I absolutely hate those “let’s go around the circle and introduce ourselves” exercises. Making children do them seems especially cruel.
Don’t you think it’s good to train children to be able to talk to strangers, in public and introduce themselves? I know it’s stressful but I think it is useful.
That’s just not how people introduce themselves out in the real world though.
work is the real world and i have some news
The problem is the lack of structure.
I organize a lot of workshops involving people from experts to executives, where you always need an introduction round, and I give them a structure to follow. Makes the task it easier, but it’ll also be much more useful for the group, as we’ll focus in the aspects of a person that matter for the context of the workshop.
For a class intro in primary school, it could be:
- name and age
- nickname you’d like others to call you
- favorite subject
- favorite hobby / free time activity
I just made this up, but a teacher could probably come up with something even more fitting.
The point is, always give people structure or guidance, you’ll get much more out of similar introduction rounds.
Sure but in the real world you will sometimes get this and sometimes get no structure. It’s been about 50/50 for me so far. Being able to do either on the fly is good.
What do you think is different compared to when you join some new company, training or club and you are asked to present yourself to the group?
That happens a lot less than you think. And I try to avoid clubs etc that do that nonsense.
I have done this innumerable times at multiple jobs. Maybe it happens a lot more than you think
Maybe I just have a good job.
I’ve had great jobs, introducing yourself at meetings that include people you don’t know is just part of it
Depends on the job but this happens all the time for me because I often have to sit in meetings with customers (b2b company) and so usually we have to introduce ourselves at the start of the meeting.
Not to mention when I conduct technical interviews we have to introduce ourselves although you get more control over the introductions when you are the interviewer.
Maybe you are missing some nice encounters then.
Someone in our new partner team has scheduled a meeting for 11am today for us to introduce ourselves to each other.
Guess how it’s going to be structured
I’m so sorry.
You throw a ball at each other and whoever holds it needs to introduce themselves?
Depends how many of these kids will end up in AA meetings
I guess the teachers will just have to make educated guesses based on which students they presume will end up strung out, and then have only those kids practice the introductions.
(But, for real, I’ve encountered this shit in numerous workplaces)
Yeah, and the people who do it in social situations are usually corporate drones.
It’d just be a lot less horrible if you don’t have to come up with something to say about yourself. Kids are RUTHLESS and if you’re not quick on your feet, or even if you are, but the thing you say can be taken wrong, you will be bullied for the rest of your time in school over it. Unless you luck out and someone else’s thing is even worse.
Introducing yourself to others is like the basis of all socialization. 🤔
Introducing yourself to others is normal. Speaking infront of a group is not. Both can bring out social anxiety but public speaking is different than socializing with a small group.
Speaking a few sentences in front a classroom sized group is pretty normal and kids should be exposed to it. Uncomfortable experiences are a part of growing up.
Both are very important. Not being able to speak in front of a group can change the trajectory of your entire life. Children especially should have as many paths open as possible for when they’re ready to decide which one to take.
Both can bring out social anxiety
Generally speaking, socialization is like a muscle. You have to use it to build it. Which is why we have schools introduce people to social settings in controlled settings and with incrementally more difficulty.
“Nobody should ever have to interact with more than a handful of other people at a time” is a recipe for building a population of socially anxious people.
When you cloister kids at a young age, then introduce them to a big school full of more advanced students, you’re throwing them into the deep end of the pool late in the game. But just insisting “they’re 11 years old! they’ll never be social! lost cause!” is infinitely more cruel than weening them into society as best as your system can.
Yes, but some people, myself included, find forcibly requiring individuals to introduce themselves in succession to be disingenuous.
Yes, and a lot of shit you have to do socially in life is going to be disingenuous. I hated it, I still hate it, but I’ve also seen it used well as a way to at least ensure everyone has spoken before a discussion group. It’s an icebreaker, it’s not supposed to be deep talk, it’s supposed to mean there’s a chance that everyone has at least heard each other’s name once before
I have had to participate in a “Everyone introduce themselves” like five times at a job I’ve worked at less than a year. I don’t enjoy it, and I don’t think anyone does, but it’s also important to know who the people you are working with are. Would I ever do it if I didn’t have to? No way. But I do. And practice has made it easier at least.
Yeah, but there’s something about forcing people to do it that just removes the fun from it all.
One could say it’s healthy for a growing child to occasionally be put in awkward situations where they have to define themselves. It’s not fun but it helps shape personality.
