Wednesday

Wednesday has arrived and this Wednesday is also irrigation day. It looks like it will be dark when I head out to open the floodgates at six this morning; even the moon is just a sliver and won’t help to illuminate the path.

I’m enjoying a second cup of coffee this morning as I sit and rack my brain, trying to come up with a subject or two for this blog. I’ve read the headlines but nothing seemed to interest me.

I did review my tape recordings (made while walking) and made some notes from those, so I may have something worthwhile to write about yet. For instance; I was opening a package of pocket sized Kleenex yesterday and once again I opened the wrong side of the adhesive sticker that is used to secure the opening. That made me think; why do I always do that? I looked at the package and its design and I saw that the arrow on the sticker was pointing the wrong direction. But, since I always make this mistake, someone…someone in charge at the Kleenex plant, has made a decision that the arrow should point in that direction. Why? I think it’s a function of personality type and the person who made the decision is a Sensing Type and not an Intuitive. Laurae, a Sensing Type always opens the correct side and on occasion I have even asked her to open the package for me, just to make sure I get it right. Oh sure, it’s just a Kleenex package, but I began to wonder if there aren’t more instances of this type of thing. Industrial design is big business, yet some of the major decisions for the design are decided by Type.

Another instance of Type deciding outcome came to mind and that was in testing. Written tests. When confronted by a test, an Intuitive will begin at question #1 and quickly scan all of the questions, answering all that they can. Then they will return to the top of the list and begin a second review of the questions that they hesitated at answering. After 3 or 4 such reviews, they will then begin the process of studying the questions that they couldn’t answer. This method allows the Intuitive to finish a test much faster than a Sensing Type, who will be reading and thinking about each question in order. They will not move on to the next question until they have solved the first.

What is wrong with all of this is the fact that the person administering the test will think that the Intuitive Types are somehow, brighter than the Sensing Types. In fact, most tests are designed to benefit the Intuitive because most tests are timed. The Sensing Type is still answering questions (correctly) when the test ends and then loses points because of unanswered questions. The Intuitive gets an edge because they were able to answer all of the questions, though not necessarily correctly. And the majority of educators…are (Surprise!) Intuitive’s.