments

Thinking back to my own middle/high school experiences, group work just gives the poor students a free pass to slack off, because they know the good students in their group will pick up the slack.

I usually worked alone if the option was available, because if I worked in a group I'd almost always end up having to do / re-do everyone else's sub-par work anyway. It was the same workload either way, but working in a group would essentially be giving others "counterfeit" grades (based on my effort, not theirs), the existence of which necessarily devalues my "genuine" grade.

Group work can work, but it needs a different setting. I studied at an university where half of the time was group work and it worked because:

The students had 100% authority over how groups are formed, i.e. number of groups and who are in which group. The teachers had nothing to say in this.

The result is that:

1) it quickly became common knowledge who the slackers were (and who were the opposite).

2) nobody wanted to have the slackers in their group, so they were kind of ostracized and had to make their own group. They often ended up with the bad marks they deserve.

3) everybody learned that you had to do your homework/groupwork if you wanted to be part of a good group. It became a lot more difficult to get away with lame excuses for not having done what you promised. People really worked hard.

3b) If a group member didn't do their work, the other members could exclude the person from the group, and that person then had to make a project on their own, which is really really difficult. Again, the teachers had nothing to say in this, they could not veto an exclusion.

4) you ended up with a notion that your reputation had important consequences, just like in real life. Introverted people who did great work were popular group members.

5) Bonus: you learned to value different skills in people. Instead of wanting to be around people exactly like yourself, you learned that people who are (and think) different are very valuable for good projects.

I had a similar experience once in high school. After a first round where the top four students were assigned to a group of the lower end ("You'll be a good role model", he said, which failed miserably) we then picked our own groups for the next project. He went down the class, in order of grades, and had us sit at a group table. So the student with the highest grade in the class sat as a table of their choosing, followed by the second, then third, etc.

My group had 3 of the top 5, and one who was somewhere just above the middle. The three of us had flagged her over to be the fourth member.

The reason for this? She didn't have the highest grade, but we knew she worked hard (it was a somewhat unfair consequence that we learned everyone's standing in this way; we assumed she'd have been higher)

It didn't matter. We divided tasks, made sure everything was covered, and all got As.

The lesson out of all of this was, in group work, having the smartest or best test scores didn't matter as between four of us, we could work it out together. But having people who could do the work did. And that is more valuable in a team.

These days, I work in a group of eight managing engineering and operations for a specific technology. We have some who are crazy smart but don't do much, and a few others who are pretty new to the tech but work pretty diligently. The former talks alot but has few deliverables, but the latter, while asking us a lot about the higher end stuff, has taken it upon himself to clean up little inconsistencies and chasing down the non-serious, but obscure errors in our system.

You have to be careful not to play favorites, but we try hard to make sure the latter guy knows his work is valuable and that he's appreciated.

Go team.

I had a similar situation when I was a manager, had one guy who couldn't code for shit, literally took this guy 2 or 3x longer to implement a feature from scratch, than anyone else on the team. He could trouble shoot, debug, and interact with support like no other. Got on a lot of goto meetings with customers that I didn't want to. I tried to steer him toward a support role, but when it came time to cut people, I needed coders, and had to let him go. That's my biggest regret, and part of why I never want to manage again.

Did the support roles pay as well as development? Usually they don't, and the chances of a meaningful promotion are less than in development. I wouldn't be surprised if he stayed in development because it paid better and had better career prospects.

I think this is a fairly dangerous setup. Having studied a hybrid of business administration and CS I think that people were labeled "slackers" way too quickly when it came to programming group work. It's genuinely hard to learn programming for some people which I didn't really appreciate before university. In fact some people are morbidly afraid of it (just like math) and just give up at some point. Since I was already interested in it way before I started university the curse of knowledge was in full effect for me.

We tried to get "slackers" involved whenever possible and took it as a sign of failure on our part if we couldn't. This was equally true for true slackers (there's inevitably people that will be lazy and try to cruise). Confronting them and giving them well structured work packages kind of works (and was really hard for me). It's a very good preparation for the workplace. I'm most certainly an introvert and I think people who try to cruise and get by without doing much work are usually extroverts. This is observational evidence, I could be completely wrong but you have to be somewhat good at making up excuses on the spot and talking to people and overwhelming them if you are a "slacking pro".

I think the main point is that there's a difference between slackers and people who don't care. You can slack but still care about the group work, but you can also slack and not do anything at all. In the former, slackers may feel compelled to work harder when working in a group (like the ones you're talking about), but in the latter they just don't care enough (like the ones who ignore emails).

I think it's important to give group members some level of control over the group and not require a group to carry someone who isn't contributing. Some of my professors gave us the option to fire group members who weren't pulling their weight. Oddly enough, with those professors I never had a bad group. :)

We never had to do it, but knowing the option was there was always nice. I think it helps motivate some people, too; no one wants to be person fired from a group and have to complete the entire assignment on your own.

One of my roommates in a different group DID have to fire a group member. It's been a long time since my college days and I'm trying to remember, but as I recall he said the process went something like this:

1. The group as a whole had to go to the professor in unanimous agreement that an individual wasn't pulling their weight.

2. The professor confronted the individual in question privately to ascertain if there was a legitimate reason. In this case, I'm guessing there wasn't one. He was apparently given a warning to start showing up to group meetings and contributing.

3. Apparently it got better for a few weeks but the person in question started slacking off again. So the group went back to the professor again. This time the professor informed the slacker that he was no longer in the group and would have now complete the assignment on his own.

IIRC the person dropped the class shortly thereafter.

There are certain failure modes that that doesn't work for.

I had a group project once where none of the other three members really did much at all, not because they were lazy but just because they weren't very competent (seriously, I spent like five hours with a member who was a software engineering major trying to help her write a few lines of C that would run on a microcontroller on the board that I designed. In the end, I just wrote all the code... I wanted to help them learn, but the amount of background knowledge they didn't have just made it impossible in the time we had).

When it came to peer assessment, the way it was done was that the person being assessed would go outside, and the rest of the group assessed them and come up with a single rating. So you couldn't mark them down much really because everyone else knew that they had all done the same amount of work as that person... So we all got the highest grade in the end (not that I would have crucified them or anything though, since they were fairly willing to try).

In your case, I think you handled it as well as possible. At least your fellow group members were willing to try and be involved, even if they weren't technically proficient enough to complete the required work.

The whole firing group members, IIRC, was meant to handle people who weren't contributing and weren't even trying to contribute. Basically, those hoping to ride the coattails without expending any effort. It's an iterative improvement over the standard group model, but by no means was it perfect.

Honestly, I don't think it's possible to design a perfect group work system. There will always be human edge cases.

That sounds like it definitely works in the university setting you're describing, and sounds like the same type of thing that would have happened in the middle school setting I used to work in. The unfortunate thing in both settings is that the slackers always get bad marks.

This is especially bad for a 7th grader when poor school performance can have little to do with the student's actual skills and a lot to do with their home life and/or parental involvement.

I don't think you could possibly design a mixed-skill education model where slackers don't get bad marks. If slackers get good marks, marks are meaningless.

Completely agree.

I guess I was more commenting about the fact that is doesn't matter whether the groups are self-formed or teacher-formed, or university-level or middle school-level because the outcome will always be the same: slackers get bad marks.

One of my goals as a teacher was to identify "slacker" students who didn't like to read and then try to help them find enjoyment from reading. Usually the reason for not liking reading was that they hadn't found a subject or genre that they connected with or were allowed to explore in depth.

That is kind of off-topic, but I always felt like the marks were only one aspect of education and even if the student ended up with bad marks, they could still grow and be a different person by the time they were done with the school year.

