The class was a continuation in an exploration of personality. Previously, the students took a version of the Myers-Briggs assessment that sorted their personality types into four color-coded groups: blue/hopeless romantics, green/thinkers, orange/risk-takers, gold/givers & rule followers.
We opened the class by reviewing some of the traits and behaviors associated with each personality and then invited the students to identify and rank the color/types that felt closer to their sense of self. Choosing their top two colors/types, the students shifted into a very cool and challenging art project: to make an abstract representation of their primary and secondary personality types. The secondary personality type served as the background color of the poster, and the shape or symbol represented the primary color and some element of that personality type. Challenging, yes? 😄
Chris, Ananda, and I walked the room and helped students translate behaviors of their primary personality type into symbols. Some of the very cool ideas that emerged:
- Orange/risk takers could be represented by the symbol of fire (active) or a game controller (active)
- Gold/givers and rule followers could be represented by a smiling clock (punctual) or a crystal ball (future oriented)
- Blue/romantics could be represented by clouds (dreamers) or maps (explorers).
Much glueing and crafting then ensued! They had lots of fun with it, including interesting embellishments and fun side talk (Chicken nuggets loomed large).
Chris then led the group through the second part of the project: writing a paragraph to explain how the abstraction represents their personality. Alicia’s paragraph beautifully modeled the complexity embedded in the task: students were invited to consider how their personalities appeared in their hobbies and relationships, but they also considered how their self-conceptions diverged from their test results. We encouraged them to dig deeply to consider how the test might reveal surprising elements about their personalities — hence, the seeming divergence! Another very cool, big ask. It was awesome!
Everyone got started on the writing portion with some superstars finishing and other superstars needing a bit more time.
Shout out to Vanessa, who managed the supplies and kept us all grounded in the lesson. It was very much above my pay grade, so I needed that support! Another shout out to Olga for capturing some of the posters in this week’s photos. Do check them out!!