Hello House Leaders,
I was pleased with our Heads of House meeting today; we got a lot done. I'm excited that we're so close to starting up this whole thing!
The new ideas Jackie and Mel had for Sorting students into Houses were fantastic; just exactly what we needed. I was never really completely happy with the process as we had discussed it over the summer, but I think this new system will (eventually) be perfect, as it combines elements of the earliest discussions we had about Sorting based on characteristics in some way with the process that, till today, we were going to employ. Of course, we'll have to work out the kinks and smooth it out a bit, and I'm sure we'll learn some things from this year for next year. Let's all try to remember that we still have to view this as a work-in-progress.
Obviously, I think one of the most important facets will be the questions. Even though we're still going to employ a stochastic element in the Sorting process, having the starting foundation of the questions, I think, balances the ideal of uniformity with at least a nod to alignment via traits. But I completely agree with Jonathan that it's important that the questions not be too obvious. I mean, if we ask questions like, "Do you prefer medical/legal dramas, sci-fi shows, reality shows, or sitcoms," it will be too easy to figure out. On the other hand, I guess we could always put a few questions like that on the forms just to make them think they've figured it out, but then we only look at the real questions. What does everyone think of that?
Of course, once we have the results from the questions, there are still the details of how we're going to translate that. The rating scale we discussed could work, although I still think that's where we need to insert the random element; right after the ratings are determined and before the categorization. I understand JP's point about the potential for imbalance if we do it then; but like I said, I also think the problems with putting the random factor in before that step could potentially cause much larger problems; by analogy, it would be like starting a voyage with your bearing half a degree off. At first, it won't make much of a difference, but the longer you travel, the further off you get from where you meant to be! If we put in the random element too early, it basically defeats the purpose of the whole new process. (At least, though, we all agreed that we can't do the random component after the categorization.)
So we only have a week or two to figure this out...let's get some ideas flowing!
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I have been reviewing past issues of "Psychology Today" and have compiled a stack of personality questions that I think we can use on these sorting forms.
We want the randomness, sure, to avoid complete redundancy of the psychological quotients we discussed yesterday, but I still believe that finding those "core personalities" for each House is essential, especially in this first year. Who knows? It may be as simple as a "favorite color" question. One more thought: do not discount the value of a Rorschach determination on at least one of the questions - it could be the key we are looking for!
I stumbled into a discussion of Jung with the AP class today and I think a few symbolic questions might be in order. I know that Jackie's beloved pop-psych magazines would poo-poo the concepts Jung espoused, but a few questions pointed towards a totem of some sort could yield quite a bit.
Jackie, I actually think the Rorschach idea has a lot of potential. My only objection is practical. Namely, how can we administer Rorschach tests in a manner that will not 1) take too much time; 2) dilute the efficacy of the rest of the system; 3) potentially "contaminate" the results of nearby applicants. It seems to me you'd almost have to do them one-on-one; unless you have ideas about how to work around that.
I'll send you some questions that I've come up with, too; so you can make those forms ASAP.
Mel, I think at least some Jungian questions would be appropriate; but obviously we need to be careful about starting down that road!
Jungian archetypes are interesting, but I think they will not fully support personality classifications for these Houses. The archetypes seem to be more suited for the stages of human development rather than the more static situation we are dealing with here.
I have seen tests online where all the student does is randomly select five hues from a spectrum of colors and the results are immediately determined. It's some sort of subconscious exam or something like that...
It wouldn't be impossible for us to do the same thing on paper. All you do is have the students select different colors from a whole spectrum and assign different point values to every shade. We then add up the points and different values will wind up in different houses.
Of course, we'd have to print in only desaturated colors because the ink cartridges cannot sustain the amount of forms we'd have to make.
We can use my feng shui books from college as a guide.
I can see Noah's point about properly interpreting the Rorschach questions - it would be impractical given the number of students we have.
However, JP's idea with the colors sounds good since it seems to side step language to tap into true personality inclinations.
I think that an excellent complementary question is the one Noah posted on his blog about TV shows. Studies have shown that a person's brain waves are more active while sleeping than watching television. TV show preferences may provide a cultural insight to personality that we can use along with JP's color preference question.
I like JP's idea of the color hues--but I think we can accomplish much the same thing much more quickly with a few totemic questions. Honestly, I'm not advocating any sort of deep, Jungian therapy--dolls, toys, dreams, etc. All I'm saying is we can make a quick assessment of traits with a very few questions. We could get an adequate sort into with two or three. I'd be happy to write them.
I think I'm out of the loop--have we finalized the questionnaire?
Jackie's going to work up a draft and get it to all of us so we can look it over, approve it, then start testing and signing students up later this week.
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