this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2026
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I absolutely hate those "let's go around the circle and introduce ourselves" exercises. Making children do them seems especially cruel.
One could say it's healthy for a growing child to occasionally be put in awkward situations where they have to define themselves. It's not fun but it helps shape personality.
I'm 44 and I used to hate those too. But there is one fun fact about these. If you go first, you can fill it in as you want and every one will follow your format. Quite funny once you notice this.
Anyway next time I have one of those, I'll make sure to add "favorite dinosaur" to it.
Don't you think it's good to train children to be able to talk to strangers, in public and introduce themselves? I know it's stressful but I think it is useful.
It's not training though, you get thrown into the real thing immediately that decides the rest of your social time at school.
If you were encouraged and made to practice in private before, then I would agree with you. But there is no "training" in this, it's just, either you can already do it or you can't.
It would be possible to coach kids about what to say in such situations, make them prepare and practice in private, let the teacher hear the introduction before anyone else, give feedback, and then put them in front of the class. And afterwards, talk about how it went, what went well, what to improve. Does any of this happen? If no, then it's no training.
Aren't you exaggerating a little? Kids get to know each other better with time too.
Agreed with doing it with guidance and feedback.
It'd just be a lot less horrible if you don't have to come up with something to say about yourself. Kids are RUTHLESS and if you're not quick on your feet, or even if you are, but the thing you say can be taken wrong, you will be bullied for the rest of your time in school over it. Unless you luck out and someone else's thing is even worse.
That's just not how people introduce themselves out in the real world though.
work is the real world and i have some news
The problem is the lack of structure.
I organize a lot of workshops involving people from experts to executives, where you always need an introduction round, and I give them a structure to follow. Makes the task it easier, but it’ll also be much more useful for the group, as we’ll focus in the aspects of a person that matter for the context of the workshop.
For a class intro in primary school, it could be:
I just made this up, but a teacher could probably come up with something even more fitting.
The point is, always give people structure or guidance, you’ll get much more out of similar introduction rounds.
Sure but in the real world you will sometimes get this and sometimes get no structure. It's been about 50/50 for me so far. Being able to do either on the fly is good.
Someone in our new partner team has scheduled a meeting for 11am today for us to introduce ourselves to each other.
Guess how it's going to be structured
You throw a ball at each other and whoever holds it needs to introduce themselves?
I'm so sorry.
What do you think is different compared to when you join some new company, training or club and you are asked to present yourself to the group?
That happens a lot less than you think. And I try to avoid clubs etc that do that nonsense.
I have done this innumerable times at multiple jobs. Maybe it happens a lot more than you think
Depends on the job but this happens all the time for me because I often have to sit in meetings with customers (b2b company) and so usually we have to introduce ourselves at the start of the meeting.
Maybe you are missing some nice encounters then.
Depends how many of these kids will end up in AA meetings
I guess the teachers will just have to make educated guesses based on which students they presume will end up strung out, and then have only those kids practice the introductions.
(But, for real, I've encountered this shit in numerous workplaces)
Yeah, and the people who do it in social situations are usually corporate drones.
Introducing yourself to others is like the basis of all socialization. 🤔
Introducing yourself to others is normal. Speaking infront of a group is not. Both can bring out social anxiety but public speaking is different than socializing with a small group.
Generally speaking, socialization is like a muscle. You have to use it to build it. Which is why we have schools introduce people to social settings in controlled settings and with incrementally more difficulty.
"Nobody should ever have to interact with more than a handful of other people at a time" is a recipe for building a population of socially anxious people.
When you cloister kids at a young age, then introduce them to a big school full of more advanced students, you're throwing them into the deep end of the pool late in the game. But just insisting "they're 11 years old! they'll never be social! lost cause!" is infinitely more cruel than weening them into society as best as your system can.
Speaking a few sentences in front a classroom sized group is pretty normal and kids should be exposed to it. Uncomfortable experiences are a part of growing up.
Of course. But as the first thing overall with no prior training about it at all? No coaching about examples on what to say, no advice about your choices before the real thing?
What training should they need?
I'd say learning to talk is all they really need. The rest is experience.
So as soon as you learn to talk, you can handle every social situation adequately? That's news to me.
You may not understand this particular issue, because you never had trouble introducing yourself publicly. But you probably struggled at something else, and don't you think training would have (or did) help you there? So obviously it would also help people, who do exist, that struggle with public introductions of themselves.
No, they didn't say that, they said that knowing how to talk is the only prerequisite. The rest comes only with practice, the sooner the better. Anxiety's a bitch, I get it, but you make it manageable by desensitizing yourself to those situations (preferably starting with the low risk ones like introductions), not avoiding them.
Edit: I mean the context is school, it literally is the training
its a few sentences about yourself you dont need coaching. People should have done this countless times before getting to Anon's age. If he still needs coaching at his age he probably has a learning disorder and I dont mean that in a rude way.
How do you know how old anon is? And anyway, we're not talking about anon here, we're talking about kids.
Both are very important. Not being able to speak in front of a group can change the trajectory of your entire life. Children especially should have as many paths open as possible for when they're ready to decide which one to take.
Yes, but some people, myself included, find forcibly requiring individuals to introduce themselves in succession to be disingenuous.
I have had to participate in a "Everyone introduce themselves" like five times at a job I've worked at less than a year. I don't enjoy it, and I don't think anyone does, but it's also important to know who the people you are working with are. Would I ever do it if I didn't have to? No way. But I do. And practice has made it easier at least.
Yeah, but there's something about forcing people to do it that just removes the fun from it all.
Is it cruel?
I don't agree, I think if you force a crying child to say their name — that's obviously going too far. But it is important to get kids used to socializing, human beings need other human beings ultimately.
i'm sorry you experienced that. if it's any consolation, the only times anyone gets forced to do anything at my wife's program is for safety reasons. like, get out of the burning building! don't elope from the classroom to the street with busy traffic or the shooting range just o'er yonder! life and death stuff. i want to say teachers have learned better, but i also want to say teachers have seen just that specific bullshit and been appalled by it. y'know, because they're human like you and most of me have empathy.
i do too. I have 3 believable truths 3 unbelievable truths, 3 believable lies, 3 unbelievable lies, 7 "interesting facts" about me (i used to have 8 but one of them, uh it required me to tell a joke and that does not work at 8 AM so now it's gone. I don't function 8 AM well before.) and i can pick and choose between my pre-prepped bullshit based on my audience and how awake and healthy i feel.
worst part is i used to do improv so for the longest time i would just wing it and did fine. then they started doing them before coffee. now i gotta copy my bullshit offa my phone onto cue cards if i have one of those things