(This is a classic story of mine & this seems like a good time for it.) I was well into adulthood before I realized that there are actually people who think before talking. I myself think by talking, a lot of the time, and I really didn't get that other people could be another way. People that think before talking -- I cringe to report this, but I just thought they were slow. The first time I realized that I was toward one end of a spectrum that in fact had another end was with Peter Shaffer. He was helping me prepare my general exam and it was the first time we had worked together closely on something (I usually worked with Stamatis, but the cultural norm was against my advisor helping me with my exam). Peter had incredibly useful things to say, but if I talked in my usual way I didn't get to hear them. He needed to (1) listen to me talk, (2) think about what I said, (3) form his own thoughts, and (4) THEN talk. If I didn't carefully shut my mouth and leave it shut for some time at the end of saying something, I would never get to hear what he thought.
Today in class I noticed that some people, including Lezlie and Mary Sue, wanted time to think on their own before collaborating with other people. They asked for it, they got it, and they said they really appreciated it. My Peter appreciation, and I guess a general guilty feeling that our society privileges extroverts, makes me think that perhaps people who want that initial time to themselves should get it. Speaking for myself, though, if I get asked a juicy question and then told that the first thing we'll do is not talk, I go nuts. For me, the best thinking happens primarily in co-constructing ideas with others (or at least so I think). If the first thing I am asked to do keeps me from interacting with people, it breaks my stride. I lose my intellectual momentum. My first thought droops and it's hard to get it back. If I were to be in the class and ask for things to be done my way, I would want to always have multiple people talking immediately in response to all questions.
Can these styles coexist harmoniously in one classroom? what are some structures that would support both ways of engaging with the material?
postscript: One time I was sitting next to an elderly gentleman at a roundtable and while I was talking, he reached over and pushed my hands down into my lap. I was totally shocked. When I asked him what was going on, he said my gesturing was inappropriately wild (especially for a lady, he later explained). I was so hurt, I could hardly believe it was happening. That was much more extreme than being asked to be quiet so that other people can think,* but something in it feels related.
ReplyDelete* oddly, in some sense I do this all day, because I am behind the camera. But then I get to listen. If people stop talking I have no use for the experience.
My grandfather did that to me not two weeks ago (pushed my hands into my lap and admonished me for gesturing wildly)! I felt like I had been slapped.
ReplyDeleteAnd wouldn't it be nice if the prompt-people were the think-before-talking people? Then we could start class on time, and by the time the talk-while-thinking people showed up, the think-then-talkers would be ready to go.
I'm a think-then-talk type. My admission: I always thought the talk-while-thinkers just didn't know how to control themselves. I also have to admit I find it hard to understand the think-by-talking type -- you can't just sit and think? If you're alone can you not think new thoughts? Aren't there early ideas that you first need to decide whether or not they make sense to you before publicly vetting them? Is it for the fun of debate and argument that you want to jump in right away, or are you really unable to keep up mental momentum without it? How did you do on tests? I'm very curious. This feels like a Nasal Learner. You might prefer a certain kind of interaction, but not actually benefit intellectually from it. (But that might be my bias, since I am the think-first type!)
All that said, this seems different than a think-then-DO question: I was shocked when someone cut off planning energy theater and stood everyone up to engage in energy theater, without having created a plan first. It seems even a talk-while-thinker would prefer to plan first (or even write first) before directing bodies around the room.
Having just recently talked to Rachel a lot about this topic, I am also outing myself as an "external thinker." I recently crafted a lengthy piece of text about what I mean by that. It's really long, so I don't want to share it here. Just ask me if you're interested. Essentially, it's the same issue, I have to talk to people in order to think. It's not that there is a vacuum in my head if I'm not talking to people. More like, I get some idea, but then I'm stuck with this idea. In order to bend this idea and view it from different angles to fit it into a bigger scheme, I have to talk or write about this idea. And talking is better than writing, but sometimes, writing is the only way to communicate with others...
ReplyDeleteTo answer Rachel's questions: yes, I definitely think that both thinking preferences can harmoniously co-exist in a classroom. After all, we were successfully educated in typical classroom environments, weren't we? Are there ways and methods to support both "thinking methods?" I don't know, I would have to talk about that, I guess...
Oh, and Leslie, yes, the nasal learners were also spooking around in my head, when I was writing my little article about external thinking... Rachel and I had started a little discussion about learning styles and Rachel posed the question whether or not thinking and learning can be separated. My gut feeling tells me, yes it can. Somehow. Again, I would have to talk about that ;-)
leslie said:
ReplyDelete"If you're alone can you not think new thoughts?"
