Sunday 16 September 2012

Economies of Effort


My friend and neighbour Sally is a hard working lecturer and writer. Due to start a research trip to the Amazon rain forest two days after returning from a holiday in France, she has decided not to return to Shropshire in between trips but to stay in London, meet other members of her expedition, and set off again almost immediately.

The problem is her lecture work at a London university for adult students, many of them from overseas. "Classes start the day after I return from Brazil", she said. "I shall be exhausted and jet-lagged; it's going to be very hard to concentrate on the students, who will all be new to me, and to provide a reasonable body of work for their first day. They'll just have to hear all about the trip." As this is not a problem I have ever come across I had no solution to offer.

"I know what I'll do", she said. brightening. "I've done it before and it has worked before. I shall simply ask each of them to write a short autobiography, ten, fifteen minutes long. It'll get us going and I will learn far more about them than asking them, one after the other, to tell me about their past education and work history".  I was impressed but doubted that ten or fifteen minutes of scribbled notes would give an accurate picture of a person's history. I'd need at least ten minutes just to collect my thoughts. Sally waved my objections aside. "They are journalists", she said, "I would certainly expect them to be able to write a concise profile of themselves in that time".

Once I'd stopped laughing at the cheek of it and got over the shock of this teaching aid when in need of recovery, I thought it quite a good idea. What if we could all ask new acquaintances to give a short resumée of themselves? When a musician introduces him/herself to another musician, they say : "John Smith, trumpet", that being the most important thing about them. At times I have been in long and tortuous conversation with a previously unknown person, desperately trying to work out who or what they are. And sometimes I have been bored out of my mind by people who tell me all about themselves, their aunt Matilda and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all in the first ten minutes.

I now need to go away and think what I would write in this fifteen minute autobiography; what do I do, flatter myself and leave out anything embarrassing, even if it is of importance, or tell the bare facts, warts and all. It's not so easy to pick out the most important aspects of one's life and history when there's been such a lot of it.

43 comments:

  1. As a writer it would depend on the audience for me. Am I writing for her or to find my place in the class. What does she want to know? Do my classmates needs to know anything about me? Are we going to be a team or does it not matter my interests and strengths? I think all of these questions would be answered in my mind in seconds...if I had any self-confidence or experience it would not be any great challenge. But maybe I am too superficial and have forgotten the importance of all of this.

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  2. Once, when going over to see a childhood friend I hadn't seen since middle school and meet her live-in boyfriend, in my early 20s, after being introduced he proceeded to ask us (me and my then husband) a variety of questions about ourselves and our relation to Bea. He called it 'getting the vital statistics out of the way' and gave him a small bit on information about us and how to relate to us.

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  3. ha i like the thought of having new acquaintences give a short bio...some might be a little longer i imagine...it is an interesting exercise though and helpful in situations where you have to give an impromptu intro...

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  4. It's a good exercise to do with writing students and one I've used to break the ice with a new group. Not only does it give the teacher an idea about the students themselves, it tells a lot about writing skills. The classes I taught were always small enough that the participants could share aloud what they'd written. It's challenging fun.

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  5. It's not so very different from our "about" pages on these blogs, is it? I always read those entries, not only for the details, but to see what approach people have chosen and what seems important to them. I've seen everything from a straight listing of dates and places to a comprehensive explanation of a woman's relationship to the universe, including the color of her aura. One artist just posted one of his paintings. It's all terrifically interesting.

    Of course, there's always Georgia O'Keeffe's take on all this. Pressed for a little self-revelation she said, “Where I was born and where and how I have lived is unimportant… It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest.”



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    1. This is what we do in Appalachia. We want to know who new acquaintances are, who their people are, where they come from. It's how we relate to one another.

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  6. I think I would not want to tell anything that is persobal about myself and only give the bare facts and those could be about any person at all and would really say very little about me. I don't care to share the impacts in my life that made the most difference. Thse are too close to my heart to talk about and are very private. I think I would just write: "I am Irene and I am a human being."

