Quiet

I just recently realized that Susan Cain (who did the Ted talk called Power of Introverts, which I wrote about a bit ago) had a book out earlier this year titled Quiet. I am guessing it is like a longer version of her talk? Maybe? If that is true, I definitely want to read it.

Yesterday in Swedish class we were having fake conversations about making plans to do things among the class. And at least twice, our teacher said, "okay make just one more plan and then we'll stop" or something of the sort. I have a pretty good feeling that he was trying to get me and one other girl in the class to try to say a bit more. But the thing is, I just don't like to be the one talking 'in front of' a group of people. Even if it was in a language I actually knew. I guess it is unfortunate since the whole point of a language course is to acquire the skills to talk, but still.

And that got me thinking to grades in classes. As far as I remember it (correct me if I'm wrong, Mom), I think I only rarely got A's in elementary school, and only sometimes got A's in middle school, always because my participation grade was horrid. By the time I got to high school, I was motivated enough to force myself to 'participate' more, or at least to argue with my teachers that active listening is participating. Then college was glorious, because there is just no participation grade! How nice!

Maybe I'm thinking about this a bit too much, but that kind of makes me feel like your grade is partially based on how extroverted you are. And only if you can force yourself to act extroverted, even if you are quite introverted, will you get the best grades? That just doesn't seem healthy. Is this too big of a jump in the logic?