Many of you are aware that Divergentis a novel by the New York Times bestselling author Veronica Roth.
Set in post apocalyptic Chicago, the novel follows the story's protagonist, Beatrice, who is faced with numerous societal challenges in this dystopian world. Here, there are 5 distinct factions, and each faction has a virtue which they believe is best.
The faction Abnegation values selfishness, Amity values peace, Candour values honesty, Dauntless values bravery, and Erudite intelligence. People can only belong in one group.
I took a short Divergent Aptitude test to determine my faction, and the results were surprising.
What happened to me? I use to be nice, and to be honest, I am not that brave. However, I think the questions let me to answer in a way that would make me seem brave. I tried taking the test a day later and the results were similar.
I have been told twice now that I am divergent. This is an interesting group, if you can call it a group, and it is what the story's protagonist is, which really complicated her life.
This test is interesting. I think if you are someone who focuses on solving problems, you will get results similar to mine.
I tried another aptitude test to see what faction I would fit into at Divergent Aptitude Test.
My results were even stranger:
This is the third time I have been told I am divergent. It might be that the test (just 10 questions) is so quirky, that most people will test as divergent.
On the other hand, when I read the book, I identified most closely with the Dauntless and Erudite factions because to survive in this apocalyptic Chicago, one needs to be smart and brave.
All in all, I don't recommend taking these test too seriously.
Because I want to recommend quality online personality inventories, I took a couple of these tests to determine how accurate they are.
I began with 16 Personalities. Before I go any further, it is important to point out that a lot of personality testing is based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. According to this theory, there are four different pairs of personality traits:
Introversion (I) or Extraversion (E)
Intuition (N) or Sensing (S)
Thinking (T) or Feeling (F)
Judging (J) or Perceiving (P)
One can is either introverted or extraverted, and the same holds true to the remaining pairs listed above. The 16 personalities test reportedly takes approximately 12 minutes, and is composed of 100 questions. I took the test and my results showed:
According to my test results, I am a ESFJ. 16 personalities also claims to be able to tell how assertive one is.
In a nutshell, the Consul personality is
“CONSUL”
ESFJ (-A/-T)
Extraordinarily caring, social and popular people, always eager to help.
According to 16 personalities, "ESFJ's best careers all have the additional benefit of providing them with perhaps the most important requirement: to feel appreciated and know they've helped someone." I cannot deny that this matters a lot to me. For me, this is one of the best ways to connect with others, and I understand and appreciate that being able to help others is to be in a place of privilege, because I have something that others need, and I do not take what I have for granted.
Next, I looked at a website called truity.com, and looked at an infographic on this site and was told that ESFJ's are caretakers, and that the best careers for us are as follows: elementary school teacher, child care director, nutritionalist, cosmetologist, or registered nurse. I did begin my teaching career as an elementary school teacher, so maybe there is something to this. Actually, I am reasonably sure that there is something to this. When I went to typefocus.com and took a test designed to test the same four personality attributes as 16 Personalities, my test results showed that I was an ENFP. This would make me a campaigner according to 16 personalities, which looks like this
“CAMPAIGNER”
ENFP (-A/-T)
Enthusiastic, creative and sociable free spirits, who can always find a reason to smile.
Before continuing, I should point out that while the test on typefocus took less time, the questions were more difficult than 16 Personalities, because that the truity.com test asks the taker to choose between two short phrases. The test taker is asked to select the phrase that appeals to him or her most. The problem is that sometimes they both seem appealing. With 16 personalities, the test taker has to agree or disagree with a statement, but can somewhat agree, agree, strongly agree, somewhat disagree, disagree or strongly disagree.
According to infographic at truity.com, as an ENFP, I am now an empath, and the careers that best suit me are recreational therapist, restaurateur preschool teacher, travel writer, or landscape architect.
I would be happy doing any of these jobs; however, I feel that I am more of a consul than a campaigner.