> I guess I was more commenting about the fact that is doesn't matter whether the groups are self-formed or teacher-formed, or university-level or middle school-level because the outcome will always be the same: slackers get bad marks.

Actually, that's not true in my experience. When a teacher assigns groups, then they often force slackers into groups with hard-working over achievers who pick up all the slack. So the slacker does get a good mark.

Not that I think that's a good thing for everyone. It pisses off the student who did all the hard work, makes marks meaningless, and allows the slacker to coast further without learning anything.

Yet it's disturbingly common.

Well, the teacher helped the "slacker" student improve their grades... must be a great teacher!

Goes the other way as well. My cousin had horrible marks on her SATs. 800s. Yet she was straight A's in classes. As a music major she was playing in two bands in addition to her AP course work.

The college didn't seem to mind. UNC gave her a full ride. Well deserved.

When you say 800s, it makes me think that she got multiple 800s (like on CR and M).

Honestly, getting a 1600 CR+M seems like one of the few guaranteed ways to get a Morehead Semifinalist Interview, from the few people I know at least.

You hit the nail on the head; these early marks are meaningless. These are barely mentally formed children. We do everything we can to avoid having them be responsible for their choices because honestly they aren't ready to make serious decisions. Except we begin the gauntlet of constant rating and judgement in school with aftereffects that carry over throughout their academic lives no matter their circumstances. Their success or failure is essentially a proxy for their parents success or failure, or a accident of circumstance more often than it's any genuine ability.

If any marking is to count or mean anything it needs to begin when they are adults capable of making real choices.

The slackers need a wake-up call. Most of the slackers slack precisely because they can get away with it.

You don't learn to stop slacking by always being able to get away with it, still getting good marks even though you didn't do any work.

I was a slacker in one subject in high school, didn't do homework at all. The first mark I got was an F-. It was the kick in the butt I needed for pulling myself together and do the work needed to raise the grade step by step to a B+.

The problem is in the complexity of the problems solved at a University and a k-12 level. I think this is brilliant but it assumes that there is varied work to be accomplished by all members. Most of my projects in HS where all easy enough that it was difficult to say that more then one person was needed. Slackers could survive off their friends and the people who would get everything done on their own and then let the rest of the group copy.

My high school LA teacher decided to adopt the same system. Popularity contest ensued. The interesting thing is that those who were one of the more intellectual types staunchly rejected the hierarchy, and formed a ragtag group with the leftover slackers.

This is the reason (at least, I think this is the reason) why I bombed my first serious job interview, with United Launch Alliance.

Things were going great until they asked me if I preferred working alone or in teams. From memory (it's been a long while) this is how the conversation went:

Interviewer: "Do you like working in teams?"

"If the people I'm working with are smart and motivated, I'm fine working in teams. Otherwise I'd like to mostly work alone."

Interviewer: "You mean you don't like working with other people?"

"No, that's not what I said. What I mean is that my experiences in working with teams have been mostly negative because other people don't pull their weight. The few times I have been in a good team I've really enjoyed it."

Interviewer: "Okay, moving on..."

And a rejection email was waiting in my inbox before I even got off the plane that night.

I learned after that to just say, "I love working in teams, especially when I'm working with people more experienced and knowledgeable than me. I'm also a great self-starter and I'm self-motivated, so I'm also comfortable working solo if you need me to do that." Which is much the same sentiment, but phrased in a way that people seem to take better.

I absolutely hate that we have to play the game but I suppose that there's some benefit in weeding out the people who can't.

"Yes, I enjoy leveraging the different experience that each member brings to the team. When we combine a group of highly motivated and knowledgeable individuals, we can achieve a high degree of success...synergy...paradigm...core competencies"

Yeah. Reflecting back on that interview process was very informative for me. I am glad I went on that interview because this was a very valuable lesson.

You know the expression "if you meet jerks all day then you're the jerk?" That's what would go through my mind if someone complained about their previous team members in a job interview.

This rule assumes that the most popular behavior is not being a jerk. What if you're the only black in a city full of racists whites? Are you a jerk because other people treat you badly? A less extreme example - what if you're the only person who doesn't easily understand the complex social structures that exist in workplaces? People will treat you badly because you were too nice to the low-ranking guy and not sucking-up enough to the high-ranking guy. That doesn't mean you're a jerk either.

That assumption depends on how many teams the person has been in. When I was in Uni we literally had just one project in 5 years where we were working in a team with more than two people.

This is why I stopped phrasing things in the way I did in that interview.

EDIT: realized my phrasing wasn't great

Well by that logic ... if you meet short people all day, then you're short?

Reasonable people end up acting like jerks toward real jerks because they have no reason to be kind. Therefore if you notice that everyone is being a jerk to you, it's likely because you're giving them a reason to be.

Tall people don't go around being short around short people, namely because they can't.

Well, clearly, when the interviewer heard "smart and motivated" it was immediately clear you weren't going to fit in there. So probably worked out best for everyone involved.

Rocket science really doesn't have a lot of room for primadonnas. It's all process and accountability.

You can be a creative and independent individual in such an environment. A prima-donna? No. But self-directing? Absolutely.

Saying that it is all "process and accountability" glosses over a lot of the reality of how the work is actually done on a day-to-day basis.

I think your answer is worded in a way that shows distrust and lack of enthusiasm. Everyone has experienced dysfunctional teams, but by saying things like "mostly negative," you're showing them a bias against teamwork. You can express the same thing by saying, "it's great working with teams of smart, motivated people, although it does depend on the people involved." Of course any interviewer worth their salt will follow up on that, because any kind of negativity is a yellow flag, and needs clarification.

Your second answer could be better phrased as, "well, we've all had the experience of working with people who don't pull their own weight, which can be a challenge to say the least, but that said, that kind of thing should be more the exception."

The conventional wisdom is that if you have five good group projects and one bad project, the problem is the group. If you have five bad projects and one good one, the problem is you. You don't want to tell them that you're the problem.

The 'conventional wisdom' you quote sounds valid in a professional environment. If your only experience of teamwork is with group projects in university then worrying that 'teamwork' equates to 'being saddled with a bunch of slackers' is entirely reasonable.

I think their answer was a very honest answer, which was a classic rookie mistake (although totally excusable since it was their first 'real' job interview). After being round the block a couple of times, we learn to add some spin to the answer, the way you did, and the interviewer sees that we can play the game, and we get hired.

Yup, classic rookie mistake. My revised answer is still honest. I do enjoy working with other people. Also, I need to work with other people to improve my skills. But I am also comfortable going off on my own for a while and working on something. My current job (flight test instrumentation) is an even mixture of both solo work and team work. The older, more experienced me knows now that I need both types of work.

You're absolutely right on all of this. Your comment summarizes what I learned after this experience. I was much younger then, and didn't understand that last point in particular. Was I stuck in groups where we had outright slugs? Of course I was, and that happens in a non-professional environment like school. There were some things I could have done then that I understand now. I did everything I knew to do at the time.

Yeah. In retrospect, I said much worse things in my interviews after college. Part of it is lack of experience like you say, but I think a lot of it is also the amount of stress you're going through at that time of your life. I find all my negative traits come out front and center when I'm under lots of stress, which ironically means the worse things are going at my current job, the harder it is to get a better one.

I can't believe companies are still asking questions like this. The clever slacker will know exactly how to answer the Psyc. 101 questions? Maybe that's why we have so many people who shouldn't have got that middle/upper management on their unseen talents?

I really don't understand this problem in hiring. Yea--go off that, usually padded resume, padded Likedin, etc., but just test the candidate. You can test them on the job, or a supervised written/computer test? You can then keep them, or fire them? Of course tell the employee this position is provisional.

