Personal Development

Dedicated to Ben C., who, like me, could use some time honing his social skills.  

Monday and Tuesday were two full days of professional development presentations. I can't say I had an extremely good attitude about it. My fear was that after the two days I would not only feel overloaded with new strategies and expectations, but also feel so criticized and defensive that I wouldn't let myself get anything positive out of the time spent.

Some of my fears came true, but the first presenter was able to disarm some of my uptightness.  He successfully posed some thought-provoking questions and stories that addressed some of those perennial teacher hang-ups about professional development (this guy was gooooood).

Between jotting notes about summarization strategies, I pondered what exactly it is that is so threatening about those professional development days. What aspect of all of those helpful suggestions feels the most criticizing and gets at my deepest insecurities about teaching?

I think at the bottom of it, for me, may be the inherent personality conflict. One of the hardest things about starting the school year has been the extreme personality and demeanor change that I have to go through in order to stand in front of a classroom, not to mention successfully direct the behavior and emotions of 30 students.

According to most presenters, trainers, and teaching self-help materials, as well as my own short experience, the best teacher is someone who is outgoing, enthusiastic, extremely friendly, and willing to humble themselves to be silly and entertaining.

A very few lucky teachers actually do have that personality; many teachers are capable of pulling that off, but would feel fake and frustrated the whole time. That's me. I can do it, but I've had to admit a hard truth: at this point, I have to be highly caffeinated to do it well. Sigh...

On the other hand... hrrrmmmmmmmmm... maybe I am just in the middle of a process of learning some more advanced and challenging social skills. Maybe outgoing people just do have more beneficial, healthier, and effective social skills.

 Maybe being a teacher is forcing a few of us to practice and learn skills that everyone really should learn--how to be engaging, welcoming, enthusiastic, and positive.

I had another reason to reflect on that thought after spending last weekend in a setting where highly academic language was the norm, and my conversations were at times uncomfortable, competitive, and frustrating as I tried to relate to people whose main "personality" traits were aloofness and condescension.

Although part of me was jealous of their freedom to act however they want, to not be obligated to project a certain personality type, part of me felt embarrassment and pity for them. It's sad to see someone handicapping themselves by ingraining negative social skills as if that's the only way they are able to act.  I don't always WANT to adapt myself to different personality traits when the need arises, but at least teaching is showing me that I CAN.

I found myself making a mental checklist of the social skills that I'm personally working on.  I decided to share it based on my new-found opinion that everyone should perhaps at some point be expected to practice these in order to be functioning members of society... not just Academia:

I will find something I can affirm in the person I'm interacting with. Really, it won't kill me.

I will act like I'm excited to see people. I will remember them, call them by name. I will try to find out something about them before I accidentally offend them by opening my own mouth too soon or too much.

I will remember that it takes more talent and is more admirable to make myself understandable to anyone than to add complicated vocabulary to my speech.

People listen better when I am entertaining and funny. By definition, people who act disinterested, bored, and aloof are neither entertaining, nor funny. So even if I have trouble with entertaining and funny, at the very least I will try not to be disinterested, bored, and aloof.

Last but not least (my students remind me of this one every minute of my day): No matter how smart I am, I probably won't make any friends by trying to prove my intelligence and accomplishments. And I probably can't convince them anyway. Instead, people will appreciate me much more (maybe even respect me one day...?) if I figure out a way to help them realize their own intelligence.

So there.  And now I leave my soapbox, and go back to enjoying this beautiful fall evening. To soften up my message a bit, I decided to add a kitten to my blog post:

Have a nice day.