A strange question, considering my job, but....
Why do some people feel the need to talk all the time? Constantly? To be in a never-ending torrent of conversation about whatever is in their heads at the moment? I mean, I'm a conversation teacher, so I should be able to appreciate the value of conversation, but there are limits.
Take this, for example: our branch is moving soon. We're leaving the building that the branch has been in for years and going to a new spiffified one. It is also considerably smaller. Considerably. Judging from the floorplan, it looks like quarters will be cramped in there, and it'll take an adjustment from the teachers, students and staff to work there comfortably. But at any given moment, between lessons, there's a constant running commentary about how small the rooms will be, how little space we'll have, how annoying it'll be to work there, and it's often the same points again and again, as if by talking about them one could make them, well, not be. And we have no power over this situation - none of us chose the new building or had any input into its design, so it's not like we can argue amongst ourselves about whose fault it is and who'll have to do their lesson planning out on the roof. It's simply the way things are, and all the complaining and rampant speculation about how horrible it'll be - when no one's even started working there - isn't going to change the facts of the situation. It'll be an unpleasant adjustment, but we're all adults and we'll all adjust. Deal.
If it's not that, it's soccer (lots of Englishmen in my branch) or in my former branch it was movies or the Mobius Conversation on Politics (a conversation in which all parties hold similar views and spend the entire time just agreeing with each other) or, of course, talking about the students. That's a constant in every school everywhere. But whatever the topic is, there is not a moment where no one is speaking to someone else, and it just stuns me.
I can't begrudge my co-workers their enthusiasm - would that I had something I wanted to talk about constantly - and I appreciate that they don't try to force me to reach their level of garrulousness. It's just that I don't know where they get the motivation from. I mean, talking is our job. I have to be chatty and interesting for 320 minutes a day, which is a lot harder than it sounds - I enjoy those brief ten or fifteen minutes between lessons where I can just recharge a little and give my jaw a rest.
Maybe I'm just an anomalous introvert in a profession that tends to draw extroverts, and I will never understand them.
Maybe I should buy earplugs. Or would that be rude....?
Take this, for example: our branch is moving soon. We're leaving the building that the branch has been in for years and going to a new spiffified one. It is also considerably smaller. Considerably. Judging from the floorplan, it looks like quarters will be cramped in there, and it'll take an adjustment from the teachers, students and staff to work there comfortably. But at any given moment, between lessons, there's a constant running commentary about how small the rooms will be, how little space we'll have, how annoying it'll be to work there, and it's often the same points again and again, as if by talking about them one could make them, well, not be. And we have no power over this situation - none of us chose the new building or had any input into its design, so it's not like we can argue amongst ourselves about whose fault it is and who'll have to do their lesson planning out on the roof. It's simply the way things are, and all the complaining and rampant speculation about how horrible it'll be - when no one's even started working there - isn't going to change the facts of the situation. It'll be an unpleasant adjustment, but we're all adults and we'll all adjust. Deal.
If it's not that, it's soccer (lots of Englishmen in my branch) or in my former branch it was movies or the Mobius Conversation on Politics (a conversation in which all parties hold similar views and spend the entire time just agreeing with each other) or, of course, talking about the students. That's a constant in every school everywhere. But whatever the topic is, there is not a moment where no one is speaking to someone else, and it just stuns me.
I can't begrudge my co-workers their enthusiasm - would that I had something I wanted to talk about constantly - and I appreciate that they don't try to force me to reach their level of garrulousness. It's just that I don't know where they get the motivation from. I mean, talking is our job. I have to be chatty and interesting for 320 minutes a day, which is a lot harder than it sounds - I enjoy those brief ten or fifteen minutes between lessons where I can just recharge a little and give my jaw a rest.
Maybe I'm just an anomalous introvert in a profession that tends to draw extroverts, and I will never understand them.
Maybe I should buy earplugs. Or would that be rude....?