Sitting and thinking alone, it feels like my thoughts just come and go, with no reinforcement or tethering to the world. The most natural-feeling thing to me is to have the real live dialogue (or multi-logue) first, and then afterwards, write (my best version of "private thinking") in order to synthesize what I experienced. Sfard's characterization of thinking as an internalization of dialogue makes HUGE sense to me. The dialogue is the primary thing, the thinking is a later, abstracted specialized form of that.
leslie: "Aren't there early ideas that you first need to decide whether or not they make sense to you before publicly vetting them?"
Only if I'm feeling anxious and don't trust the people I'm about to be talking to. (And if that's the case, the way I want to decide whether my ideas make sense is to go talk to someone I DO trust.) Most of the time, I don't feel like I have anything I need to be secretive about or test for worthiness first - we can just all do that together.
You said you perceived talk-firsters as possibly lacking self-control... but why is self-control desirable? Is there an inner wildness that is threatening to be destructively released, if we don't control it?
"Is it for the fun of debate and argument that you want to jump in right away, or are you really unable to keep up mental momentum without it?"
I really do suffer from having to wait. I think maybe I just can't retain a thought without embedding it in something, either a conversation or writing it down. So if forced to wait, I will try to write. But it feels like playing one little pathetic note on a flute instead of participating in making music.
leslie: "This feels like a Nasal Learner. You might prefer a certain kind of interaction, but not actually benefit intellectually from it."
Ouch! So might you!
leslie said: "All that said, this seems different than a think-then-DO question: I was shocked when someone cut off planning energy theater and stood everyone up to engage in energy theater, without having created a plan first. It seems even a talk-while-thinker would prefer to plan first (or even write first) before directing bodies around the room."
ReplyDeleteNot me! I want to DO it, and get all the information that I get when people use the super-multimodal format of something like energy theater, and use that for the basis of more collaboration. See my earlier post on this.
We use the phrase "sit and think" all the time, as if the two were mutually supportive, maybe even inextricable. I think this is all wrong. I keep even being tempted to characterize this debate as "think first vs. talk first," but this is even worse, because it excludes talking as a form of thinking!
benedikt said: "yes, I definitely think that both thinking preferences can harmoniously co-exist in a classroom. After all, we were successfully educated in typical classroom environments, weren't we?"
ReplyDeleteThat is SO not evidence of harmonious co-existence. Okay, nobody died, and sometimes we each learned things. But probably the way things were arranged favored some people, probably inadvertently. We might be able to be more intentional about how that plays out.
*g* I was merely expressing a gut feeling, my statement was at most anecdotal "evidence," to be understood with a winking eye. I would say that the "now take a minute to think about it" is definitely a common thing in "traditional instruction" (whatever that means...). But things like "talk to your neighbors about this" might actually foster external thinking, and this is something that even I experienced a lot throughout my entire educational career. Of course, it always depends on my neighbor. If I'm sitting next to a good friend, I can really just put out raw thoughts to "try on an argument," for example. However, if I'm sitting in a large lecture course, next to a total stranger, I might be inclined to be cautious, which does not really support/afford me opening up my brain. I might after all try to not look stupid (something that Matt talked about a lot in a little video sequence that I was just watching). Does this make any sense?
ReplyDeleteMy experience so far is that this is a hot button issue, if you actually engage it. Neither (self-identified) "type" of person can really believe in their heart that the other person really is the way they say. Each fears that the other (misguided) person will deny them the opportunity to engage in the way that makes sense to them. And it has the potential to be a really critical matter, something that you feel like you could not possibly give up - that to ask you to give it up would be impossible to bear, a loss of self. Most of the time, we aren't pressed on this and we get by. (Thankfully?)
ReplyDeleteLeslie, you and I were talking about it over lunch - would it be fair to say that we both see it as a *moral* issue, an issue of whether someone is being oppressed?
"You said you perceived talk-firsters as possibly lacking self-control... but why is self-control desirable? Is there an inner wildness that is threatening to be destructively released, if we don't control it?"
ReplyDeleteSure - being in a group requires self control. It would be nice to get up and stretch and have everyone pause their conversation when I need a break, but it's not a reasonable thing to ask of others, and it would be destructive to the group harmony. (I'm not saying that a talk-firster is equivalent to a social-order-destroyer, I'm just saying that, in the past, this is how it seemed to me. And I completely can see the reverse as being obviously true - the silent student seems to be violating some social rules and not playing along.)
It reminds me of rudeness. Actions are rarely rude in and of themselves, but rather violate some cultural norm. But also seem - to the violatee - as clearly "rude."
"Leslie, you and I were talking about it over lunch - would it be fair to say that we both see it as a *moral* issue, an issue of whether someone is being oppressed?"
