Shhh…

One of the more interesting conversation topics among home schoolers isn’t socialization (though it is a favorite of non-home schoolers) but introverts vs. extroverts, especially since it seems that many introverted parents are teaching extroverted kids, as I am. The subject comes up fairly often in the Charlotte Mason and Well-Trained Mind yahoo groups I frequent, so it’s a situation a number of parents find themselves dealing with. I imagine an extrovert with three introverted kids would also have her challenges…

I’ve known since I was very young that I’m an introvert. In elementary school, I generally preferred books to people. In high school, I had much more fun getting ready for parties than at the parties themselves (I couldn’t wait to get home). The challenge for me hasn’t been figuring out what I am, or what the kids are. It’s been trying to meet my kids’ needs as extroverts without making myself crazy, and, considerably more difficult, to fit, as an intovert, into a mostly extroverted world. Figuring out this latter part is the focus of Susan Cain’s new book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking (just published by Crown, January 24, 2012). Our library system has about a dozen copies on order, and I’ve reserved one through interlibrary loan when they arrive.

If you haven’t yet figured out whether you’re an extrovert or introvert, Ms. Cain has a quick quiz on her website.  Some of the quiz statements (answer yes or no):

I prefer one-on-one conversations to group activities

I often prefer to express myself in writing

I enjoy solitude

I seem to care less than my peers about wealth, fame and status

I’m not a big risk taker

I enjoy work that allows me to dive in with few interruptions

I like to celebrate birthdays on a small scale with only one or two close friends or family members

I do my best work alone

I tend to think before I speak

I feel drained after being out and about, even if I’ve enjoyed myself

If I had to choose, I’d prefer a weekend with absolutely nothing to do to one with too many things scheduled

I don’t enjoy multitasking

If you can answer Yes to most of these, according to Cain, “you are likely to be an introvert”. I do and am.

This is one reason why the last two years, which have been remarkable for their lack of quiet, have been so difficult for me. The more I’ve explained that I needed to get back to my own usual uninterrupted home- and farm-centered life, the more resistance, and outright dismissiveness, I’ve met. It reminded me of growing up as an introvert in an extroverted family, with parents who laughingly told others, “She’s shy” (though, as Cain notes, there is a difference between shyness and introversion). It’s one of the reasons why I was determined when the kids were young that I would rather help and prepare them than tease them, however good naturedly, and why we started with reciting poetry at the local music festival. Interestingly, last year, as part of her “Quiet Revolution”, Cain championed public speaking and Toastmasters to help some introverts overcome their fears. For kids, I can’t say enough about the benefits of music festivals, and also the 4H public speaking program.

From a Scientific American interview with Susan Cain by Gareth Cook [emphasis mine]:

Cook: How does this cultural inclination [toward extroverts] affect introverts?

Cain: Many introverts feel there’s something wrong with them, and try to pass as extroverts. But whenever you try to pass as something you’re not, you lose a part of yourself along the way. You especially lose a sense of how to spend your time. Introverts are constantly going to parties and such when they’d really prefer to be home reading, studying, inventing, meditating, designing, thinking, cooking… or any number of other quiet and worthwhile activities.

According to the latest research, one third to one half of us are introverts – that’s one out of every two or three people you know. But you’d never guess that, right? That’s because introverts learn from an early age to act like pretend-extroverts.

I was able to stop pretending once I began living on my on, in college and was able to act on my preferences. Which have included, as Cain notes, staying home to read, study, meditate, design, think, cook, “or any number of other quiet and worthwhile activities.” Not to mention gardening and tending chickens and cattle.

“Worthwhile”  to me is the most important word in that sentence, because the majority extroverts are very quick to assume that activities and preferences not worthwhile to them aren’t worthwhile at all, to anyone. This requires the introvert to do some fighting, or at least to stand her ground. Or, if you’re an extrovert parent of an introverted child, to accept your child’s differences and to teach your child to stand up for those differences.

More from the SciAm interview [emphasis mine],

Cook: Is this just a problem for introverts, or do you feel it hurts the country as a whole?

