This post from last year (which has 17 comments!) opened a big can of worms about people who need to think on their before they can talk (e.g. Leslie), vs. people who need to talk in order to think (e.g. me and Rachel). We have had ongoing conversations about this over the last year, both in writing and in person, and have been surprised by what an emotionally charged and moral issue it is. We find that we are naturally incredibly judgmental about the other type of person (Leslie thought people like us had no self-control and were just barfing our thoughts all over other people, and we thought people like her were just stupid and uncommunicative), because we assume that others function like we do but are just behaving strangely due to some personality defect. Even after a year of discussions, we still find ourselves shocked and mystified by the way the other type of person operates. Leslie sent me this article a few moths ago, which definitely helped me understand this weird alien species a little more, but it still didn't prepare me for what happened in the car this morning.
Leslie is staying with me, and every morning in the car we talk about what she's going to do in class that day. Today she said, "I think I'm going to start by giving them a prompt and asking them to write quietly about it for 20 minutes, to give them some time to collect their thoughts." I replied, "As a think-by-talker, that sounds terrible. I would feel like I couldn't figure out what I thought until I had a chance to talk about it. I would just be frustrated for 20 minutes." Leslie said, "Come on, isn't writing almost as good as talking? Isn't it practically the same thing?" I said it's better than just being told to think quietly, but not anywhere near as good as talking. (Later when I told Rachel about Leslie's original plan, she gasped in horror.) I suggested that instead she give people the option of writing or going out to the hall and talking, so that both types of people would have the opportunity to think, and Leslie said she would do this.
Looking at the field notes from this morning, it doesn't look like my brilliant plan really worked the way I thought it would. Kristy said, "
I wonder if the decision to either keep talking or go into the lobby to talk things over would require a big amount of self-awareness, self-reflection and metacognition on the part of the teachers. Rachel, Sam, Leslie and I (and others) had been talking and thinking about this issue for a year, and we are pretty aware and comfortable with our own preferences, when it comes to thinking and talking, but I wonder if the teachers are aware of their preferences. Is this something that is worth addressing in the course? It might be of value for professional development on proximal formative assessment to be aware of different forms of thinkers / different preferences when it comes to thinking and talking, and have a good, conscious awareness of one's own preferences.
ReplyDeleteAm I barfing out my ideas right now? I think so. I hope I'm not offending anybody by doing it. I got comfortable with the thinking-by-writing thing, but it took me about a year to be able to use a blog as a thinking tool...
I agree with Benedickt this kind of activity requires a great deal of self awareness, but I also think there is something to the other half of Sam's ending statement. Sam wondered she, Rachel and Leslie are just at the extreme ends of the spectrum and most people don't have that strong of a preference. As someone who is also a think-by-talker who has thought a lot about this, I have found that my need to talk things out right away is much stronger when I have a stronger reaction to something. The more I care about a topic or about understanding a topic, the more I feel the need to process it out loud. I don't know what the prompt was or how interested people were, so I can only speculate, but I wonder if the result of this activity would have been different if it was a prompt where they were highly invested in the discussion.
ReplyDeleteI just started reading through the E2 teachers' reflections about the summer and thought of this post when I got to Jim's. So far (of the four I've read), his seems the most thoughtful and reflective of what I saw happening in the course. And Jim is a self-proclaimed think-then-talker.
ReplyDeleteIf 'think-while-talkers versus think-then-talkers' ever became a research theme, I suspect that we might learn something by reading reflections (and perhaps comparing to video)?