ReplyDeletePerhaps, but I'm not comfortable with that for some reason. Is frustration the same as oppression? In any group are people always going to be "oppressed" because they have to wear clothes, wait in line, not scream "fire" when they feel like it? I think it's more frustrating than oppressive.
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ReplyDeleteleslie: "This feels like a Nasal Learner. You might prefer a certain kind of interaction, but not actually benefit intellectually from it."
ReplyDeleteRachel: "Ouch! So might you!"
That's what I meant!- or that's what I was thinking, if not what I wrote - that I actually might prefer the think-then-talk for social, rather than cognitive, reasons. The way some people enjoy debate.
I like what you said about rudeness, and I think it's related to what I was thinking about morality. the all-knowing wikipedia says:
ReplyDelete"Both manners and morality deal with whether a thing is morally good or bad, but at different levels. Unlike morality, which, for example, condemns murder as a violation of the human person, manners primarily concerns itself with violations of human dignity, rather than the person's health or property. Rude behavior is a violation of human dignity or of the respect due to others."
I think that people are liable to feel violated by being forced to talk before they want to, or kept from talking when they want to, more than they are liable to feel violated by having to wear clothes or stand in line. But it would totally all depend on the situation.
I think school creates all sorts of weird rules that normally would make one feel violated. (The way a dentist is allowed to watch you drool all over yourself without turning his gaze.) Something about the framing means that what should be a pretty strange thing to ask of someone ("stand in this group and walk around pretending to be energy") is not too out-of-bounds.
ReplyDeleteI think Lezlie - as an instructor of instructors - is in a different place and can say "this isn't working for me." Others who, like Lezlie, might prefer a different approach, are not in that critical mindset, or perhaps aren't expecting to find the activity worthwhile (?).
A couple thoughts...
ReplyDeleteI bet in Germany the schools are really great and they manage to make room for all kinds of learners. They probably even have odor recorders and players with odor simulators for the nasal learners like in Brave New World. But not here in the backwards ole US of A!
In classes with Peer Instruction or even Tutorials we frequently tell students to talk to their neighbors, and I think we have pretty good evidence that it helps. But lots of students (most?) don't like it. Does that mean that a lot of people think they don't learn by talking but really do? Or is it just a quirk of the way that we implement these curricula (e.g. asking people to talk to strangers they don't trust) that makes people dislike them even when they clearly lead to improved learning?
And that's why American school kids are sent to a museum to learn all that stuff. Have you ever been to the Boston Science Museum? They have all kinds of stuff for nasal, touchy, and all sorts of other learners...
ReplyDeleteI was raising this question earlier, today: is the "thinking-style" question maybe similar to the "learning-style" issue? Do people maybe not "have" different "thinking-styles," but rather some content/ideas/whatever afford different thinking-styles? Sometimes, you can think about something on your own, but other things, you might have to talk to a person about? For example, if I'm thinking of creating a new layered cake, I can do that on my own, without having to discuss that with someone. But thinking about cognitive theories requires me talking to other people about it. Could it have to do with the level of proficiency in a specific field? I freely admit that I'm still a newbie to cognitive theories, thinking and learning theories (despite having read a lot of stuff about it...). So, maybe I only need someone to talk to if I don't have enough "knowledge" to be able to process something creatively on my own?
I also identify myself as a talk-to-think person. My gut reaction is that I need to talk more, not less, about the things where I'm supposedly an "expert" than about the things where I'm a novice. My hypothesis is that it's because my thinking is so much more complex about the things where I'm an expert, so it's harder to keep it all in my little head and I need to externalize it.
ReplyDeleteI'm a think-before-talking sort of fella. My fiancee is a talk-to-think woman. We clash a lot. But with her, I've also been slowly learning how to jump in the conversation right away even without having fully formed thoughts. I can't do it all the time. It depends on how I feel that day and if I have strong opinions or ideas that flood into my mind.
ReplyDeleteI see both types of students in my classes. Some students love group work. Some hate it. I have a good guess who is who. Can these styles coexist harmoniously in the classroom? They probably cannot "coexist." BUT, both styles can be honored and utilized. For instance, in my class I'll set groups to work solving problems together or working on labs together. That favors talk-to-think folks. Then I'll assign homework problems that groups discuss together at the beginning of the next class and I'll use concept (clicker) questions where individuals respond first with private thought and then get together in groups to discuss. These favor think-before-talking folks.
I feel that the best we can do is try to balance our activities so that both types of people have their chances to shine. Recognizing these differences, talking about them with other faculty and with the students themselves, and doing our best to honor all types of learners is key.