The Odd Science Teacher
There are two analytical-narrative textual artifacts that can help to orient our study of intrapersonal or self-communication, as presented in this book. The first one is a story of a primary-school teacher of mine, to whom I’ll simply refer as “Mr. ‘K,’” and the other is an article by Schwartz & Pines (2019), from the Harvard Business Review.
First, the story of Mr. K: I believe many or most of my schoolmates from elementary and middle school before 1998—at an all-boys’ Catholic boarding school in Kampala, Uganda, can recall our very odd science teacher, Mr. K. Mr. K would often walk around our school campus apparently deep in thought, clearly speaking softly to himself while gesticulating dramatically—or even pantomimically, the way one normally does while telling a dramatic story, or arguing with another interlocutor.
In other words, Mr. K was behaving in a manner somewhat similar to that of an apparently mentally-ill person. And perhaps he was indeed. But in addition to being one of—if not the nicest seventh-grade teacher(s), Mr. K was apparently very smart.
After all, he never carried any books or notes as he lectured and wrote extensive notes for us on the blackboard, and he seemed to have an encyclopedic reserve of facts and factoids, teaching science in an engaging and fun manner! I believe many readers of this book might be able to relate to Mr. K’s behavior—i.e., as a characteristic of your own behavior, or that of someone you know—a friend, relative, etc.
And contrary to the false but popular notion that (apparent/visible) intrapersonal communication is a characteristic of insanity (e.g., Zoppi and Legg, 2021), in this book, I argue earnestly that all human beings utilize intrapersonal communication—i.e., communication with our own selves—in various contexts. In fact, I also argue that this type of communication is vital to our holistic growth and improvement.
I also try to provide a possible template: 1) for the study of this type of communication, as well as 2) the systematic gradual execution of the above-mentioned personal-professional growth and improvement processes, during and beyond crises such as the current COVID-19 pandemic (as of mid-2021 and beyond). In this regard, I can cite the aforementioned article by Schwartz & Pines (2019) from Harvard Business Review as proof, given the fact that essentially, the process they are describing as vital for leaders’ professional growth is in fact (arguably) a method of applied systematic intrapersonal- or self-communication. In this vein, we need to first clearly establish what intrapersonal-/self-communication (SC) is and is not. Throughout the rest of this chapter, I attempt to clearly define intrapersonal-/self-communication (SC), provide the general theoretical—as well as autoethnographic—background from which the study arises, and introduce the research questions and methodological frameworks that I use to answer the questions (including a preview of research findings).