It seems that I've gone on a sort of introvert rant in my last few posts, so I'll change things up a bit here. The topic I want to address today is education, or rather, the quality of education. And though I only have a few points to make, I feel that they are of the utmost importance.
Being a teacher is really more than just a job, more than a career; although it is certainly those things as well. Being a formal educator, a member of the education system, is to serve a most vital role in society, one which deserves the utmost respect and admiration. When someone becomes a teacher, he or she takes it upon themselves to teach students not only the contents of various school subjects, but also to teach things that are not covered by the system. Teachers teach you how to be your best, and how to live life. Usually, these lessons are mostly attributed to parents and guardians, and they most definitely do teach such things as well, but the contributions of teachers should not be taken lightly, or for granted. When you think about how much time a student actually spends in school and therefore with teachers, it becomes evident that those educators have a rather important role in the lives of young learners.
The role of a teacher cannot be understated. To be a teacher is to make a solemn vow to society to better the learning and development of a young generation. In essence, teachers are tasked with the incredible mission of ensuring that each new generation succeeds; that we have a better tomorrow. Each and everyday that we send our children to school, we are effectively placing in the teachers' hands our hopes and aspirations for the future. As a high school teacher himself, my brother firmly believes that it is his duty and responsibility to educate students not just on math, biology, etc. but also on life.
Of course, we all know that not all teachers are as serious about their occupation as my dear brother, and the consequences can be dire. My dad has told me on several occasions that a poor education is worse than no education. Now what he means by poor education is not to be taken literally (i.e. underfunded schools and such). It is meant to refer to the quality of the education itself. Having less knowledge may be detrimental, but having wrong or false knowledge can potentially be disastrous. Again I do not merely mean the teaching of school subjects but of the conducts of life. Social etiquette and proper moral conduct is just as if not more important than the various disciplines of formal education. I'll not elaborate on proper etiquette and moral conduct here so as not to stir up any heated debates; I leave them to the reader's discretion. Bottom line is, the education system is an essential and invaluable thing for any society, and the hard-working, endearing teachers that form its basis should be well respected and never be taken for granted.
Friday, March 28, 2014
Saturday, March 15, 2014
Introverts in a Social World
This was an early draft for an article I wanted to write for my school paper, but it ultimately went another direction. Still, I would hate for it to just sit there on my computer, so I decided to share it here. Let me know what you think of it!
Humans are pretty social beings. Out of all the animal species, we are the only ones that are capable of complex language. This has allowed us to efficiently communicate thoughts, feelings, concepts, basically anything, to each other in a relatively short time; pretty amazing when you think about it. As a result, our society has evolved into one which values those who are outgoing and social more so than those who possess a more reserved nature: introverts. As one of those introverts, I feel that I should speak up for those of us who feel stuck in an increasingly social world.
Of course, no one is ever completely introverted or extroverted, but for those leaning more on the former end of the spectrum, communication can be rather difficult. Though this does not apply to all introverts, there are a lot of us out there who feel socially uncomfortable, or anxious, more often than we’d like to be. Unlike extroverted individuals, introverts don’t become energized when they engage in conversation, in fact, quite the opposite happens. The more we socialize, the more drained we become, and after a while we have to be left alone to recharge our batteries before we can get back out there and face other people. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that introverts don’t enjoy company; we just prefer them in smaller doses, and in smaller groups.
A lot of people mistakenly think that introversion is a choice, when really it’s more of a personality trait that you’re born with. People are born with certain preferences for some things and aversions to others. Introversion can either be seen as preference for relative solitude or an aversion of large amounts of socialization. Of course, personality can be ‘molded’ to a certain extent by environmental factors and such, but you can’t really expect people to ‘change their minds’ about being introverted just by exposing them to more social contexts. Likewise, you wouldn’t expect someone who hates broccoli to change their mind about it because you keep shoving it in his face; the most that he could accomplish is develop a tolerance for it.
But society doesn’t seem to care too much about individuals spending time on their own; it would rather encourage and foster people to become more social and more outgoing. Look at the classroom setting, for example. Students are encouraged to raise their hands in class, to speak up or ask questions or participate. And that’s all well and good, but who actually has the advantage here? Is it the student who can barely find his voice, frozen in place, or the one who would gladly announce his presence to the whole class and make a good impression on the teacher?
Building a social network is another issue faced by many introverts. Whether it be making new friends or making those key connections for career purposes, a lot of introverts definitely have a harder time accomplishing those than others. How many students have been encouraged to join a club or some sort of group (on campus)? And how many actively seek out and join those groups? For some, joining those groups is probably a fun and exciting way to make new friends and connections, but for many others, it is a terrifying experience to enter a new and unfamiliar world. In a professional setting, a vast majority of jobs require some sort of human interaction on a daily basis. For those who have a job, chances are it requires you to talk to people at some point during the day, if not most of the day; which zaps more energy from introverts than they can optimally handle.