Hiring shouldn't be a popularity contest? And some of the best minds I have been around, really didn't like working in big groups. I've never seen an organization that didn't split into small groups of people after all the big promises of team playing. These small groups are sometimes a popularity contest though--So, what do I know?

As to HR personnel, why are they seemly always irritating/hubristic people? I can't figure out if it's the job that turns them into people I don't want to be around, or certain personality types are drawn to that position?

While I'm at it, enough with requiring a picture? I understand if the job requires a security clearance, but even then I think it's an invasion of privacy, and used for the wrong reasons.

The better jobs I had required a test as 1/2 of the hiring process. The other 1/2 was the oral interview. The interview had at Least five people overhearing my answers. I really thought this was a fair way to hire.

(On another note, I had a detective put a note on my table, in my yard, with a number to call. Yea, some slimy PI was in my yard? I think I have a neighbor who's applying to some government security position?

I didn't call the number, but I think I know the neighbor. He just moved in, and I don't know where he got his money, nor care to. He has a lot of disposable income, and doesn't something doesn't add up. He, and his friends smoke a lot of weed, and he seems paranoid. Personally, I thought he was a drug dealer, and I don't care, as long as he stays away from me.

Would I hire this guy--no, but I don't know him. It's all speculation on my part? I would never call that number, unless I saw him building a "you know what". I have a bunch of nosey neighbors, who seem to live to point out neighborhood infractions, or eye sores. I hate that eye sore phrase. I always want to tell the person spewing that observation; look in the mirror? Well, I imagine most of my neighbors gleefully called this number and gave their 2 cents to this PI, and I imagine everything was speculated?

If this is how security clearances are performed --it's sad.

The main reason I like where I live is because I don't want to know my neighbors? They all seem to have too much money, and complain about stuff I don't think is important. I have nothing in common with them, and don't want to know them. Is that wrong?)

Again off track, but I would like to see a simplified/fair way of hiring.

If that person is being investigated for a clearance, they won't have some slimy PI. They'll have someone from a known government agency (in my experience, either FBI or the Federal Investigative Service (FIS)) asking questions, and the questions are usually like, "Do you know of any reasons why the subject should not be considered for a position of trust/position of national security importance?"

I'm sorry but... what's with all those questions?

This seems like such a universal experience, and looking back on it, teachers obviously know it's going on.

I wonder how much their plans to train kids for the "real world" are shaped by working in such unusual environments themselves.

I've never had a job where my performance is judged based on how a random group of teenagers I've been assigned to does on a project, but teachers certainly have.

Many professionals in the real world work in team environments where they depend on each other, and you can't just ignore your teammates bad work. This is certainly true in all but the smallest software shops.

Right but the usually accepted answer is not: I just give them bullshit to do or otherwise plan on having time to do their work if/when they don't do it sufficiently. That's the right answer. We just don't like it because it condemns people. We really need basic income so we can start being more ruthless about this. Honestly I think it could save some of these people from a downward spiral of bullshitting. They're just scared and we all know they have good reason to be so we give them a pass.

In my experience it's even more important in small software shops because you're going to be good at different things and there's no room for ego.

Of course, another way to look at this is that the assignment is not really about the work product but about developing co-working skills, as well as giving weaker students an opportunity to learn from their peers rather than an adult, which is often more effective. At least, it could be....but in the hands of a less-thoughtful teacher, it could easily turn into trickle-down education as you describe.

A colleague of mine described a method for assigning groups that I'd never considered, but that she says worked surprisingly well.

On the first day of class, she gave out a survey, and one question was "How many hours do you expect to spend working on this class each week?" She assigned students to groups who gave similar answers. The self-described hard workers were delighted to be together, and the folks who were hoping to coast pretty quickly realized that nobody else in their group was going to just take over and do it all, so they reluctantly buckled down, too.

I went through phases in school, partially driven I believe by the fact I was suffering from dyslexia but didn't know it (given I made it to graduation with good enough grades from a very decent uni, I wasn't diagnosed until 25. Sadly late diagnoses is a bit more common then you think) However as some people may appreciate, particularly during exam times, I became extremely introverted. Friends noticed a difference in my attitude and some felt I had issues with them so stopped talking to me. This is was not the case from my side and I tried to explain. Teachers thought I was "slacking" in class as I wouldn't participate as much given we were asked to do quite a bit of reading and it meant that in group work, whilst I was vocal, my work was slow. From these experiences I learnt something. The way I look at the world and interpret situations and experiences when I went through months and sometimes a good year of being like this was extremely different to when I was confident and out going. Fair enough mine personality drift was triggered by my dyslexia, different people can have different triggers. The outcome is similar.

Introverts are extremely affective influencers in chaotic scenarios, they are known, particularly in Asia due to their more low key and effective nurturing techniques to be powerful leaders. They have been on the receiving end of criticism more than most people and have learnt in hindsight what could have made them tick and let's be honest, in this day and age of everyone being encouraged to speak their mind, people stand out from the crowd if they have a knack for building up others and are committed to listening instead of talking. This idea is a strength of an introvert. However, these strengths take a while to come into play as to be able to recognise them as strengths within yourself requires confidence and that takes a ridiculous amount of time to attain yourself for someone who is introverted. One is only really taught to appreciate and how to harness the strengths of different personalities at business school or the working environment through various negotiation/project management or graduate workshops. The school system lacks high quality teachers who can bring these strengths out of their introverted students at younger age. Fact is, there is no doubt a negative correlation between the more students who are built up and those who become depressed or bullied. Group work could be even more better with their input and a lot of the time so would group dynamic. Sharing my two pennies worth...

Well, it sounds like it prepares you for adult life where this is a norm.

On the other hand, I'm not saying you're like this, but a lot of kids who are brilliant are incapable of working in groups, and that's pretty much what you have to do in real life.

Also, growing up, I would not allow that in my group there could be a slacker... report him / her, be a snitch, I didn't care, actually, what I did was help them so they can become better and do the homework.

But I didn't grow up in America where the smart kids just do the dumb kids homework because they're afraid of getting bullied, in fact, I learned about the concept up until I moved in here.

100% agree. I think you're right. When it comes to anyone, from any background or person they need to be able to work in a social environment. My manager is super sharp/super smart, can teach me to save his life. But tough love I feel isn't always needed. Yeah the shock will stay with them but there are also more effective ways. I don't think stick on hand techniques are the way to go (metaphor here) and generally societies and communities are evolving passed that. Granted, sometimes there really is no other choice!

I think the focus of group works in education is not to get real work done but to learn about teamwork and leadership. In real live you can't choose your team and in my experience the motivation and knowledge of the participants may vary significantly. good management is when everybody motivated is assigned a productive work and really stubborn cases cut loose. the latter beeing very difficult from my experience...

Until the nerds learn that they don't need to ace in every assignment to get a passing grade. I confess having being delighted of get a failing grade on purpose, with the full knowledge that I but not my peers was able to take the hit.

Later I have met others who came to the same basic conclusion, though they were much more constructive and assertive when dealing with the situation.

On the one hand I agree but on the other hand I think group work is an important skill to learn. This will be almost always necessary in a work environment.

I think a good compromise is to require each team member to be responsible for an identified part of the group work so that the teacher can adequately grade each individual.

At that point you're not doing group work. You're doing individual work with differing assignments.

