Personality Types or Temperaments

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away ~ Henry David Thoreau

I am sure that some time in our lives we all have felt as though we marched to a different drummer. No one likes to be categorized, but sometime it helps to look at personalities in order to understand ourselves and others better. I recently revisited a test based on the Carl Jung personality categories and found it very interesting.

There are many types of personality test like the one designed by Carl Jung and Isabel Myers-Briggs. Here is an example of the test you can try out to see which of the 16 personalitiy types you fall into. I asked family members and friends to see which personality type they were and it was interesting to see the results. You might want to try it.

The four main personality temperments are: the Guardians, the Idealists, the Artisans and the Rationals. Here is an explanation of the different personality temperments. Each of these personality temperaments are further divided into four to make 16 different types. More explanations of the personality temperaments or types can be found here.

Another type of personality system is the Enneagram which is based on nine different personality types. You can take the free 10-minute sampler test here (at the bottom of the page).
A teacher friend of mine uses this system in his daily life and with his students. Try it out and you may learn something about yourself that you didn't know.

A book, Odd Ducks and Birds of a Feather, by Elizabeth Rodenz PhD, that I have recently discovered is a story about the different personality temperaments in the Myers-Briggs personality types.

After listening to the ant researcher, Deborah Gordon, I couldn't help but wonder if we are similar to ants. Do we have preconceived natures and temperaments? If this is true, wouldn't we be happier and have a more productive community if we fed those natural strengths and temperaments, instead of ignoring them and assuming what is good for one is good for all? What if we actually catered to these personalities? What would our world look like? What would our schools be like?

Would we offer explorations to those students with adventuresome spirits? J.J Abrams, the writer, director and producer of such TV programs as Lost, and Alias said in a recent talk that he attributes much of the way he thinks and creates to his grandfather who was constantly feeding his interest in mystery by giving him objects for him to explore and feeding this inate interest in mystery and creativity. What if we all had a grandfather like that? What if our schools actually did that?

What if we tested each student each year or couple years to find what their personalities or temperament is and then organized their school year according the that?