Cain: It’s never a good idea to organize society in a way that depletes the energy of half the population. We discovered this with women decades ago, and now it’s time to realize it with introverts.

This also leads to a lot of wrongheaded notions that affect introverts and extroverts alike. Here’s just one example: Most schools and workplaces now organize workers and students into groups, believing that creativity and productivity comes from a gregarious place. This is nonsense, of course. From Darwin to Picasso to Dr. Seuss, our greatest thinkers have often worked in solitude, and in my book I examine lots of research on the pitfalls of groupwork.

And from Cain’s Toronto Globe & Mail interview:

At work you mention extroverts are showy and efficient; they’re often driven by status. Introverts, meanwhile, are slow and deliberate. Is that methodical process mistaken for lack of ambition or, worse, laziness?

Absolutely. The way you display your work or your ambition can often be misperceived. I interviewed [three-time Olympic gold medalist] Marnie McBean recently, this very dynamic, firecracker extrovert. She said that when she was first paired with Kathleen Heddle, a quietly steely, determined introvert, she was very upset and actually asked her coach to give her a different partner. She thought Kathleen was not up to snuff. Her coach said, ‘You do realize that Kathleen is the best rower on the team, and she’s even better than you, Marnie.’ She hadn’t realized that because she was so attuned to outside displays of ambition, competitiveness and fieriness, and Kathleen wasn’t displaying any of those. I’d advise [introverts] that they might take some of their hard work and think about ways of drawing attention to themselves, ways that are comfortable for them.

One of the items in Ms. Cain’s Quiet Manifesto, “16 Things I Believe”, is the following, which has a direct application to home schooling:

We teach kids in group classrooms not because this is the best way to learn but because it’s cost-efficient, and what else would we do with the children while all the grown-ups are at work? If your child prefers to work autonomously and socialize one-on-one, there’s nothing wrong with her; she just happens not to fit the model.

And finally, also from the Manifesto,

If the task of the first half of life is to put yourself out there, the task of the second half is to make sense of where you’ve been.

Yes. I’d just add, and to continue going where you want to go. Here’s to reclaiming quiet for those of us who need it, and to a growing appreciation for the intrinsic worth of quiet.

*  *  *  *

Since home schoolers as a group seem to be quite keen about Ted Talks, I thought I should mention that Susan Cain will be a speaker at Ted2012 in late February

An article from a 2009 issue of Secular Homeschooling magazine, “Guided by their Needs: Homeschooling Works for Introverts and Extroverts!”

An article from a 1998 issue of Home Education Magazine, “The Valedictorian Who Failed Socialization”

“To oblige him”

According to The Boston Globe,

The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum said it will display, as part of a weeklong celebration of Presidents’ Day, a 1930 biography of Abraham Lincoln that was apparently borrowed by Kennedy, or a member of his staff, when he was serving in the Senate in the 1950s.

The Library of Congress book, “A. Lincoln” by Ross F. Lockridge, was found in Kennedy’s pre-presidential papers. It has been listed as missing in the Library of Congress online catalog, and will be returned to its collection after the display.

And from that book, through the magic that is the Internet:

“One day a man who was migrating to the West drove up in front of my store with a wagon which contained his family and household plunder. He asked me if I would buy an old barrel for which he had no room in his wagon, and which he said contained nothing of special value. I did not want it, but to oblige him I bought and paid him. I think, half a dollar for it. Without further examination I put it away in the store, and forgot all about it. Some time after, in overhauling things, I came upon the barrel, and emptying it upon the floor to see what it contained, I found at the bottom of the rubbish a complete edition of Blackstone’s Commentaries. I began to read those famous works, and I had plenty of time; for during the long summer days, when the farmers were busy with their crops, my customers were few and far between.

“The more I read the more intensely interested I became. Never in my whole life was my mind so thoroughly absorbed. I read until I devoured them.”

From A. Lincoln by Ross F. Lockridge, World Book Company, New York, 1930, p. 110

Why I hate book clubs

and just about anything else by committee:

“Fighting over books”