Group work is the reality of the world. You can be the best and your company can fail because of crappy peers. Speak up, lead them to greatness and give them the boot (ie, tell the teacher) if they're hopeless.

this competitive view of education is another unfortunate consequence of what i identify as a broken educational system

i think its worth while to ask who who incites this competition with grades?

what are your concerns with 'counterfeit' versus 'genuine' grades?

i am more upset that another generation can get through school with, hard won, perfect grades and still be unaware of what a transformer is and how it works

Everyone knows what transformers are. And that they're powered by the Allspark. I think you're just jaded.

I hated group work for the opposite reason: there was always some ass who thought their work and ideas were superior and they didn't let anyone else provide any input. They'd often just re-do the work I did because I didn't do it the way they demanded I do it. I eventually just stopped even bothering cause it seemed like they weren't so much interested in the quality as in having complete control over everything.

Man, I wish I would have come across such a person, I'd have let them have their way. Instead it was always a bunch of flakes clearly looking to do as little as possible.

I'd say that most paradigms of grade school style learning overlook introverts by default. There's usually some sort of grade-based participation bonus for speaking out and answering the teacher's questions as soon as they're posed. There's almost always group project components as well, in which introverts won't be able to shine as much.

IMHO it's part of a larger system of not valuing introverts as a society. Being talkative gets people noticed, and being quiet gets people forgotten, and, as a result, neglected. I don't have any real solution to propose, just an observation that in most cases, introverts are worse off for their social disposition. Ambiverts are probably the best positioned for success, provided that they are able to play up their extraversion when around extroverts and play it down when around introverts.

Speaking in front of people and working in groups are extremely valuable skills, even for introverts. This is like saying that people who don't enjoy physical activity should skip P.E. class -- in both cases there is both a developmental and health component at play.

I am extremely introverted, but have no problem speaking to groups of people or even working in groups. I've always felt that my voice has been heard and respected because when I do talk people know that I have definitely thought it through. However, there are always those people who expect you to act exactly as they do.

The actual problem seems to be that kids aren't really taught to hold respect for one another. Because of that once you exhibit any kind of quirky behavior you become the target of joking/teasing and other forms of alienation that may only amplify your initial weirdness.

I'm also very introvert, and find that speaking in front of people feels nothing like being forced to interact closely with people to me. I held the commencement speech for new students at university, in front of thousands and a TV crew, and everyone wondered how I was able to keep so calm. And I went around participating in political school debates during the election my senior year of high school and couldn't care less that there were audiences of hundreds of rowdy teenagers.

The thing is, one of the things that is stressful to me about social situations is that I have to work to read the situations, and work to ensure I respond "correctly", and work to engage in chitchat and all the other stuff that creates social bonds, and that I tend to overly negatively interpret social reactions.

To stay calm when speaking to large groups, on the other hand, is then very easy: I just don't invest the effort in dealing with the social stuff. It never hits me that it's something worth being nervous about, because I've just "switched off", and worry about whatever subject I'll be talking about, which I'm generally certain about, not least because I have a very easy time learning a manuscript, and I know I'm effectively insulated from everything that makes close social situations exhausting.

I strongly believe that introversion in social settings and ability to speak to groups are affected by very different things.

Like you I'm also usually fine with working in groups, for the same reasons: There's usually not that many social cues to worry about, and when they are, they tend to be more focused and less effort to deal with, at least for some time.

"Speaking in front of people and working in groups are extremely valuable skills, even for introverts."

Yes -- and the problem is that very few places actually teach these skills to introverts. Rather, you are supposed to already know them.

"This is like saying that people who don't enjoy physical activity should skip P.E. class -- in both cases there is both a developmental and health component at play."

It's funny you should bring up PE here, because the same mechanism is usually at play there. PE classes don't focus on the kids who are bad at sports. They focus on those who are already good at it, for whatever reason.

"It's funny you should bring up PE here, because the same mechanism is usually at play there. PE classes don't focus on the kids who are bad at sports. They focus on those who are already good at it, for whatever reason."

It's been a frustration of mine for a while that P.E. stands for Physical Education, but rarely are kids educated about exercise and nutrition. Kids don't learn about exercise increasing endorphins that, in turn, elevate mood. They don't learn about cardiovascular conditioning and how it helps with some asthmatic conditions. Forget about anyone mentioning the role of stretching in our health as we age. Nutrition is neglected entirely, but learning about "carb bombing" and its effect on mood would do a lot of good. Instead they throw a ball around and get out aggression (or try to hide from the kids who are getting out aggression).

I read an interview with Anne Hathaway which discussed her training for the Catwoman role. Prior to that role, she hated exercise and thought that just because she was skinny, she was therefore healthy. (Let's ignore that she admitted in another interview to being a heavy smoker for a good portion of her life.) Once her trainer got her past the initial strain of conditioning muscles, she found she liked how she felt when she exercised. I think a lot of people developed a dislike of exercise early in their lives due to an association of exercise with team sports, which developed in PE classes. I think it needs to change.

> due to an association of exercise with team sports

And intrinsic competitiveness. I remember from my school PE classes (UK) that even distance running was always practiced as a race.

Anyone who runs knows that unless of course you're very elite, your performance vs other people is almost entirely unimportant to you. It's your own personal performance that matters, and this is as true on a solitary training run as it is taking part in a massive 'race' event such as a marathon.

Competing against yourself (trying to improve) is incredibly rewarding in a totally different way to competing against and beating other people. In a solitary sport like running, nobody gets to judge you but you, the motivation and joy that comes from the exercise and fitness improvements is almost entirely internal - to put it bluntly nobody else cares when you shave 5 seconds off your PB, but to you it's a wonderfully satisfying experience.

I always wondered why PE teachers never seemed to approach exercise and sport from this angle. They're really missing a trick as I believe discovering this would really encourage a lot more kids to keep exercising throughout and after school as a result.

As it happened I was always reasonably competent at sport, never the best at anything but good enough to be competitive at all the sports I played (at least vs other amateur kids). So for me it was OK to have a competitive element, but I can completely see that that if sport and exercise is always focused around competition, and a kid is consistently losing at everything they try, that's going to be a huge long-lasting turn off from exercise. Focusing more on 'this is intrinsically fun to do on your own' might change that significantly.

In the United States, in my experience, PE teachers are generally employed primarily as coaches for the schools' sports teams. As a result, they're not especially interested in exercise for its own sake.

Every time I've been in a public school's PE room in the last few years (since I've had my own child) there's been a board on the wall describing what's currently being done at each grade level, and at least some of the time there was information about nutrition. Whenever the kids at my neighboring school are out on the field for PE, they start out by stretching, and the teacher seems to be talking to them about preventing injury and such.

It's not perfect by any means, but it seems reasonably age-appropriate.

I'm glad it's changing. We need to establish in kids' minds that exercise doesn't have to be tedious or scary. People need to see exercise and healthy eating as normal part of life.

Teachers don't really get to teach whatever they want. State's all have standards that must be taught to. These are the standards for PE in Texas:

http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/rules/tac/chapter116/ch116c.ht...

Foundations of Personal Fitness is a requirement for all the later gym classes and that has several of the things you are looking for:

(A) explain the relationship between physical fitness and health

(D) compare and contrast health-related and skill-related fitness;

(B) describe physical fitness activities that can be used for stress reduction;

(D) analyze the relationship between sound nutritional practices and physical activity;

etc...

Maybe there are a lot of bad gym teachers (why be a Gym Teacher when you could get paid more to be a Nutritionist?) or maybe some states have less rigorous standards. Or the standards were lower in the past. Or maybe when you were a student you didn't notice the lessons the teacher was trying to teach.

Schools are trying though. Even PE is getting better.

Those standards seem to have come into effect in 1998, although I suspect there were similar requirements prior to that. Speaking as a graduate of a Texas public high school, I'd like to point out that all of those requirements can be covered in that one class in February where the weather is horrible and the internal facilities (gym, auditorium, whatever) have been taken over for some other activity.

