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One of the reasons why my parents recommended me to study aboard was different education system between Korea and the United States. Attending to middle school and high school in the United States, I have learned that most of the classes are based on discussion. Since I spent most time listening to the discussions rather than leading it, I always got lower score in class participation than what I have expected. As I met different instructors for different classes to question my participation grade, they always showed me the participation rubric. Most of rubrics included becoming a “leader” of the discussion and examined the frequency of their announcement. With doubtful eyes, I questioned, “Students have different learning styles and how can instructors establish only the leader of discussion to be good participant?” Instructors did not try to understand my listening nature but advised me to change my behavior.
In the classroom setting, introverted people might not act how typical good participant would act. From my experience, most of the instructors demonstrate good participant to be leader of speakers. If extroverts are talented speakers, introverts are more of observers and listeners. People who are tilted to the introverted side of the personality spectrum have distinctive talent than extroverted people. Introverted people often have better listening skills. Introverted people tend to spend more time thinking before they speak. They are powerful observer and spend long time analyzing other people’s behavior and opinion. Differing from extroverts, introverts learn from listening to discussion and analyzing it. Based on the participation rubric, introverts are evaluated as not active contributor. Participation rubric illustrates how society does culturally not understand introverted personality in classroom condition. Although method of participating to the class for the introverts might differ from that of extroverts, both of them have to be respected in a same way. |