It has been another 30 days. We have made it through Easter, and we are well into standardized testing. There are 25 days of school left.
Over the past month, I have continued to go to yoga and other workout classes. I almost met my goals for both good eating and physical activity, and I was feeling pretty good about myself until I had to go shopping for a dress to wear to a wedding. Does everyone feel fat and ugly when they have to go shopping?
But anyway, in more academically minded news, I read a book called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can's Stop Talking by Susan Cain. As Cain says, anywhere to 1/3 to 1/2 of the world's population are introverts, but we in Western cultures promote the "extrovert ideal." If you are not extroverted, you're weird. And Cain does a really good job of bringing her ideas and arguments into the classroom. It makes me think. Are students incapable of doing independent work because we've been encouraged to assign more group work? Do they not stop talking during class because they've been taught that being quiet or shy is abnormal? The book came out before the COVID-19 pandemic, and I wonder how the lockdowns and quarantines have changed how we define ourselves and work with other people in terms of the introvert/extrovert scale.
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| Sometimes it's better to be quiet. |
As we are taught to accept all people regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, or other demographics, perhaps we also need to focus on accepting all people regardless of whether or not they like to make small talk.
Moving into the end of the school year and into next school year, I hope to keep Cain's ideals in mind, as well as what I have learned in my reading about executive functioning and executive functioning skills. Though the end of the school year is really too hectic to try anything new, but I will keep reading for next year!
Always need tips to teach executive functioning.
Also, I wanted to include some pictures from the Dixon Gallery and Gardens. They have free yoga on Thursdays, free tai chi on Saturdays, and the gallery and gardens are free until next year! Memphis has lots of cool, free things to do if you just look!