In any case, I'm fairly sure I know what lessons the teacher was trying to teach.

When I taught middle school history, I would always sprinkle some time in for in-class silent reading throughout the week. It was always interesting to see that many of the students who were amazingly comfortable in front of the class were unable to sit for 20 minutes and read without blurting something out.

In the same way that it is important to actually teach group work and public speaking skills to introverts, it is also important to teach the opposite to extroverts.

One year at school I had a really good PE teacher, in the first lesson he asked the class what we wanted to do, we all replied that we wanted to do 5-a-side football indoors, he organized it. For that year nobody brought sick notes, everybody was there every week and got really fit. After a month or two he started occasionally suggesting other things we might like to try, similar non-contact sports that wouldn't scare off our group of smart boys, by this point we trusted his advice and were happy to try the new things too.

How to you teach public speeching and team working? Except by just forcing people to practice them, do you know any other method?

Also, PE was all about forcing kids to play some sport. In my experience, it was too much emphasis on playing, and too little emphasis on basic practicing, so nobody really improved on sports, but improvement was never the goal. Anyway that's completely understandable, because basic practicing is boring to most people (even grown-ups).

Topics worth teaching re. public speaking:

1. How to structure a persuasive narrative,

2. Techniques for focusing on the material you intend to present (minimizing internal distractions),

3. Techniques for dealing with potential distractions externally,

4. How to evaluate your performance objectively (long time to master, but should be introduced early),

5. How to organize your material so that you have an appropriate amount prepared for the time allotted,

6. How to pace your delivery so that you deliver material in a consistent amount of time,

7. Techniques of rhetoric so that you can convey through your performance the emotion you intend (an inspirational speech is as much about how something was said as what, for example),

8. etc.

Topics worth teaching re. team work:

1. How to read the level of engagement of other members.

2. How to read the mood of other members.

3. How to be communicate clearly to a group and make sure that you were clearly understood.

4. etc.

I could keep going but I'm not developing a course for public speaking or intra-personal communication (teamwork). I could easily find as many topics for teamwork as I did for speaking.

All of these things must be developed with practice, sure, but a lot of them don't just spontaneously develop without teaching. I mean, I have been in plenty of group environments among adults who haven't learned these things. We send people to counseling over some of these issues. Practice is only useful if it is mindful: if the students know what they are trying to do. I could throw a ball on an empty field and tell my kids to practice soccer, but they'll learn a lot faster if they receive coaching with their practice.

There probably needs to be some sort of approach where students can start with something small - perhaps introducing themselves to the class - rather than just jumping into memorizing a 5 minutes speech.

Your comments on practice also apply to the classroom and public speaking. It is easy as a teacher to say students need to give eye contact to the class while speaking, but unless they have practiced it and been given time to get better, it will likely be the same scenario you describe in PE with no real improvement.

People often confuse introversion with fear and see it as being a totally unchanging facet of one's being.

I'm introverted, and I used to be incredibly shy when meeting new people and it was impossible to get me to do any public speaking in front of people. But I'm confident that my shyness and non-desire to be in front of people was a result of being fearful of what people thought of me and my yearning to not make a fool of myself as opposed to my being introverted. Perhaps there is a big overlap in those qualities though.

One of the turning points in reducing my social fear came through being a waiter during college which both forced me to speak to people I didn't know. Plus it forced me to be around groups of people regularly. After college I was a teacher and am now very comfortable meeting new people and speaking in front of groups.

Solitary pursuits still really energize me and social gatherings definitely continue to drain my energy which is able to be refilled with some solitude.

Better analogy is giving students poor grades for not participating in P.E. class well. I recall HS gym class having a few weeks focusing on football - totally presuming that everyone knew the rules; I garnered penalties for the team for merely twitching on the line just before the snap ("whadayamean called for 'movement' because I moved my foot one inch?"), and didn't figure out what a "down" was until my mid-twenties. Never occurred to the coach that some students had no idea what the rules were, yet the grade likely depended on how well they fulfilled those rules.

You're presuming all introverts already know how to speak before & work with groups. Many don't!

Kids should be better taught how to work in groups, really. It unfortunately goes both ways - you need to teach some of them not to blindly pick on introverts and teach the introverts how to communicate with others, including the art of lying and deception.

This. Some kids should definitely be put it special classes where they're taught to both deal with normal people and forgive them for their ways. If you don't spend much time deceiving people then you're far less able to detect lies. That or the subtle emotional manipulation demonstrated by any modern employer. It's an utterly essential skill in the "real world".

I wonder if there will be a time when introverts are being viewed as a discriminated group. It's not OK to make disparaging remarks about people of certain races, sexual orientation and other groups but it seems to be OK to make negative remarks about introverted or shy people.

When I hear about women having it difficult to make their way in tech professions I always remember how hard it was to be a shy teenager.

Yeah, I'd say introversion can have debilitating/disabling downsides (especially for younger people, from my own experience), but also a few powerful upsides when it comes to information processing and focused cognition. I don't really identify with the accepted negative remarks against introverts, though.

The closest I can comment on is the perpetual "why are you so antisocial" line from childhood through adulthood, which is simultaneously infuriating and isolating. Children and young adults that are introverted are almost always constantly cajoled frequently to "be more social", and, of course, it's to their detriment to be so frequently indirectly reminded that they are outsiders.

Of course, introverts are almost always going to be at a disadvantage in social skills, popularity contests, job interviews, etc-- and these things are far more critical to "success" than mere skill or intelligence. I'd say introverts are also usually slightly worse at the skill of having grit, too-- frequently there's something about having to struggle alone that makes failures more final.

I imagine there's some great works waiting to be written regarding the experience of introversion from the 1980s to the present. The current crop of hackers are probably the first who have seen society go from viewing them as "antisocial" to "cool nerds".

> IMHO it's part of a larger system of not valuing introverts as a society.

Of course, that's turnabout being fair play: society rejects introverts because introverts reject society (or, less absolutely, society finds less value in introverts because introverts prefer to engage less with it). Like you, I don't see any way to change it: it's like trying to get two positive charges to attract.

Sounds like you and I would agree that children might grow up naturally introverted, but also that, because they are introverted, as a life skill they need to practice handling social settings especially with extroverts.

I think that's what a healthy curriculum for introverted kids growing up looks like. I don't think we'll ever get around the social dominance of extroverts who naturally play this "game" well, the game exists and introverts need to know how to avoid handicapping themselves.

My own parents were prescient enough to recognize this pattern in me - I'm naturally introverted, so they pushed me to learn how to flip a switch when I had to. Over time the amount of energy I had to spend to flip that switch has reduced to something I can sustain for a long time - fake it 'til you make it I guess. Within this reality, I'm quite grateful that my parents taught me this lesson before college, when arguably introversion might limit your long term personal and career prospects the most.

As a strong introvert I remember sitting in class, age 8 or so, and wishing with all my heart that I could have a big thick stone enclosure around my desk, extending halfway up to the ceiling. I was working on multiplication tables at the time and was feeling extremely overstimulated to the point where I couldn't focus (and to clarify, I didn't know I was overstimulated, or even that I couldn't focus, at the time).

Since then I've learned more about introversion, and I now look back and recognize the brief moments when the school system tried to reach into my introvert life and make things easier. Unfortunately, by the time they filtered from administration down to me, these attempts (e.g. typology testing for career and school advice, or special workshops) were either so watered down as to be completely useless or so boring-sounding and voluntary that no student in their right mind would attend them without prodding.

Funny, that's how I feel in open-plan offices...