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  7. Certainly what I'd write in 15 minutes would have nothing to do with who I really am. But, I think she'll achieve her purpose.

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  8. I think it's a smashing idea and so versatile. It can be applied during hangover days too. I'm much more verbose when writing so you'd probably get more out of me in 15 minutes of writing than talking.

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  9. I agree with you Friko. It is hard to come up with what one should write in that amount of time. One thing about it, she will no doubt learn much about student just based on what they do share. How many will brag? Who will droll on? Some will be creative and memorable. Some will be boring.

    As a teacher, she will collect much information. I used to do this on the first day just to collect writing styles. I could assess mechanics, sentence structure, word use, voice, and idea development in the very first assignment. I might not learn much about who the student was, but I would learn much about the skill level they displayed.

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  10. Hello:
    When meeting people for the first time we play a very simple game. Gain points for finding out information about them, even if it is some tedious detail about Aunt Matilda, and lose points for anything given away about ourselves. Keeping score is something of a distraction!

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  11. My guess is that whatever you write will probably reveal a lot about you even as it doesn't tell the whole story. Personally, faced with this task, I wouldn't like it, but I would try to comply to the 'challenge'. Good to be reading your blog again, Friko -- I've missed you!

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  12. correctly or otherwise i tend to assume that my life, albiet occasionally of interest to me, would bore the pants off anyone else: so i tend not to go into great details when asked about it.

    I would probably struggle to make it as long as 15 minutes

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  13. I would think asking for a brief autobiography including pertinent education, work highlights and special recognition the student may have received -- perhaps why they're taking the class, any special expectations they may have for the course. Maybe an open-ended invitation that if there's writing time left to add anything else they might thing is important to be known about themselves. Without knowing more about the course, why specifically get into personal warts and all?

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  14. It would be something again....a short bio of acquaintances would solve a lot of time and heartache. Like the idea!! Good luck
    Hugs
    SueAnn

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  15. Yes, that 10 minute bio would be a challenge I reckon, but it will solve your friend's immediate problem huh? - Dave

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  16. I have been considering this very issue for a little while. I have been asked to do a potted biography as part of a new blogging adventure. However, who I am depends very much on the circumstance and the company in which I find myself. And the things which don't change are skeletal and very dull.
    I am finding it a challenge but I hope that it is a useful exercise for your friend and her class and that it gives her some breathing space.

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  17. ... a research trip to the Amazon rainforest?! How exciting, an expedition no less.
    I'm afraid "time's up!" would be called before I managed to pen one word! and I would need far more than 10 minutes to collect my thoughts. It could be a very interesting exercise.

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  18. I think it's a great idea. Years ago I was in training to be a Hospice volunteer and we were asked to do something similar in about the same amount of time. It was revealing to me what I chose to write. Today it would be entirely different, I'm sure! Good idea indeed.

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  19. I realize more and more that I write about my life and me.
    Other's write about such interesting topics.
    But I started my journal online mainly for children and grandchilden
    which are all over the world.
    They know what is going on in my life and they in turn email me.
    Have found it nice...
    to have so many people check in with med and they seem to like reading
    about my days.

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  20. 'what do I do, flatter myself and leave out anything embarrassing, even if it is of importance, or tell the bare facts, warts and all.'

    Tell the truth as Beloved would see you.

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  21. Dear Friko, writing the essence of myself and my experiences, dreams, adventures in fifteen minutes sounds daunting. Here am I, writing an on-line memoir that's not even half-way finished in this blogging world and posting story after story. That fifteen-minute restriction makes me wonder if I could find the thread that holds all those stories together. Maybe that would say who I am. But that, too, sounds daunting! Thanks for providing the catalyst for thought today. Peace.

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  22. If your friend hasn't gone to France already tell her I said this. It is an insult to ask older adults to write about their lives for 15 minutes, ridiculous in fact. Far better would be to ask them to write about why they are taking her course. I assume anyone interested in Brazil would love to write about their interest. She will get to know her students this way and they will think she cares about them and is not patronizing them with stupid make-work. Dianne

    PS, If I were her student, and I suspected she was teaching the course in a cavalier manner I would be insulted. However, I would not take her course. I took a course on South America and I think Peru is much more interesting and has a very old history.

