Baseball and Not Baseball

NOT BASEBALL

I did finish reading Quiet, but I kept reading it in settings where it was inconvenient to take notes.  This is not intended as a thorough review, but as a note to myself should I look back in a year or two as to why I only wrote chapter reviews through Chapter 6.

As I recall Cain told more about synergies between introverts and extroverts.  She told of ways that members of one group could train themselves to act like the other as needed.  Her emphasis was, of course, on introverts given the nature of the book.

I have put some ideas from this book into practice.  For instance, I am using more activities that resemble think, pair, share to give all student a chance to be reflective before moving into groups.  I am reminding myself to ask students to commit to an answer in writing so that they are more likely to share once they do move into a group  or whole-class discussion.

NOT BASEBALL

Cain’s sixth chapter wandered a bit much for me. She first wrote of the complementary personalities of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt.

She wrote of Elaine Aron, who reframed high reactivity as sensitivity. Aron’s work finds sensitive people are more likely to be philosophical, or spiritual. They describe themselves as creative, or intuitive. They dislike small talk. They notice subtleties.

Cain writes of how highly reactive people may actually be thin skinned. They are more likely to blush. They have higher skin temperatures when exposed to new situations than low reactives.

Cain writes about how high reactive/passive animals and low reactive/aggressive animals might complement each other. They can maximize reproductive chances in different climates. Having watchful animals can help a herd survive. The reactivity seems to be inherited. Guppies that go from pike infested waters to pike free waters slowly become more outgoing. Guppies that enter pike infested waters become more cautious over just a couple generations.

There is even more in the chapter, for instance a few paragraphs about Al Gore and a few about Cain’s husband. At the end Cain makes the point that at a camp for introverts she misses extroversion. The anecdotes from the chapter were supposed to tell of how balance between introverts and extroverts brings strength to a group. I guess in hindsight I see this. I had trouble seeing the theme as the chapter developed, however.

NOT BASEBALL

Gymnastics meets are a good place to read since often your child’s team will not be in a rotation for an hour or more. I read Chapter 5 of Quiet. It talks about how to overcome your natural introversion when needed.

First Cain discusses how, despite outward appearances, brain scans still show signs of highly reactivity or low reactivity in adults. She cites studies that show that introversion and extroversion may just be people seeking their preferred level of stimulation. For instance when given a chance to set headphone volume when working introverts chose a lower level. Moreover when either introverts or extroverts had to work at a noise level the other group preferred performance decreased.

Cain then makes a metaphor with a rubber band. You can stretch your native personality type, but always prefer to return to the original setting. She closes the chapter by discussing a desensitizing approach she used to conquer her fear of public speaking.

NOT BASEBALL

Chapter 4 deals with nature versus nurture. Researchers can tell at ages as young as 4 months which children will be highly reactive and which less reactive. Highly reactive babies respond with stress to new situations. Highly reactive children are more likely to be introverted. It may be that introversion just indicates more sensitivity to environment. Up to 50% of introversion may be based on hereditary factors.

Cain tells of Dobbs’s Orchid hypothesis. Many children are like dandelions and will do well anywhere. Others, including highly reactive children wilt easily, but under the right conditions grow strong and magnificent. This seemed a weak metaphor to me since that kind of variability could apply to any population. Cain backed it up by citing some research and by noting that 1/4 of the highly reactive children suffer from social anxiety disorder. In summary children who are highly reactive do better than average socially in a nurturing environment and worse than average in a stressful environment. This may be related to the length of an allele that helps produce serotonin.