I've worked with people who don't seem to grasp the concept that I am more productive at home vs. a large, loud, open office.

At one point I seriously considered getting horse blinders to wear because where I sat at one company gave me essentially a panoramic view of the entire office. With half-height cube walls, that meant I literally saw everything out of the corners of my eyes. Could not get anything done for the life of me.

Contrast that with home where I can have as much or as little light as I want, it is mostly silent (unless I want music), I'm in a safe and familiar environment, no distractions except those I allow by checking email/Slack, and my productivity skyrockets when I get in the zone.

This is an interesting comment on an an article about introverts in school settings. I wonder how many people with similar thoughts on open-plan offices see homeschooling as a best alternative to typical classroom environment.

Homeschooling often takes the approach where high productivity levels mean you are done with school in a few hours as opposed to sitting around killing time. This is also similar to frustrations voiced here about having to sit around the office even if they have completed their work.

There are likely more overlaps too.

In the same way that modern schooling schedules is supposedly designed to mimic industrial scheduling, perhaps current schooling models is moving in the direction of mimicking the modern workplace.

That's a really interesting point. Personally, I think there is a ton of value in the social experiences you are exposed to in school that are critical for a successful future.

That said, while I don't love the idea of homeschooling, I would have LOVED an approach of "learn the material at home on your own and use class time to ask questions/review homework" or something of the sort. I'm a strong visual learner, and one of my big frustrations with schooling was that so much of it was auditory. Between scrambling to take notes and such, I often missed out on large chunks of the content.

By learning at home, I could spend as much (or as little) time as needed on topics, and then ensured my comprehension by using class time to review with the expert and learn from my mistakes vs. just getting something back with a letter grade and little/no opportunity to dig further.

People learn differently and schools need to start supporting that.

The point about sitting around an office after completing work is something I've heard before too. I've never really been in a professional job where "I completed my work" for the day. In situations where that is the expectation, I think companies should either make it clear they are paying for you to fill a seat regardless, or respect the time off and allow you to manage your time as you see fit with the assumption you are a responsible adult.

Even when there is more to do, there are days where I'm just not feeling productive, and I can stare at a screen and not make any progress. Rather than force myself I shift mental gears and do things to break me out of it (which may or may not be work related). I wish schools did a better job of this too instead of forcing you to plow through (which often leads to dozing off in class).

We are 12 developers in a room that is half windows opposite an auditorium. We call it the fishbowl. It feels like we are in some sort of science experiment to see how long we can last the indignity.

Open plan offices are the work of the devil + management + architecture. Probably the worst idea since "Let's delay our invasion of Russia a few months later in the fall".

well, it worked out for Russia :)

> Unfortunately, by the time they filtered from administration down to me, these attempts (e.g. typology testing for career and school advice, or special workshops) were either so watered down as to be completely useless or so boring-sounding and voluntary that no student in their right mind would attend them without prodding.

This is what I think of every time I hear people proposing changes to education. Nothing is going to work, because nothing can work, because nothing is going to look the same from ideation to implementation.

When I was studying to be an educator I was often branded a heretic for challenging the new modes of teaching as being hypocritical and potentially unfounded. I never became an educator after student teaching. This article really puts into words my issues with group learning, project based learning, and all the other buzzwords flying around schools of education. I remember being a student in school and relishing the moments where I could be by myself and focus on whatever needed doing. Now students are lucky to have a moment of peace as they're prodded into unnatural learning environments meant to mimic a "real world" that frankly doesn't exist.

I've often been told about the benefits of "group work" and "collaborative working" and thus "open plan offices" but I feel like that much energy can reduce the depth of knowledge and thought. You're replacing depth with breadth. The operating theory is that by offering a multitude of view points, you make up for the single thinker. And in areas of human dilemma, this can work. For example, consider marketing or other human-centric activities.

But when the problem gets difficult, the essential superficial nature of this style of problem solving becomes apparent. This is where a single member then leaves the group, sequesters their self in solitude then emerges with the answer later.

Open plan offices are all about one thing: maximizing headcount per sq/ft. All designs focus on putting more people into the same amount of space. Assigning dedicating space to one person is not as efficient as making the space first come first server.

IMHO organizations that embrace open plan offices need to 100% embrace work from home/telecommuting. Because after all, if you don's need to have a face to face, why do you need to be sitting in an open plan office space? Boggles the mind really.

My feeling is that school was an introvert heaven as compared to adult professional life.

This can be true or not depending on job.

But the point is valid: what the linked article is pointing out is the motion toward a more extrovert-oriented educational philosophy. The truth is that classical education has always been designed for the introvert: students were required to sit quietly at their desks, wait to be questioned, do work in silence, etc...

And the truth is that some students (the extroverts) do comparatively poorly in this environment. So we're retooling to better serve them, potentially at the expense of the ones who were already well-served.

I don't know that this is an easy problem, but it's certainly more complicated than "introverts are discriminated against in school".

"The truth is that classical education has always been designed for the introvert: students were required to sit quietly at their desks, wait to be questioned, do work in silence, etc..."

True, although I think that had more to do with making kids obedient, or expecting them to be obedient, rather than school being "designed for introverts". Also, putting a bunch of kids together in a room, and expecting them to speak up or do things in front of the class, certainly don't favor the introverted.

Yeah, I get this feeling too, for the most part.

One thing I've noticed about working in a professional setting is that social performance and actual job performance are incorrectly intertwined in people's minds. There's some sort of carryover of positive emotions from strong social interactions when people consider their coworkers work quality, leading to mediocre but savvy workers getting rave reviews.

But making people feel like they like you is pretty easy. You just interact with them now and again and prop up their ego, tell a joke and that's that. I mean, in case you don't have anything in common and don't like them much. If you do like them as a friend, then it should happen naturally.

"But making people feel like they like you is pretty easy."

For an extrovert, yes. :) Or for the introvert who knows these things and knows how to do them credibly. For some of us, it's neither easy nor obvious.

I have, of course, noticed these things too, in school- and work situations... If you are talkative, it's OK, but if you're not, you are "weird", "aloof", "arrogant", or people simply think you dislike them. Yes, you can learn to make superficial conversation, but personally it all feels really fake to me.

>> but personally it all feels really fake to me.

This.

I am an introvert, and this is the crux of the problem to me.

People have no problem whatsoever making smalltalk with persons they don't like, are happy to promote themselves on the web and whatnot as the best guy you can imagine, always feel entitled to give their opinions even if they have no idea about what is being talked about.

It's all a fake friends, fake interesting lives, fake enthusiasm and popularity contest.

If you don't participate in that shit or mention problems instead of being excited, you're singled out.

Errors are forgotten easily and leave no trace on the inflated ego because they don't have the balls to look at themselves critically.

But i'm the guy with issues, sure...

In school, you're evaluated on your actual work. Homework and tests. In professional life you're sort of evaluated on your work, but there's a bunch of other stupid bullshit that has much more of an effect. So, I agree.

Top-down prescription of how children and teachers ought to run a school will always neglect particular groups and individuals. There is no one system or theory that meets the needs of everyone. One would think that the solution would be to decentralize the organization of schools and take a bottom-up approach, and not merely at the level of teachers, but at the level of students. Students deserve autonomy and a voice in their learning environment. Teachers deserve autonomy in designing curricula.

I failed at several higher education schools in France PRECISELY because of group projects.

All my scores were fine or high, except for those stupid team project which counted for a huge score coefficient.

Failed so many job interviews because I don't have a degree or because I'm less social.

The worst is when some director argued with me that human are a social species.

Just like Susan Cain wrote about it, it really seems that there is a Salesman culture. It almost seems that we considers introverts to be handicapped.