Taking things a little further, I took the test at 16 Personalities again on a different day. If I am an ESFJ or Consul, this should not change from day to day. My results to the test on the second day were interesting:
I will make you smile! Personality type:“The Entertainer” (ESFP-A) Individual traits: Extraverted – 67%, Observant – 66%, Feeling – 66%, Prospecting – 56%, Assertive – 64%. Role: Explorer Strategy: People Mastery
You will notice that my strategy is still people mastery, but my role has changed from sentinel to explorer. On the second day that I took the test, I was 3 percent more extraverted, equally observant, equally feeling, and 6 percent more assertive.
The most interesting change is in the judging or perceiving/prospecting realm. The first time, I took the test, I received a borderline J (for judging) with 51 percent. The next time, I took the test was 56 percent prospecting (P), which changed my personality type from an ESFJ to an ESFP.
When I look at the infographic on truity.com, ESFJs and ESFPs are both caretakers. However, the suggested career pursuits for an ESFP are recreation director, customer service representative, receptionist, dental assistant or bartender. In all honesty, I cannot see myself as a bartender...ever. This does not mean it is bad job, but just that it is not the right job for me.
The most important thing that I have come to understand from doing this and need to convey to you is that if you are passionate about a career path, and it does not show up in your results, you should pursue that career path provided that it is obtainable. I could never be a nuclear physicist, and all the passion in the world would not make this happen for me. Personality inventories are interesting, and probably in most cases somewhat accurate. They help us see where we may fit in the world, but they do not define our places. These inventories allow us to consider options that we may not have otherwise considered. Approached with an open mind, these tools are valuable. As for my results, I feel that the ESFJ best suits me, but it is a bit of a loose fit.
Let's face it. Most of us want to be excellent, and if we could, we would be excellent in everything we undertook. But...how realistic is this?
When I wrote my last blog entry, Author John Green and his Passion for Learning, a strange thing happened. Actually, if you know me, it is not so strange. This blog entry became the gold standard for all subsequent blog entries that I would write, and all the subsequent blog entries were to meet this gold standard of surpass it. This all happened on a subconscious level.
What is wrong with that? You may even be thinking that my John Green blog entry was my best blog entry, and I would be upping my game if I just kept posting blog entries like that one. (Some of you may even be thinking, hey, you would might gain a few subscribers.)
Personally, I liked my John Green blog entry the best. Unlike, my other blog entries, it took a lot of time, and some research.
My John Green blog is probably also the reason I have not written a blog entry in a while. While that blog entry is not perfect, it is the closest blog entry that I have to perfection. Subconsciously, I raised the bar for myself, and I raised it too high.
Perfection can paralyze us. It stopped me from blogging for over a week, which is in the big scheme of things is tiny. But what if the stakes were higher? What if I was writing a book, and I decided that I could not write the next chapter because the previous chapter was the best? What if I were a famous Youtuber, like PewDiePie, and could not produce another Youtube video because it would not be as good as my previous one? (Is anyone impressed because I know who PewDiePie is?)
We all want to be excellent. I want each one of these blog entries to be excellent, but when I define excellence as almost perfect, reaching excellence on a regular basis is almost unattainable.
I have other things that I want to be excellent at, and some of them are of more importance to me. Since I am unable to obtain excellence in everything I do at all times in my life, it is best I strike a balance.
We want to be excellent, and we have been taught to always to our best, but we must consider at any given time how much we realistically can give to something that we want to do well, and what impact using that time and energy will have on other areas of our lives.
If you are like me, and you keep raising the bar for yourself, learn to recognize this pattern, and learn to recognize when your self-expectations are too high. Most importantly, never let your desire for perfection stop you from doing something.
Many of you know John Green as the author of "The Fault in Our Stars." Some of you may be familiar with some of his other work. According to Wikipedia John Green is also a vlogger, director, producer, cinematographer, editor, stunt performer and actor. Green appears to have multiple passions.
In 2014, Green was listed by Time magazine as "One of the Most Influential People in the World."
What stood out for me in this Ted Talk that Green gave is his passion for learning.
This Ted Talk is called "John Green on Paper Towns and Why Learning is Awesome." Comparing learning to map making, Green shows his passion for learning, and explains that through learning, we are able to go to many places.
