We'll discuss this at the meeting

Back in my teaching days, one of my least favorite things was when I realized that there was a faculty meeting after school.

Faculty meetings -- and, I suspect, meetings in general -- were an utter waste of time.  Not only did they take between forty-five minutes and an hour and a half to cover stuff that could have been taken care of in a three-paragraph email, they were frequently preceded by "icebreaker" games like one time (I swear I'm not making this up) holding a single raisin in our mouths for a minute then describing the sensation.  I recall distinctly sitting there thinking, "Dear god, I hope the moderator doesn't call on me."  But the universe being the twisted place it is, of course the moderator called on me.

My answer was to growl at the presenter, "The sensation is like having a raisin in my mouth."

My colleagues, who by and large knew what a grumpy sonofabitch I am, thought this was drop-dead hilarious, mostly because they were imagining what expletives I'd have included if I was just a tad less conscious of decorum and professionalism.  (One of these colleagues emailed me shortly after I retired to tell me that faculty meetings are now way less entertaining because he no longer can place bets on how many minutes it'd take for my face to go from "Impatient But Tolerating It" to "Are You Fucking Kidding Me Right Now?")

The reason all this comes up is because of some research that appeared in the journal The Leadership Quarterly last week that looked at how leaders emerge from leaderless groups.  They varied the composition of the groups -- single-gender vs. mixed-gender, age-grouped vs. mixed-age, even varying it by intelligence, personality traits, and professions of the members.  They then gave the groups tasks to perform, and observed who was most likely to become the group leader (as assessed by the groups' members afterward).

Of all the variables they tested, only one mattered.

The one who became the leader was the one who talked the most.

This idea has been observed in an anecdotal fashion before, and is amusingly called "the Babble Hypothesis."  Because it turns out it doesn't even matter what, exactly, the incipient leader was saying.  The likelihood of becoming the group leader was a function of the number of words spoken, even if what (s)he was saying was complete and utter bullshit.

"I think one take away is the importance of speaking up in group settings," said study lead author Neil MacLaren, of the Bernard M. and Ruth R. Bass Center for Leadership Studies.  "For example, if you are in a leadership position the evidence suggests you should play an active role in the conversation.  Taking this finding to extremes is unhelpful because skewed amounts of speaking time are associated with poorer group performance outcomes, but the evidence does seem consistent that people who speak more are more likely to be viewed as leaders."

This explains why I was not looked upon as a leader in our school (although I do think I was well-respected as a teacher).  I rarely spoke at faculty meetings, and that was for one specific reason: if I said something, it would make the meeting last longer.  There were a handful of faculty members who could always be counted upon to raise their hands when the call came for comments or questions on the day's topic, and it's a damn good thing that the evil eye isn't a real thing, because I would always look at them like this:

Not that it ever had an effect.  I have a sneaking suspicion these people actually enjoy meetings, which I have a hard time fathoming.  My attitude toward meetings was that if I was offered a choice of attending weekly meetings for a year or having my prostate examined by Edward Scissorhands, I'd have to think about it.

Anyhow, that's today's episode of Bizarre Human Social Behavior.  I have to say that although there are many things I miss about teaching, being retired does have some serious perks.  Now the only meetings I attend are with my dogs, and they seldom talk about such things as Changing Educational Paradigms or Thinking Outside the Box or Restructuring Curricular Frameworks.  All they want to discuss is why their food bowls are empty and whether the weather's nice enough to go outside and play.

That kind of meeting, I can deal with.

***************************************

Author Michael Pollan became famous for two books in the early 2000s, The Botany of Desire and The Omnivore's Dilemma, which looked at the complex relationships between humans and the various species that we have domesticated over the past few millennia.

More recently, Pollan has become interested in one particular facet of this relationship -- our use of psychotropic substances, most of which come from plants, to alter our moods and perceptions.  In How to Change Your Mind, he considered the promise of psychedelic drugs (such as ketamine and psilocybin) to treat medication-resistant depression; in this week's Skeptophilia book recommendation of the week, This is Your Mind on Plants, he looks at another aspect, which is our strange attitude toward three different plant-produced chemicals: opium, caffeine, and mescaline.

Pollan writes about the long history of our use of these three chemicals, the plants that produce them (poppies, tea and coffee, and the peyote cactus, respectively), and -- most interestingly -- the disparate attitudes of the law toward them.  Why, for example, is a brew containing caffeine available for sale with no restrictions, but a brew containing opium a federal crime?  (I know the physiological effects differ; but the answer is more complex than that, and has a fascinating and convoluted history.)

