It's Okay to Be Quiet
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 ...