Green begins his Ted Talk by discussing why cartographers create paper towns, otherwise known as copyright traps. He explains that map makers insert fake places on their maps. If someone was to copy a map with a fake place, then the original map maker would know that copyright laws were broken.
This all sounds great in theory, and I reasonably sure it is effective, with the exception of Agloe, New York, which started out as a paper town. The original map was released in 1937. Decades later a map maker released a map with Agloe, New York on it, setting of alarm bells....theft, theft, theft!
Green explains that when the original map maker contacted the new map maker, the new map maker argued that Agloe is real, and indeed it its. The paper town became a town because people kept going to the place, where the town would be located on the original map. In other words, people were looking for Agloe. Because people kept coming to this spot, Green tells us, "Someone built a place called Agloe, New York."
"And this is completely an irresistible metaphor to a novelist, because we would all like to believe that the stuff we write down on paper can change the actual world in which we're living, which is why my third book is called "Paper Towns," Green asserts.
Green then goes on to say what interests him more than the medium in which this happened is the phenomenon itself. He tells us that what he finds more interesting is how the way we map the world changes the world. He explains that if North were down and South were up, we would perceive the world differently.
"The world is changed by our maps of the world," Green enthusiastically tells listeners.
Green then links this to our own lives, saying that, "I believe that what we map, changes the life that we lead."
Green then discusses his own learning, and how he was a really terrible student when he was a kid.
( In my experience, some of the smartest and most creative people do not start out getting along with school.)
He explains that he saw education as a series of arbitrary hurdles that he had to jump over to reach adulthood.
However, everything changed for Green when he was in tenth grade and began attending a small boarding school outside of Indian Springs.
"And all at once I became a learner," says Green. He then explains that he became a learner because he found himself amongst a community of learners. Community and learning is very important for Green. For John Green, community is the magic bullet, changing everything as mentioned earlier.
Green then talks about some of the things that he learned because learning was cool. He says that he learned that some infinite sets were bigger than other infinite sets, and this was exciting. I never would have thought of this if I had not read Green's "The Fault in Our Stars."
“There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There's .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I'm likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful.”― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
Many of you will recall that Hazel wrote this for Augustus before he died in "The Fault in Our Stars." She also read it to him, because Augustus wanted to know what people would say about him before he died.
Back to the Ted Talk...Green tells us he learned what iambic pentameter is and why it sounds so good to the human ear.
Hopefully, we all learn things that we feel enthusiastic about. As an educator, I am supposed to be helping all my students become life long learners. I know I am a life long learner, and that I love to learn. You can never really be lonely if you are involved in learning. Somewhere I read that "books are quiet friends," and so too can be the Internet.
Again, back to the Ted Talk...Green lists a few more things that he learned, and then he drives home the point: "All of these things enriched my life on a literally daily basis."
Green presents his learning like a map that a cartographer was creating.
He says that "a lot of the learning he did in high school was not about what happened inside the classroom. It was about what happened outside of the classroom."
Green describes how through learning "the map of his life got better."
For this reason, I believe that we all need to take the learning opportunities that come into our lives and embrace them. When we are in sync with our need to know, we create more places on our personal maps, which in turn could lead to more opportunities.
Green speaks about imagining learning as cartography as opposed to imagining as a series of arbitrary hurdles that he needed to jump over. He says that when we see a bit of coastline, we want to see more.
He describes the different learning communities that he had been part of, and then what it was like not to be a part of of a learning community.
After writing his first book, Green quit his job. And shortly after this, Green was miserable. Can you guess why? Yes, he is no longer part of a learning community. Green says that he read many books, but he felt like he was creating his own arbitrary hurdles.
Learning after all is a social act. When we learn something, it is natural to want to talk about it with others. This may be more true for some people than others. I imagine that extroverts particularly like to share ideas.
Things change again for Green in 2006, when he finds Ze Frank on the internet. When Green discovered Frank, he was running a show called "The Show with Ze Frank."