Pollan's lucid, engaging writing style places a lens on this long relationship, and considers not only its backstory but how our attitudes have little to do with the reality of what the use of the plants do.  It's another chapter in his ongoing study of our relationship to what we put in our bodies -- and how those things change how we think, act, and feel.

[Note:  if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

We'll discuss this at the meeting

Dave Barry once said, “If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be 'meetings'."

To which I say: amen.  We are now at the end of another school year, for which there has been much rejoicing, mostly because it'll be another two and a half months before I have to attend another meeting.  I loathe meetings almost as much as I loathe grocery shopping.  Note that I am not talking about quick, to-the-point meetings, where vital information is conveyed in an efficient fashion. I wouldn't classify those as "fun," but I recognize that they're important.  No, I'm referring to meetings such as "educational training seminars," often run by professional seminar-runners (they probably have a fancier sounding job title, but don't deserve it).  Words cannot describe how much I detest these things.  I hate having my time wasted, I hate being expected to pretend I'm vitally interested in something that is pointless, and I hate being spoken to in a patronizing fashion.  And training seminars usually combine all three.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

I thought that this type of meeting was unique to the world of education, but I found out I was wrong.   I was discussing this with Carol, and it seems that nursing training seminars are run pretty much the same way as educational ones are.  Here's the way a typical training seminar runs.  If you've never attended something like this, and you think I'm exaggerating, ask a teacher or nurse and they'll happily corroborate what I'm saying.

"Hi!  I'm Penelope Farklewhite-Smythe, and today's program is called 'Making Schools Better.'  We'll be brainstorming some ideas in just a minute, but first, we'll do an icebreaker activity.  On your table are some stickers with blue, red, green, or gold stars.   Pick up a sticker, and stick it to your forehead.  And then find three people with different color stars than you have, and tell them what you ate for breakfast today!"

*five minute pause to mill around discussing eggs, bacon, and breakfast cereal*

"There, wasn't that fun?  I'm glad no one asked me what I had for breakfast, because I was so excited to come to today's training seminar, I couldn't eat breakfast!"

*overly cheerful grin, followed by a brief pause to wait for laughter, which doesn't come, except for the one person in the front of the room who feels sorry for the presenter and thinks she needs the support*

"Today we'll start by brainstorming some ideas.  I've assigned five people to each table.  Each of you has a job.  One of you will be the Scribe.  Once we've brainstormed some ideas for 'Making Schools Better' the scribe will write down each table's ideas on a piece of butcher paper.  Write in red for ideas that Help Students Succeed, green for ideas that Make Teachers Happy, and blue for ideas that Keep Parents From Voting Down The Budget.  Two of you are the Evaluators.  The Evaluators will critique the ideas.  They will rate each idea with five stars for the Most Important down to one star for the Least Important.  The last two people will be the Presenters, and will present the ideas to the rest of the faculty.  But to make it fun, you'll present each idea using only interpretive dance, and we'll all try to guess what the idea is."

You'd think that at this point, there would be guffaws of laughter, followed by the entire faculty (except the supportive person in the front of the room) standing up and leaving.  Astonishingly, this never happens.  Being obedient little sheep, we all follow right along, bleating softly, writing on the butcher paper and giving ideas four stars and doing the interpretive dances.  Never once have I seen anyone stand up and say, "This is the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard, and I refuse to participate."

Which brings us to Skeptophilia's Two Questions of the Day:

1. Does anyone actually enjoy these sorts of meetings?
2. Do the seminar-runners actually think that this is the best way to train professionals?  Or are they really sadists who enjoy annoying the absolute shit out of everyone?

No one I have ever talked to thinks these meetings are interesting, or enjoyable, or productive.  I, and most of my colleagues, leave such training seminars so pissed off that we spend the rest of the day looking for a small furry woodland animal to kick.  I also happen to know that the training seminars our school district has participated in have cost significant amounts of money -- some of these professional seminar-runners make upwards of a thousand dollars for a full day's presentation.   Which, incidentally, answers question #2 -- I doubt they really care if it's the best way to train professionals.  I might not care, either, if I could make a thousand bucks by ordering a bunch of presumably intelligent adults to wander around in a room with stickers on their foreheads talking about breakfast.