I’m 44 and I used to hate those too. But there is one fun fact about these. If you go first, you can fill it in as you want and every one will follow your format. Quite funny once you notice this.
Anyway next time I have one of those, I’ll make sure to add “favorite dinosaur” to it.
Is it cruel?
I don’t agree, I think if you force a crying child to say their name — that’s obviously going too far. But it is important to get kids used to socializing, human beings need other human beings ultimately.
I think if you force a crying child to say their name — that’s obviously going too far.
i’m sorry you experienced that. if it’s any consolation, the only times anyone gets forced to do anything at my wife’s program is for safety reasons. like, get out of the burning building! don’t elope from the classroom to the street with busy traffic or the shooting range just o’er yonder! life and death stuff. i want to say teachers have learned better, but i also want to say teachers have seen just that specific bullshit and been appalled by it. y’know, because they’re human like you and most of me have empathy.
i do too. I have 3 believable truths 3 unbelievable truths, 3 believable lies, 3 unbelievable lies, 7 “interesting facts” about me (i used to have 8 but one of them, uh it required me to tell a joke and that does not work at 8 AM so now it’s gone. I don’t function 8 AM well before.) and i can pick and choose between my pre-prepped bullshit based on my audience and how awake and healthy i feel and what stupid game they decide to play.
worst part is i used to do improv so for the longest time i would just wing it and did fine. then they started doing them before coffee. now i gotta copy my bullshit offa my phone onto cue cards if i have one of those things
Kid: I don’t care about ordinary people Same kid: immediately cries at reaction of ordinary people
Flashback to a kid in my class who ruined his entire highschool time by saying “my name is [name] and I breed rabbits” during the first 10 minutes of school.
Man, kids at your school were fucking stupid. That kid had shittons of rabbits that needed petting.
So many school problems could have been solved by saying “you guys are dumb fucks.”
I mean the teacher saying that.
Oof, that’s rough. Was it an urban school? I grew up in an agricultural area and I swear pretty much everybody was breeding something
Yes it was. It was also the early 00’s and we were a bunch of 12 year old shits, and he was (in hindsight) rather on the spectrum.
I remember this meme. My friend really like this show back in the late 00’s. I don’t know anything about it other than this song, which I am not very fond of
Well for starters, it’s a show specifically about a girl who is friends with an alien, an esper, and a time traveler.
Nuzzle nuzzle
Upvote for the Haruhi reference cringe or not.
It’s no better or worse than going with the usual Egon quote about collecting fungus, molds, and spores. That’s how nerds find each other, one of them fires off a signal flare, revealing their location and putting themselves in danger, and other misfits sit next to them at lunch so they can all get hazed together.
I never realized that when I was thrown into a locker, it was actually a giant allegory for a ‘gathering the group’ montage.
When you put your ego in front of the fourth wall, anything bad that happens can be a lot funnier.
What the hell are you even talking about?
You should know, you’re an introvert turtle for crying out loud!
How people find each other in school. Normal people probably just have to read magazines or act like each other to fit in. If you’re a misfit you’re never going to find other misfits with that playbook.
I don’t know about you, but my school had clubs that let me meet other people with similar interests. Ironically, that’s literally what the anime this is referencing is about.
I am happy for you. My experiences differed. I was the only kid at my school who knew you could spend recess in the library, and the clubs were all sports until much later.
We had different childhoods it would appear…
If you think this is tragic, wait till you get to the end of the episode when space aliens steal his dongle.
He got it back. He even got a girlfriend out of it
Villain arc unlocked.
I remember signing end of elementary/primary school leaving shirts with my email at the time instead of my name because i was certain that my handle would be (in)famous. The email misspelt “requiem” as “requim”
shudders
Do it with confidence and you’ll be the cool kid from day one
Anon was HONEST
Was he really? He cried right afterwards, showing how much he cares what ordinary people care about him.
That’s just from psychological stress of delivering a presentation facing a room full of unfamiliar beings. He only interacts with aliens, time travellers and espers!
Less less embarrassing then ‘I only speak one language’
I am hella lucky with my highschool experience. No one really gave a shit about the typical highschool stuff. People could also eat anywhere in the school, since there was not enough room in the cafeteria.
I would’ve beat your ass that show sucks dick and you should feel bad
Fake: you having the capacity to intimidate anyone
Gay: your threat hones in on OP’s ass
It really does, and disgraced anime for a long time and prevented it from becoming mainstream earlier