Green says, "Ze is not just a great public intellectual, he is also a brilliant community builder, and the community that built up around these videos (Ze's online shows) was in many ways a community of learners."
Through Ze Frank, Green found himself taking place in "silly"ideas like turning the Earth into a sandwich. Green points out while these are "silly" ideas they are also "learny" ideas.
Green says that online we can find communities of learners all over the place, pointing out that one can follow the calculus tag on Tumblr. He further shows us that there are places on Reddit like "Ask a Historian" or "Ask Science."
To Green, "the most interesting communities of learners" are appearing on Youtube. Green admits to being biased.
Recall that Green is a vloger. This is where I first found Green, and the reason is that he has high quality thought provoking videos on works of literature. I highly recommend these videos. Green also makes videos on topics related to Social Studies. These videos appear on his show called "Crash Course" and at this point in time, there are 606 videos.
Green believes "that in many ways the YouTube page resembles a classroom," pointing to Minute Physics as an example, and his own video on "Crash Course" about WWI as another example.
These videos have half a million views on YouTube. Green describes the subscribers to youtube channels as communities of learners.
Green argues that YouTube is like an old fashioned classroom because the instructor makes the video, and the viewers and subscribers can use the comment section to discuss what they are learning. We know that there will be trolls. However, on channels like "Crash Course" people actually talk about the video content. In these channel comments, people ask challenging questions about the subject matter, and others answer these challenging questions.
Green concludes his Ted Talk stating, "I really believe that these spaces, these communities, have become for a new generation of learners the kind of communities, the kind of cartographic communities that I had when I was in high school, and then again in college. And as an adult, re-finding these communities has re-introduced me to a community of learners, and has encouraged me to be a learner even in my adulthood, so that I know longer feel that learning is something reserved for the young."
Firstly, it is apparent that John Green's passion for learning has taken him to many places, and he will continue to travel.
Secondly, as an adult, I feel good when I am learning new things, and thrive on learning. I have subscribed to several channels, and I am a student of YouTube school.
Thirdly, you can learn to do just about anything on YouTube...don't forget this. My next search will be on caring for Bamboo, because I bought 4 bamboo plants over the summer. (I know this is not "academic" as Green's learning, but it matters to me.)
By the way, I do not ask questions in the comment section, but I may thank the presenter for making the YouTube video, and give it a like. I do not think that I need community to the extent that Green does.
We all need to take stock of how we feel about learning, what we want to learn about, and what role community plays in our learning from time to time. We need to remember that we will be learning all our lives so the relationship that we have with learning is of great importance.
We have established that we all procrastinate. Do you identify as a chronic procrastinator? According to watchwellcast, 20 percent of the population identifies as chronic procrastinators. We are told that procrastinating is about lying to ourselves. We tell ourselves that there is plenty of time before we need to do X, Y or Z. I cannot help but wonder if it is not a lie when we believe that we do have plenty of time. However, this video is only five minutes, so let's take a look.
In this video by watchwellcast, we are offered a three step program to help us stop procrastinating. The video begins by describing a study on two groups of University students. Each group has three papers to write in three weeks. One group can hand the papers whenever they want and the other group can has strict deadlines.
If you have not watched the video, which group do you think is more successful?
Yes, the group with the deadlines did better on their papers.
The video explains that "clearly humans are not the best at regulating themselves, and so when it comes to procrastination, you have to trick yourself into getting the job done."
Enter the three step method.
Step One: Eat an Elephant (Those of us, who are vegetarian or vegan, are now very concerned, but this is the first of three metaphors.) We told that if one were to eat an elephant, he would do it one bite at a time. We are encouraged to break down what we need to do into manageable steps so as not to feel overwhelmed. Furthermore, we are encouraged to reward ourselves after completing smaller steps, instead of waiting until we finish the entire project to reward ourselves. We are advised to write down specific steps describing how we will tackle the project.
Step Two: Pick off the Goblins (This appears to be getting weirder, but remember it is another metaphor.) We are told that the hardest part of any project is starting the whole project. This is sort of tricky step, and in my opinion is not always possible, but we can we are told to begin with some aspect of the project that is pleasant.