I find it frankly baffling, however, that the professional seminar-runners remain in business, given that the general consensus is that these seminars accomplish nothing and are therefore a gigantic waste of money and time.  So someone, somewhere, thinks that these things are productive.  Maybe it's the same people who came up with the idea of "paperwork" as being the best and most efficient way of keeping track of information.

We'll discuss this at the meeting

Dave Barry once said, “If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be 'meetings'."

To which I say:  amen.  I loathe meetings almost as much as I loathe grocery shopping.  Note that I am not talking about quick, to-the-point meetings, where vital information is conveyed in an efficient fashion.  I wouldn't classify those as "fun," but I recognize that they're important.  No, I'm referring to meetings such as "educational training seminars," often run by professional seminar-runners (they probably have a fancier sounding job title, but don't deserve it).  Words cannot describe how much I detest these things.  I hate having my time wasted, I hate being expected to pretend I'm vitally interested in something that is pointless, and I hate being spoken to in a patronizing fashion.  And training seminars usually combine all three.

I thought that this type of meeting was unique to the world of education, but I found out I was wrong.  I was discussing this with Carol over dinner last night, and it seems that nursing training seminars are run pretty much the same way as educational ones are.  Here's the way a typical training seminar runs.  If you've never attended something like this, and you think I'm exaggerating, ask a teacher or nurse and they'll happily corroborate what I'm saying.

"Hi!  I'm Penelope Farklewhite-Smythe, and today's program is called 'Making Schools Better.'  We'll be brainstorming some ideas in just a minute, but first, we'll do an icebreaker activity.  On your table are some stickers with blue, red, green, or gold stars.  Pick up a sticker, and stick it to your forehead.  And then find three people with different color stars than you have, and tell them what you ate for breakfast today!"

*five minute pause to mill around discussing eggs, bacon, and breakfast cereal*

"There, wasn't that fun?  I'm glad no one asked me what I had for breakfast,  because I was so excited to come to today's training seminar, I couldn't eat breakfast!"  

*brief pause to wait for laughter, which doesn't come, except for the one person in the front of the room who feels sorry for the presenter and feels like she needs the support*  

"Today we'll start by brainstorming some ideas.  I've assigned five people to each table.  Each of you has a job.  One of you will be the Scribe.  Once we've brainstormed some ideas for 'Making Schools Better' the scribe will write down each table's ideas on a piece of butcher paper.  Write in red for ideas that Help Students Succeed, green for ideas that Make Teachers Happy, and blue for ideas that Keep Parents From Voting Down The Budget.  Two of you are the Evaluators.  The Evaluators will critique the ideas.  They will rate each idea with five stars for the Most Important down to one star for the Least Important.  The last two people will be the Presenters, and will present the ideas to the rest of the faculty.  But to make it fun, you'll present each idea using only interpretive dance, and we'll all try to guess what the idea is."


You'd think that at this point, there would be guffaws of laughter, followed by the entire faculty (except the supportive person in the front of the room) standing up and leaving.  Astonishingly, this never happens.  Being obedient little sheep, we all follow right along, bleating softly, writing on the butcher paper and giving ideas four stars and doing the interpretive dances.  Never once have I seen anyone stand up and say, "This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard, and I refuse to participate."

Which brings us to Skeptophilia's Two Questions of the Day:

1)  Does anyone actually enjoy these sorts of meetings?
2)  Do the seminar-runners actually think that this is the best way to train professionals?  Or are they really sadists who enjoy annoying the absolute shit out of everyone?

No one I have ever talked to thinks these meetings are interesting, or enjoyable, or productive.  I, and most of my colleagues, leave such training seminars so pissed off that we spend the rest of the day looking for a small furry woodland animal to kick.  I also happen to know that the training seminars our school district has participated in have cost significant amounts of money -- some of these professional seminar-runners make upwards of a thousand dollars for a full day's presentation.  Which, incidentally, answers question #2 -- I doubt they really care if it's the best way to train professionals.  I might not care, either, if I could make a thousand bucks by ordering a bunch of presumably intelligent adults to wander around in a room with stickers on their foreheads talking about breakfast.

I find it frankly baffling, however, that the professional seminar-runners remain in business, given that the general consensus is that these seminars accomplish nothing and are therefore a gigantic waste of money and time.  So someone, somewhere, thinks that these things are productive.  Maybe it's the same people who came up with the idea of "paperwork" as being the best and most efficient way of keeping track of information.