Sorry to hear. But surely you have to agree that your introversion has handicapped you significantly in life?

From your own story, it sounds like it stopped you from being able to complete a degree program and has cost you job opportunities. It sounds like something worth working on fixing or at least working around.

I was a super shy kid and am still way on the introverted side of the spectrum. But I've learned to work on teams and to lead them. It's a skill, like any other. Much like you couldn't blame the paratroopers for rejecting you for refusing to jump out of planes, you can't really blame a school or employer for rejecting you if you refuse to learn to overcome your aversion to working with groups.

> Sorry to hear. But surely you have to agree that your introversion has handicapped you significantly in life?

Not significantly. Yes, but which is the cause ? My personality or the standard people deems normal ? Not saying I'm normal, but maybe it's a chicken egg problem. There are tolerances and expectations at play.

Oh and by handicapped I meant like introversion is overlooked as a mental illness, like lonely people are somehow retarded.

> you can't really blame a school or employer for rejecting you if you refuse to learn to overcome your aversion to working with groups.

I'm not blaming anybody, but at some point people have to learn about it and not just run with it like it's a standard.

Also, higher education programs should not be meant to teach people how to work with groups. How do you really expect people to learn something technical by forcing them to socialize ?

The issue really comes down to society still thinking introversion is a bad thing. You are often perceived to be shy and quiet or antisocial.

Most introverts are neither of these, yet the labels persist and introversion like being left-handed was in the past is currently seen as something to be fixed.

A more private and individualist education is the only reason I succeeded in life.

Before I came to the U.S, I went to South American private schools and it was a living nightmare. You breath collectivism and herd mentality is the only answer.

Because I'd refuse to work with groups, my grades were terrible and teachers often recommended my parents to seek 'special education'.

When I got in the U.S, I tested out of as many classes as possible and graduated HS at 15. If I had a talented child, I'd follow this map:

http://image.slidesharecdn.com/gertjan-penelope-telemachos-a...

> "I used to think their ubiquitous earbuds were feeding their need for stimulation; now I wonder if they’re sometimes blocking out the noise."

Most of the time my earbuds are in, I'm either listening to white noise or I'm not listening to anything at all... I put them in with the intention of listening to music, but never actually get as far as remembering to put the music on - and it's exactly for that, blocking out noise. Frequently, even if I have music playing, I'm not even listening to the music, I'm just drowning out distraction so I can concentrate.

This is nitpicking but, the A-level (the basement) at Regenstein library at the University of Chicago is not exactly a quiet reading area, it is typically loudest floor in the whole building.

Typically the loudest floor is the ground [first] floor...

It has been a few years since I graduated, but my impression is always that people were in general much more willing/allowed to talk in the A-level more than on any other floor.

Sure the ground floor could get packed but the amount of dBs/person was higher in the A-level, so it would it be louder if it was actually packed as well. This likely also because the A-level has the cubicles in the back that were set up precisely for group work.

In any case, it is misleading for the article to say that converting the A-level to a more collaborative environment is taking away from introverts'. Especially since the A-level is one of the louder rooms in one of the louder libraries.

In some cases they aren't overlooked, they get suspended for being involved in a physical altercation (bully beat them up) just like any other student.

Introversion/extroversion is a false dichotomy. There is no such thing, and no evidence fundamental personality types exist. Carl Jung's theories are unfalsifiable, untestable, and pseudoscientific.

Promulgating this quackery is damaging to people who are labeled as such and go on to identify with it.

What? Introversion/Extroversion certainly has evidence, and it's not just some quackery only Jung had things to say about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits

I believe the strong+absolute dichotomy people try and present on the trait is false, but that's a misunderstanding of how personality traits interact in complex ways to produce behaviors. Some of my acquaintances might think I'm an extrovert, but that's because they've only seen me in particular environments and I'm mildly to strongly introverted but not absolutely.

I know I personally found it relieving to learn some of the facets of introversion and know that I wasn't weird or broken and many people felt the same things that I did although I didn't realize it.

I fully agree. I've seen people (including myself) go through varying degrees of introversion based on external experiences. Identification can be a strongly limiting and a destructive power. When it comes to "introvert" reservations about fully identifying with a term seem to vanish for most people - those who identify and those who do not.

> Identification can be a strongly limiting and a destructive power.

This cannot be emphasized enough. Sometimes identifying mental characteristics/behaviors can be very important (for instance, depression) in that it allows you to start examining it and trying to correct it, or build a career or social life that takes account of it. But many people latch onto non-disorder labels (like introversion) and use it to justify all their behavior ("I don't want to go out on Friday night because I'm an introvert." - spoken by many of my friends, even when going out just meant a night in playing board games that they originally suggested).

This isn't true of all introverts, but many self-identified introverts that I've met the last several years exhibit behavior more in common with burnout and depression. They hold the dual views of wanting to do things with people (their friends at least) but refusing to go out because it means dealing with people (often those same friends). At some point, like I did, you have to figure out a healthy way to deal with your desire to have quiet time/alone time/whatever time in a way that doesn't frustrate the people you want in your life to the point that they end up leaving you behind. Or you need to find friends that you actually find yourself desiring more time with.

I'm no fan of Jung, and it's wrong to call it a dichotomy, but introversion / extroversion is definitely a real, measurable trait.

If you ask a bunch of people a lot of questions about how they feel or act in certain situations, and perform a factor analysis, then you'll find (or at least several independent researchers have found) that a small number of factors (3 - 5) can explain a large fraction of the variation among personalities.

One of those factors corresponds well to what most people think of as extroversion / introversion. It's also relatively stable through time for the same individual, strongly heritable, present across many cultures, correlated with certain physical brain differences, etc.

Yeah, right. It's a "continuum". Conveniently meaningless. Nobody, nowhere treats it like that anyway. People are labeled introverts or extroverts.

Apparently kids who want a quiet place to read are now introverts.

It's not the fault of the researchers if the terms extroversion/introversion have been incorrectly popularized.

What exactly is your point? That this personality factor does not exist, or that there are no such things as personality factors?

What is you evidence for your scepticism?

Just because a concept provokes a negative emotional response in you doesn't meant it's meaningless to everyone.

I wrote a critique of group work based on my own experiences with it in school and in university, echoing many of the same grievances against voiced in this discussion:

http://likewise.am/2015/07/01/on-communication-skills-and-pe...

I took particular issue with the alleged wisdom of putting students of very heterogenous levels together so that the better ones can serve as a "role model".

However, my conclusion was that the best medicine is a return to more structured and - in some respects - authoritarian teaching methods centred around the lecture, not a different kind of diffuse self-motivated learning model.

What I mostly remember of school is that it grossly overlooked my great need to be elsewhere, doing something else with my time. I was greatly "extroverted": oriented toward that great exterior sprawling on the other side of the classroom's window panes.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned people diagnosed in the autistic spectrum, because so many are attracted to engineering and computer science - I guess there are many of us lurking around here...

So, is "introvert" a real thing? I feel like it's just a big group of character traits that are all gathered under an umbrella term.

From what I understand there is only one thing that constitutes as introvert and that is a person who finds social interaction draining. They aren't necessarily shy, or not outgoing or anything, but they eventually need to get away from people. Opposite from that is an extrovert who finds being alone draining and needs people to to gain that back.

Sure I've heard that definition. Yet it describes a "symptom", and not a process which it is a manifestation of. I just feel like the discussion about "introvert" is extremely shallow: here is a child, she's an "introvert". And it ends at that. We've started to use the word as a noun, but should we?

I think I used to be not introverted as a child. Then, as I experienced the pressure of moving to another country during teens, I became more introverted. And now I am not.

