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This article was written by Megan McDonald on EdWeek
I grew up reading—at the school library, on the bookmobile, at the comic book store, at home next to the heater under the piano. As a girl, I found pieces of myself in the characters of Ramona, Anne of Green Gables, Laura Ingalls, Jo March, Harriet the Spy, Jane Eyre.
By the time I got out of college, like any bright-eyed 20-something, I was searching for myself. I had taken my share of psychology classes. Armed with my now-tattered volume of Carl Jung’s Memories, Dreams, and Reflections, I decided to take the Myers-Briggs personality test. Back then, before the age of the Internet, you had to find somebody to administer it.
I seem to remember quite a lot of questions about parties.
It’s Friday night. Would you rather attend a party or stay home and read a book?
Read a book.
At a party, do you get tired and leave early or are you the last one to leave?
Leave early, so I can go home and read a book.
Would you rather spend time alone or host a dinner party?
Spend time alone so I can read a book.
You get the idea. I had to wait a week for the results. When I returned to the testing center, I sat across from a thin-faced, bespectacled woman in sensible shoes. I confess my palms were sweaty, and my heart was pounding a bit. After all, I was about to discover who I was.
The woman looked over my scores, peered at me over her glasses, and said: “I don’t know what to tell you. You should have been a nun.”
Call me “bookworm.”
We live in a world full of noise, a world full of sparkle and glitter, an extroverted world, and I had just discovered that I was an off-the-charts introvert.
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