Step Three: Ignore the Siren Song (This is the best metaphor that the video uses.) It refers to Homer's epic poem The Odyssey in which beautiful creatures called Sirens lured sailors into the rocks. To avoid procrastination, we need to clear away things away that will distract our focus. This suggestion may be absolutely horrifying to some people. We are told to get someone to change the password to the internet until we finish what we are doing, assuming that what we need to do does not involve the internet.
No one has to eat an elephant, pick of goblins or ignore strange music that does not really exist. If we want to avoid procrastination, we need to break down our projects into smaller parts, and determine when we will have the smaller parts done by. We need to remain focused. I like to do the harder parts of a project when I am most energetic, and the more enjoyable parts when I am tired. Each one of us needs to find what works for him or her, and there is some useful advice in this video.
When I began thinking about how I would write this blog, I proudly thought about how I would describe not having a problem with procrastination. I am good at meeting deadlines, and managing my time. In University, I seldom crammed the night before a test, and I never pulled an all nighter. I think I only handed one assignment in late in five years of university, which is not bad at all.
Last night, I watched this Ted Talk by Tim Urban on procrastination. The video was engaging and thought provoking, but I did not think I would write about it because it did not address how to stop procrastinating, and his video did not fit into how I envisioned the topics of this blog to be. Perhaps, I was wrong.
You see, I woke up thinking about the video, and areas of my life where I need to stop procrastinating. My understanding of procrastination has changed, and for this reason I think it is worth sharing this video.
Before continuing, it is worth pointing out that Tim Urban is an engaging speaker. He is a writer and has a blog Wait but Why.
Urban describes being a student who typically procrastinated. He studied political science/government in college, which required him to write many papers. He did this in typical procrastinator style, writing his papers the night before they were due.
When he was in 5th year university, he was to write a 90 page senior thesis. Clearly, this is not a task to be done the night before. Urban had good intentions and was going to work on the paper throughout the year; however, procrastination gets the better of him, and he ends up writing the paper in three days. This did not work out so well for Urban, but he does not really go into in detail in the video.
He explains that he had an hypothesis that the world was broken up into two types of people: procrastinators and non-procrastinators. Urban thought that the brains of each type of person were different.
He then goes on to describe how a procrastinator fails to deal well with deadlines. Basically, Urban talks about the Instant Gratification Monkey that lurks inside the procrastinator's brain. If it is time to something difficult that involves work, enter the Instant Gratification Monkey who takes the procrastinator to "The Dark Playground."
The playground is dark because the procrastinator really should not be there. As a non-procrastinator, I don't know this place...at least, when it comes do deadlines.
So the procrastinator hangs out in the playground, and the deadline fast approaches, so the watchful mind sends in the Panic Monster, according to Urban. All of the sudden, the procrastinator is thrown into action, trying to meet the deadline.
As for the Panic Monster, I sort of know this character, and he terrifies me. I don't want any problems with this guy, which is why I just don't procrastinate or so I thought.
After Urban mapped out what more or less goes on inside a procrastinator's mind, he worked on writing his blog (the link is above). People loved it, and something resonated with them when they saw it, so they would write Urban, who appears to have a good sense of humour, and to have made peace with procrastination around deadlines.
He read the messages, and noted that many of the people challenged with problems related to procrastination were sad, and that their problems with procrastination had profoundly impacted their lives.
At this point, Urban has an epiphany. He concludes that there are two types of procrastination. There is the first time which has to do with set deadlines, and the other kind where the deadlines are mirky and not set.
Maybe, you know of someone who is meaning to...and whatever they are meaning to do is important, but they just keep putting if off, because this is what we do when we procrastinate. Let's say that person has a heart condition, and knows they should go to the doctor. Furthermore, let's say this person does not go to the doctor....well, we all know where this could end.
My daily problems with procrastination at this point in my life are not as serious as the one above, but I still recognize that there are things that I avoid because they are difficult and unpleasant.
Urban concludes that we are all procrastinators, and I would have to agree.
