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[INTJ] INTJs and showing emotion

SubjectA

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I go to ask him what went wrong in a lesson and he bites my head off. "Well, you're mumbling, your hair's in your face, and you're dropping beats." 27 years of teaching teachers to teach the arts, and he still has almost no emotional intelligence.

I kinda don't see how the first two statements are that important for someone like him to waste his breath on. I'd be disappointed to listen to those type of fluffy feedback unless I'm in a communications course or something.

So have you tried narrowing down the types of improvement you're aiming to hear? (Re: Ask him to give advice that's actually relevant and crucial to the subject. The more specific you are, I hope his answers will be as helpful.)

Yes, I'm quite surprised that an INTJ would say those things, too. INTJ's can be so obsessed with efficiency that they won't waste their breath to say things like that. Unless it's criticism that we believe you can benefit from, we usually don't even bother.
 

InvisibleJim

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Yes, I'm quite surprised that an INTJ would say those things, too. INTJ's can be so obsessed with efficiency that they won't waste their breath to say things like that. Unless it's criticism that we believe you can benefit from, we usually don't even bother.

Perhaps they think they are really that bad? INTJs can be horribly honest when pushed into the 'non-comfort' zone.
 

MonkeyGrass

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I guess I'm wondering what you're looking for here. A thumbs-up from this guy? Probably, criticism is the most emotional depth you're going to get out of this relationship with an (I assume very stressed out...this time of year is hell for music instructors) INTJ. You may do best to take the criticism, weigh out whether there's truth to it, apply it, and move on.

Let me tell you a story about being a music teacher at the end of the Christmas semester in particular: students like to fall apart emotionally during their lessons. The stress of exams/juries/projects/etc gets to the student, a lesson tends to be the only real one-on-one mentor relationship they have for an hour out of the week, and thus, students fall. apart. They come in and *cry*. :shock: They whine about girlfriends, they whine about lack of sleep, they cry about not passing courses, they cry about stress. A lot of students treat their music lessons like counseling sessions. And being locked in a room for an hour several times a day with emotional diarrhea is NOT your average over-worked INTJ's idea of fun. He's not emotionally equipped for that level of intense emotion.

That's probably why you got the explosive, acrid, vague criticism. :hug:

I wouldn't sweat whether he likes you so much, and just treat the relationship as an exchange of information. ;)
 

Cranky

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I guess I'm wondering what you're looking for here. A thumbs-up from this guy? Probably, criticism is the most emotional depth you're going to get out of this relationship with an (I assume very stressed out...this time of year is hell for music instructors) INTJ. You may do best to take the criticism, weigh out whether there's truth to it, apply it, and move on.

Let me tell you a story about being a music teacher at the end of the Christmas semester in particular: students like to fall apart emotionally during their lessons. The stress of exams/juries/projects/etc gets to the student, a lesson tends to be the only real one-on-one mentor relationship they have for an hour out of the week, and thus, students fall. apart. They come in and *cry*. :shock: They whine about girlfriends, they whine about lack of sleep, they cry about not passing courses, they cry about stress. A lot of students treat their music lessons like counseling sessions. And being locked in a room for an hour several times a day with emotional diarrhea is NOT your average over-worked INTJ's idea of fun. He's not emotionally equipped for that level of intense emotion.

That's probably why you got the explosive, acrid, vague criticism. :hug:

I wouldn't sweat whether he likes you so much, and just treat the relationship as an exchange of information. ;)

I agree. I've taught classes too, and students are exhausted, miserable, overworked, and are learning for the first time in their life that none of that matters if you don't get your work done.

It made me snappish, cold, and unsympathetic, unfortunately. I tried, but I was exhausted, overworked, and less than patient. Listen to the criticism and try not to take it personally.
 

Amargith

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This is why emotional maturity lessons should be part of a students curriculum. It's like the most neglected subject ever and everybody passes the buck or tells people to 'man up' already, as they cannot/will not, don't wanna go near the drama of others as well as having to deal with their own shit. 'It's not my job!'. And they're right..but the problem is that it's nobody's job. And there's no solution for it. So it's bound to spill over to other areas.
 

run

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This is why emotional maturity lessons should be part of a students curriculum. It's like the most neglected subject ever and everybody passes the buck or tells people to 'man up' already, as they cannot/will not, don't wanna go near the drama of others as well as having to deal with their own shit. 'It's not my job!'. And they're right..but the problem is that it's nobody's job. And there's no solution for it. So it's bound to spill over to other areas.

I agree but I don't agree with that solution. Instead of standardizing the subject of "emotional maturity" alongside intellectual maturity, I think when teachers learn to teach, they should learn to be more emotionally mature and aware. Then, students will learn. I can learn emotionally valuable things from my teachers without ever having an objective lesson. These are feelings we're talking about. They made me feel worthy of respect, feel important, feel confident, and above all, made me feel my feelings were valid to begin with. I think there is an abstract language for conveying these things. After all, did you learn what you know about emotional intelligence from a classroom? The world is the classroom. Wouldn't you say that experience is the best teacher?
 

SubjectA

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I agree but I don't agree with that solution. Instead of standardizing the subject of "emotional maturity" alongside intellectual maturity, I think when teachers learn to teach, they should learn to be more emotionally mature and aware. Then, students will learn. I can learn emotionally valuable things from my teachers without ever having an objective lesson. These are feelings we're talking about. They made me feel worthy of respect, feel important, feel confident, and above all, made me feel my feelings were valid to begin with. I think there is an abstract language for conveying these things. After all, did you learn what you know about emotional intelligence from a classroom? The world is the classroom. Wouldn't you say that experience is the best teacher?