We undoubtedly live in a very social world. And with our rapidly growing population and technologies, it’s only going to get more interactive. Introverts are going to find it harder and harder to stay within their comfort zone in this brave new world. Basically, our society is giving us two choices: conform to our extroverted standards of living, or fail in life. Now I’m sure most of us introverts will get by no problem, we’ll be able to manage. But the extroverts will be the ones who excel, because that’s what society encourages. I want to make clear that I am in no way saying that what we have is a bad system. My only goal here is to hopefully raise awareness among the public that introverts are up against it. That's just the way it is and it's no one's fault.
Humans are pretty social beings. Out of all the animal species, we are the only ones that are capable of complex language. This has allowed us to efficiently communicate thoughts, feelings, concepts, basically anything, to each other in a relatively short time; pretty amazing when you think about it. As a result, our society has evolved into one which values those who are outgoing and social more so than those who possess a more reserved nature: introverts. As one of those introverts, I feel that I should speak up for those of us who feel stuck in an increasingly social world.
Of course, no one is ever completely introverted or extroverted, but for those leaning more on the former end of the spectrum, communication can be rather difficult. Though this does not apply to all introverts, there are a lot of us out there who feel socially uncomfortable, or anxious, more often than we’d like to be. Unlike extroverted individuals, introverts don’t become energized when they engage in conversation, in fact, quite the opposite happens. The more we socialize, the more drained we become, and after a while we have to be left alone to recharge our batteries before we can get back out there and face other people. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that introverts don’t enjoy company; we just prefer them in smaller doses, and in smaller groups.
A lot of people mistakenly think that introversion is a choice, when really it’s more of a personality trait that you’re born with. People are born with certain preferences for some things and aversions to others. Introversion can either be seen as preference for relative solitude or an aversion of large amounts of socialization. Of course, personality can be ‘molded’ to a certain extent by environmental factors and such, but you can’t really expect people to ‘change their minds’ about being introverted just by exposing them to more social contexts. Likewise, you wouldn’t expect someone who hates broccoli to change their mind about it because you keep shoving it in his face; the most that he could accomplish is develop a tolerance for it.
But society doesn’t seem to care too much about individuals spending time on their own; it would rather encourage and foster people to become more social and more outgoing. Look at the classroom setting, for example. Students are encouraged to raise their hands in class, to speak up or ask questions or participate. And that’s all well and good, but who actually has the advantage here? Is it the student who can barely find his voice, frozen in place, or the one who would gladly announce his presence to the whole class and make a good impression on the teacher?
Building a social network is another issue faced by many introverts. Whether it be making new friends or making those key connections for career purposes, a lot of introverts definitely have a harder time accomplishing those than others. How many students have been encouraged to join a club or some sort of group (on campus)? And how many actively seek out and join those groups? For some, joining those groups is probably a fun and exciting way to make new friends and connections, but for many others, it is a terrifying experience to enter a new and unfamiliar world. In a professional setting, a vast majority of jobs require some sort of human interaction on a daily basis. For those who have a job, chances are it requires you to talk to people at some point during the day, if not most of the day; which zaps more energy from introverts than they can optimally handle.
We undoubtedly live in a very social world. And with our rapidly growing population and technologies, it’s only going to get more interactive. Introverts are going to find it harder and harder to stay within their comfort zone in this brave new world. Basically, our society is giving us two choices: conform to our extroverted standards of living, or fail in life. Now I’m sure most of us introverts will get by no problem, we’ll be able to manage. But the extroverts will be the ones who excel, because that’s what society encourages. I want to make clear that I am in no way saying that what we have is a bad system. My only goal here is to hopefully raise awareness among the public that introverts are up against it. That's just the way it is and it's no one's fault.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Hierachy of Communication
This is sort of a follow up to my last post, in that it is also about human interaction from an introvert's perspective. However, instead of focusing solely on face to face interactions, I will now be addressing some other forms of communication and comparing them with each other. I will go through them in the order of what I perceive to be the most difficult to the easiest level. I call it the hierachy of communication.What I mean by difficulty here is not the speed or efficiency of the particular form of communication, but how easy it is for someone like me to engage in it without experiencing social anxiety. Obviously face to face communication is what I find to be the most challenging, but since I've covered that already let's move on to the second level of communication: conversing on the phone.
There are two reasons why I find talking on the phone to be easier than talking in person. The big one is that when you're on the phone, the only source of stimuli you need to pay attention to is the voice of the other person. No deciphering facial cues, no body language, and no need to maintain awkward periods of eye contact. Of course, even with just a voice, you still have to pay attention to the person's inflections and converse with them at the same speed as you would in person, but it's definitely an improvement from a face to face encounter. The second and perhaps not so pleasant reason is the fact that you can end the conversation anytime you want. I'm sure we've all had our share of telemarketer calls, and doesn't it feel great to just slam that phone (or pressing that end call button) on them and be done with it? If you were approached by those same people in person, it can be a little harder to shake them off of you. If it was a more important call, say from a friend or family member, and you just have to end the call for some reason (e.g. you need to get back to work or you just don't feel like talking) but you don't want to hurt their feelings and all that, you can pretty much make up any number of excuses to get yourself out of there and they wouldn't be able to call you on it (no pun intended).