I think it's mostly that introversion vs extroversion are closer to what the post you are responding to, while more often then not, social anxiety and shyness are conflated with introversion while that is not necessarily correct. Introverts exist that are comfortable interacting with groups of people. Being "drained" by social interaction doesn't mean that they don't enjoy it or that the draining is stressful. I think of it like a timer that counts down until you'd prefer not to be in social situations anymore.

That being said, I consider myself extroverted and I experience an opposite effect. After being in non-social situations for a long enough point I get to where I don't care what specifically I'm doing I just want to do something social. After a day of reading or individual pursuits I might feel a little stir crazy and text anybody I know to do anything from go get a bite to eat or hang out with no particular activity in mind.

One is not set in stone as being an introvert or extrovert. People can change and it really comes down to what doesn't drain/take energy to do... being around people and stimulated or being alone or in a quiet environment.

As someone who has "battled" introversion for much of my life, I can agree with the sentiment of the statement. I say battled because I feel like when I say I'm an introvert, people around me scoff because they feel I'm the farthest thing from an introvert. I'm happy to hold court with those who want to take part in my conversations and I strike up conversations with complete strangers on the train... I'm not particularly shy per se and I don't lack for confidence in my abilities or place in the world. But if I don't get "me time" on a daily basis, it would be like other people going without sleep. It's time to allow cognitive processing, but unlike sleep, it's conscious cognitive processing. I need this time to make sense of the world, ideas that would otherwise never be given enough thought to understand or process.

Your statement has caused me some self reflection and I think I agree. I can't say upon reflection that I am either an introvert or extrovert.

I find many types of personalities draining - as I'm sure we all do, even extroverts. I need time away from these personalities to recharge. Preferably time on my own to do my own thing, tinker, watch the world go by, but most of all think, uninterrupted or intruded upon.

There are types of people that suck energy from other people. Those that require constant attention: Those that feed off your attention and will do whatever they feel they need to in order to absorb that from you. That is mentally exhausting to most of us. For me this includes people I've labelled (for better or worse) show offs - the 'look at me, don't you agree how clever/talented/awesome I am?' types.

There are also types of people that recharge you. Those that give freely of their energy, but don't require your attention. They happily send their energy your way and then let it go, content to go back to what they were doing without a need for constant reassurance or input from you. They bounce in and out of conversation, make you laugh, engage with you, but don't constantly sap your energy. Just as content to share space and not talk as they are to converse with you.

Having to be around people that constantly need or fight for your attention, always making noise, talking just to talk, interrupting your thought mid sentence; those that never appear to have any respect for the directives: If you don't have anything to say that improves upon the silence, don't say anything at all; and say as much as you can in as few words as possible.

These are the kinds of people that drain everyone... we label people who can't put up with this for very long 'Introverts' and people that are this 'Extroverts' :P I say that tongue in cheek, I don't believe this is the definition of extroverts... extroverts just appear to be more immune to the energy sapping effect of this type of behavior.

In reality, I don't believe that any of us are either of these things in totality. What I do believe we are, are people with varying levels of tolerance of other people invading our personal space or mental bubble uninvited; intruding on our thought processes and spoken word with few manners or thought for those on the receiving end of that behaviour.

> I can't say upon reflection that I am either an introvert or extrovert.

Sounds like you are an ambivert.

As a self-professed introvert this true. Introvert is not the same as shy. Being in social situations (or even high sensory stimulating environments) consumes my energy. I really enjoy hanging out and going out with people but I need a break and some me/quiet time to recharge my energy levels. Also, if I want to be the "life of the party" I have no problem(s) being the center of attention.

An excellent book on Introverts is Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain

http://amzn.to/1Fxitw2 (affiliate link)

That sounds a lot like internet addiction unless that alone time is offline.

I feel like a lot of people conflate social awkwardness and social anxiety with introversion.

My wife is excellent at giving presentations (briefing policy makers is her job) and it great in social situations. She can make friends anywhere. She also prefers sitting and read or working solo. She only has some much energy for "on time."

I'm sort of the opposite. I love interacting with people and hanging out in large groups but I've also got a touch of social awkwardness and social anxiety. Talking to new people is stressful at first.

And I think the mislabeling has consequences. Social anxiety is pretty treatable using immersion therapy. You probably can't teach an introvert to like extrovert activities, but you definitely can teach someone with social anxiety to get over their fears.

Not to get all philosophical or anything, but I'm pretty sure that's what "real things" are -- clusters of traits that are empirically-useful to have an umbrella term for them.

Well, sure, if you come to a doctor and you say that you are "hurt", it is a "real thing" because that's the feeling, but an effectively useless term and not a "real" ailment or medical condition. I am using the comparison with medical conditions not to suggest that introversion is one, but just to explain what I meant.

Yes it seems to be. It is one of the big five personality traits.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits)

Also, introversion does not imply shyness, awkwardness or fear of social situations.

A better way to describe introversion would be to say that social interaction drains energy from an introvert, but gives energy to an extrovert.

This is because introverts are probably processing social interactions more deeply than extroverts.

Being in a classroom full of noisy students raised my anxiety in elementary school. I wish I could ease myself in with groups instead of just being thrown in one with the most obnoxious kids. I'm in my twenties now and still dislike working in groups. I'm far more productive and mentally stress free when working in solidarity.

When schools overlook introverts, they grow up and write songs like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR5ApYxkU-U (Pink Floyd)

Minor correction: The A-level at the University of Chicago is already a floor where students are allowed to speak freely.

A more private DOES

This is also why I'm so against the typical public school systems we've built in the US. Its a top-down beaurocratic system that does nothing but transfer wealth from the taxpayer to the teachers and their unions. Outcomes are piss poor in big cities and endless strikes for benefits and pay aren't wonderful things. Chicago is reeling from a pension crisis right now mostly due to corrupt deals with a corrupt teacher's union. A teacher's union with an average teacher's salary of $72,000 a year - for 9 months work in a very affordable city! How affordable? Our average household income is $43,000.

We need more charter schools and alternative learning either funded by the state with existing tax dollars or attached to property tax breaks for parents using them instead of the standard public school. We've been fighting for more charter schools but they come slowly because of all the pro-union politics that many liberals, unfortunately, consider unquestionable. You'd think liberals would be on the side of alternate education, especially since there's so much research on different types of children responding better to these methods.

As an introvert and somewhat of a non-standard learner, I got lucky that my parents were able to afford private school for me. I know a lot of other introverts didn't get so lucky and suffered badly in public school. Some of them are doing very poorly in life and I fully believe if they had different educations opportunities they'd be much better off. A top-down system that works only with extroverted neurotypicals is a huge disservice to children and the taxpayer.

You are extrapolating one school system to the whole US. Chicago has chosen to organize its schools that way because it is one of the more corrupt cities in the country.

I'm really not. Captive money into public school systems is asinine. That taxpayer money should be put into a pot and then handed out to different school systems like charter schools and other alternative schools, not just straight into public schools. We've had a lot of success with our charter schools even in Chicago. Vouchers for private schools would be good too.

Choice and competition work.

You're assuming everyone lives in a relatively old big city. The town I grew up in couldn't support multiple schools, and the money was pretty tightly controlled by the elected school board.

You're also not thinking of things like ELL and other services that public schools have to offer that charters often shirk.

> and other alternative schools

Yeah, give anti vaxxers, religious fanatics and other retarded fools the right to fuck up their children's life forever.

No thanks.

Yup, those wealthy teachers are all conspiring together to screw us over yet again.

Don't conflate teaching methodology (pedagogy) with teacher salary. History has shown us that unions are necessary to protect the latter.

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