Since experience is the best teacher, I don't think that a professor should be required to cater to each student's personal needs outside of intellectual pursuits. Not everyone in the world is going to be sensitive to your emotions, and you need to learn how to deal with those kinds of people. If what you suggested was implemented, how would you be able to learn about these types of things? MonkeyGrass is right, your teacher is probably stressed himself, as the holidays are remarkably stressful for anyone who's in any sort of a music ensemble. If I were you, I wouldn't take his harsh criticisms to heart. If you want more specific feedback, be more specific when you ask him. If you demonstrate to him that you're actually trying to improve, he may be a little more gentle with you.
 

MonkeyGrass

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I agree with Amargith, 100%. :yes:


Yes, in an ideal world, teachers would be emotionally mature. Keep in mind, though, that even an emotionally mature teacher will look at the student and say, "That's your issue, not mine. My job is to teach XYZ. This is out of my bounds, and it's not really appropriate for me to counsel you this way." I think it's important to remember that it's their job to prepare you for a career, and they won't be doing you any favors by making themselves responsible for *your* emotions. Your future employer sure won't. :shock:

Basically put, wherever your parents left of emotionally (however well or poorly they taught you), it's not your teachers' job to pick up the ball and keep running. It's yours. No one else will ever be responsible for making sure you've reached emotional maturity except yourself, unless you visit a life coach or a therapist.
 

run

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I agree with Amargith, 100%. :yes:


Yes, in an ideal world, teachers would be emotionally mature. Keep in mind, though, that even an emotionally mature teacher will look at the student and say, "That's your issue, not mine. My job is to teach XYZ. This is out of my bounds, and it's not really appropriate for me to counsel you this way."
All I'm asking is "Don't be an ass"
by making themselves responsible for *your* emotions. Your future employer sure won't. :shock:
We're all repsonsible for eachother's emotions (in a way). We can't go barking at eachother all the time and saying whatever we feel like and whatever first comes to mind. We're emotional beings. We have a responsibility to think before we talk. Our words affect (and effect) eachother.
 

MonkeyGrass

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All I'm asking is "Don't be an ass"

We're all repsonsible for eachother's emotions (in a way). We can't go barking at each other all the time and saying whatever we feel like and whatever first comes to mind. We're emotional beings. We have a responsibility to think before we talk. Our words affect (and effect) eachother.

I do agree with you to a point. However, you did say that you *asked* your teacher where he thought your lesson went wrong. Combine you literally asking for it with the fact that this is a high stress time of year for a teacher, you've got an imperfect human response. I'm sorry you caught the brunt of someone's grouchiness. :hug:

A good thing to keep in mind is that we're all capable of being an ass from time to time, although when pushed hard, some more than others.


This whole scenario reminds me of :laugh::tongue::
[youtube="bB1F86_U96M"]JD vs Dr. Cox[/youtube]
 

Amargith

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Kids get enough pressure with raging hormones, having to achieve 24/7 in less than ideal homesituations. You cannot ask a kid to be the emotionally mature one or just tell them to 'deal with it'. Clearly, if it's spilling out of them, they need help. Im not saying this is the job of teachers, but there should be some option available to them. School shrink, lifecoach, whatever. Give them someone to go to. Experience can get you far, but different types learn in a different way and circumstances which give you experience are a wildcard at best.

I always find it ïronic that emotional health is just expected, and emotional suffering is something people are rarely willing to deal with, tolerate or know how to even address as it's considered a weakness. Yet every kid deals with that, some in less efficient ways than others, some in self-destructive ways without disrupting society. It's almost like 'as long as you're miserable and don't get in other peoples way', you're doing fine. The moment you start emo-ing, you're being inappropriate!

Gah, seriously, people should learn to realize that emotional health is a priority, and hard to attain for some, and that's it's not somethign to consider as only happening to weak and crazy people. The social stigma and for that matter, the emotional inaptitude of most people (ironically confronting themselves with their own lack of emotional maturity in many cases, somethign they do not usually take kindly to) to deal with this is staggering. And again, I don't judge those people for having that inaptitude or deciding that this isn't their field of expertise, but don't be judging others for daring to be emotionally unable to function either, especially not kids who are still trying to figure themselves out. Instead give them a nudge into the right direction, towards someone who does make this their job, and is willing/capable of dealing with this and help them out.

/rant :offtopic:

Carry on. :blush:
 

MonkeyGrass

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Oh, yikes. :cry: Yeah, I wasn't meaning to suggest that there shouldn't be some kind of emotional support system in place. Ideally, I think emotional guidance counseling/training should be available to every student.

My point was, not all college profs are equipped to provide it, and they're certainly not paid enough money to field everyone's emotional crisis. I'm definitely NOT encouraging a stigma for people with big emotional needs. To the contrary, I think *everyone* has them, and that every person I've ever met could benefit from emotional guidance. When my children are older, I plan on becoming an emotional counselor in some right or another.

Also, I believe that at some point, the young adult has to learn to take responsibility for getting themselves the emotional help/direction they need. That's all. I think there's a difference between talking about a 14yo in high school band and a 19yo college student who's out on their own. <muse>
 

run

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Yeah I'm starting to agree with the emotional guidance thing. It was the course on emotions I was wary about.


It's nice to hear about emotionally aware people (not that I expected you wouldn't be).
 
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