The third level is messaging. This type of communication is rather broad and includes phone and Facebook messaging, Skype, WhatsApp etc., but you get the idea. This is basically my favorite form of communication, and where I feel most comfortable communicating. The main reason for my preference is the time factor. When people message each other, they generally understand the case to be that the other person will reply in a relatively short amount of time. But as we all know, this 'relatively' is really quite broad in that it is up to the other person's discretion to decide when he or she will reply. Because there's no real demand for an immediate response like in the first two levels, some people will reply in seconds, while others will take half a day or even longer to respond; it all depends on the person and the context. And also due to this lack of pressure to reply right away, we are given the opportunity to choose our words more carefully before replying; naturally, this is something which I take full advantage of. Because of this, a lot of people feel like I am more talkative online than in person. And this might actually be true, but it is only because when I don't talk in person, I am given the time to absorb what the other person has said, collect my own thoughts, and find the proper words to express them without having to feel the pressure of those long, awkward pauses in between.
The fourth and last level of communication I want to address is in the form of emails/letters. I'm sure that there are still people out there who write, I mean literally write, letters, and I applaud them for it; but I'm not one of those people, so I'm pretty much focusing on emails here. Emails are just fine for me, and the only issue I have with this form of communicating is that a lot of times it takes even longer to receive a response than from the slowest messaging people...it's just not that efficient. On the plus side, you can put in a much larger amount of text and information than you can in mere messages (technically you can do so with messages as well, but nobody really likes reading a paragraph's worth of messages or more). Emails are also great as a more formal means of communication. I really don't have much else to say about them...sorry about that.
Thanks to a comment I've received on this post, I realize that it sounds like I'm solely advocating for indirect communication, but of course that's not the case. I'm merely voicing my opinion about my own preferences for communicating. The thing is, there is a trade-off with these other forms of communication. One one hand, they take away the unwanted pressure of face to face talk, but on the other, they also rob us of the rich and complex interactions that come with that. So the trick is to find a healthy balance between them.
There are two reasons why I find talking on the phone to be easier than talking in person. The big one is that when you're on the phone, the only source of stimuli you need to pay attention to is the voice of the other person. No deciphering facial cues, no body language, and no need to maintain awkward periods of eye contact. Of course, even with just a voice, you still have to pay attention to the person's inflections and converse with them at the same speed as you would in person, but it's definitely an improvement from a face to face encounter. The second and perhaps not so pleasant reason is the fact that you can end the conversation anytime you want. I'm sure we've all had our share of telemarketer calls, and doesn't it feel great to just slam that phone (or pressing that end call button) on them and be done with it? If you were approached by those same people in person, it can be a little harder to shake them off of you. If it was a more important call, say from a friend or family member, and you just have to end the call for some reason (e.g. you need to get back to work or you just don't feel like talking) but you don't want to hurt their feelings and all that, you can pretty much make up any number of excuses to get yourself out of there and they wouldn't be able to call you on it (no pun intended).
The third level is messaging. This type of communication is rather broad and includes phone and Facebook messaging, Skype, WhatsApp etc., but you get the idea. This is basically my favorite form of communication, and where I feel most comfortable communicating. The main reason for my preference is the time factor. When people message each other, they generally understand the case to be that the other person will reply in a relatively short amount of time. But as we all know, this 'relatively' is really quite broad in that it is up to the other person's discretion to decide when he or she will reply. Because there's no real demand for an immediate response like in the first two levels, some people will reply in seconds, while others will take half a day or even longer to respond; it all depends on the person and the context. And also due to this lack of pressure to reply right away, we are given the opportunity to choose our words more carefully before replying; naturally, this is something which I take full advantage of. Because of this, a lot of people feel like I am more talkative online than in person. And this might actually be true, but it is only because when I don't talk in person, I am given the time to absorb what the other person has said, collect my own thoughts, and find the proper words to express them without having to feel the pressure of those long, awkward pauses in between.
The fourth and last level of communication I want to address is in the form of emails/letters. I'm sure that there are still people out there who write, I mean literally write, letters, and I applaud them for it; but I'm not one of those people, so I'm pretty much focusing on emails here. Emails are just fine for me, and the only issue I have with this form of communicating is that a lot of times it takes even longer to receive a response than from the slowest messaging people...it's just not that efficient. On the plus side, you can put in a much larger amount of text and information than you can in mere messages (technically you can do so with messages as well, but nobody really likes reading a paragraph's worth of messages or more). Emails are also great as a more formal means of communication. I really don't have much else to say about them...sorry about that.
Thanks to a comment I've received on this post, I realize that it sounds like I'm solely advocating for indirect communication, but of course that's not the case. I'm merely voicing my opinion about my own preferences for communicating. The thing is, there is a trade-off with these other forms of communication. One one hand, they take away the unwanted pressure of face to face talk, but on the other, they also rob us of the rich and complex interactions that come with that. So the trick is to find a healthy balance between them.
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