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  23. I wouldn't know where to start. After all we have been blogging for years and what do people really know about us? Only the bits we want to present. Good idea if she can read between the lines.
    Di
    xxxx

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  24. I await with interest your decision about what to reveal, and what to leave unsaid.

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  25. Well put. How can one "Brand" oneself as we're lately instructed to do?

    I go awash in the totality of my NOW, and my rich PAST, and get swamped fast. I've come to feel that the little speeches and stories we trot out are less valuable than quality times shared doing something (even walking) mutually pleasant. Or blog-sharing.
    Much human contact is fatiguing to me. I like to bless and move on to my healing solitude. . . and my camera, keyboard, domestic life. . . . kitty. . .

    Wishing You a happy week,
    with Aloha from Honolulu
    Comfort Spiral
    =^..^=

    > < } } ( ° >




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  26. That's sure tough, but interesting nevertheless. Where and how to begin on the convoluted "me" is surely a challenge, and that fifteen minutes part seems the most daunting. I've seen many tutors do this, but only today I got to figure out the why part!

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  27. Friko, I think that I were given such an assignment, I might be naughty and just make up some fiction. Just to have a bit of fun.

    xo

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  28. In my home town, I run the local XING group (XING is one of those newfangled social web platforms, but unlike Facebook, mainly for business purposes) with monthly meetings for whoever wishes to attend. When there are sufficient new "faces" present at a meeting, before we start ordering our food and drinks etc., we usually have an introduction round. Everyone introduces themselves to the group with a few sentences; nobody is expected or required to speak for more than one or two minutes, and normally, it is no problem for any of the members to get across what they want others to know about them in 60 seconds. A good exercise, actually.

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  29. What about a 6-word autobiography? Then we'd really need to make some decisions.

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  30. It would be an interesting exercise requiring a fair bit of thought. I'd likely spend the first 13 minutes chewing on my pencil.

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  31. I've been doing a fair bit of that lately, writing grant applications which include a biography, brief but succint.

    I like Marcia's idea of 6 words, that would make it so much more interesting.

    H'm I'll have to work on that.

    XO
    WWW

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  32. Didn't we do this when writing our blog profiles? I had to think about that a lot.

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  33. I have a collection of short biogs (all different) that I've used for job applications, 'about the author' boxes in magazines, and profiles on various websites - and each one took a lot longer than 15 minutes to write!

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  34. Frico, Sally's right, journalists always describe any man by catchy phrases. They can also write about themselves the same way.

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  35. This is not a problem across the pond as most Yanks begin a conversation by asking things like: "So what do you do?", or "What's your line of work?" or "What business are you in?" Bottom line folks we Yanks you know.

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  36. What a creative way to recover and cover her class at the same time. Sounds as if she has a very interesting job.

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  37. It sounds like a great idea to me. My friend teaches English as a Second Language to adults and she always starts her semester off this way. It allows her to know a bit about them and to access their written language skills.

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  38. Huh. I don't know about it as a classroom exercise to kill off the time. Maybe. But it would be a fascinating personal exercise. Is the person other people see the one we think we are? I'm pretty sure we all have a lot of "down deeps" in us that if we put to paper for ourselves might be very honest. But would we put it down for others? I'm not so sure. I may have to try this. Set the timer and go!

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  39. Mmmmh condensing my life into fifteen minutes would result in a brief history (only the interesting (to me) stuff) and agree with Jeanie (above) that perhaps my deep stuff I might omit...

    Anna :o]

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  40. Hi Friko - someone else was doing something similar - "summarise you as a writer in x number of words" - I have to live life before anything tangible came up - but I certainly need to think about it - thanks for the extra gee up. Sally sounds like she's got her hands full!

    She must be fun to be around (at times!) .. cheers Hilary

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  41. Wonder what format they are to use. Can it be bullet format?

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