Appreciating Differences - MBTI - Jack Falt - Ottawa area, Ontario, Canada

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Temperament Descriptions for Teens

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Artisans
Want the freedom to choose the next act. Seek to have impact, to get results. Want to be graceful, bold and impressive. Generally excited and optimistic. Absorbed in the action of the moment. Oriented toward the present. Seek adventure and stimulation. Hunger for spontaneity. Trust impulses, luck and their ability to solve any problem they run into. Think in terms of variation. Ability to notice and describe rich detail, constantly seeking relevant information. Like freedom to move, festivities and games. Natural negotiators and trouble-shooters. Seize opportunities. Gifted tacticians, deciding the best move to make in the moment, the expedient thing to do. Frequently drawn to all kinds of work that requires variation on a theme.
Intelligence and Language: Their strength is tactics—the ability to move into a situation and do what needs to be done. They have the same range of intellectual ability (from the mentally challenged to the brilliant genius) as other temperaments. They find formal learning rather tedious and don’t like to be bothered reading the books to master an academic subject. They use rather colloquial and colourful language.
Learning Style: In a restrictive environment, they get bored, restless and stressed. Having to sit for long periods of time can result in their inattention. They learn best in a hands-on setting. Class activities like games, contests and chances to perform give them the variety they like. However, they are quite capable of doing the necessary study to get the training they need to do to get the credentials for anything they put their minds to, even to the post graduate level of college. Their favourite subjects are music, art, and physical education.
Animal Metaphor: The fox does not plan its day. It just goes out each morning knowing that it has to survive. It is constantly scanning the countryside to see if any opportunities present themselves. Artisans function in a similar way. They don’t like long term planning. They just want to see what turns up, and they have the confidence to know they can deal with any situation.
With Friends: They don’t like planning ahead, preferring to be spontaneous. They enjoy the comradery of team sports and being part of an organization.
Romantic Relationships: They like dates to be exciting, trying new and different activities. They can seize a romantic moment to impress their partner.
With Family: They need their space and freedom. They like the fun family times. They find it hard to follow rules and would like it if everyone could just do his or her own thing.
A Few Career Suggestions: Actor, Auto Mechanic, Bartender, Chiropractor, Comedian, Commercial Artist, Industrial Arts Teacher, Labour Relations Specialist, Mediator,  Musician, Physical Education Teacher, Physio-therapist, Trial Lawyer, and X-ray Technician.

Guardians
Want to fit in, to have membership. Hunger for responsibility, accountability and predictability. Tend to be generous, to serve and to do their duty. Establish and maintain institutions and standard operating procedures. Tend to protect and preserve, to stand guard and warn. Look to the past and tradition. Foster their culture with ceremonies and rules. Trust contracts and authority. Want security and stability. Think in terms of what is conventional, comparisons, associations and discrete elements. Generally serious and concerned, fatalistic. Skilled at ensuring that things, information and people are in the right place, in the right amounts, the right quality, at the right time. Frequently gravitate towards business and commerce.
Intelligence and Language: Their strength is logistics—the ability to get the right things at the right time to the right people and not to the wrong people. They are excellent with detail and have the patience to see that everything checks out. Their language tends to be factual, and they are not as comfortable with abstract ideas.
Learning Style: They learn best in structured situations and feel most comfortable when they are able to follow an outline given by the instructor. They prefer that the teacher stay on topic.They are able to do their share of any group project assigned. They like their subjects to be useful and traditional, such as business, accounting, history and government.
Animal Metaphor: The beaver is known for its tireless ability to keep on working, even when adversity keeps destroying their creations. They plan for the future by storing up food for the winter. The Guardian with its strong sense of responsibility works with few complaints to do what has to be done. They are the ones who save for a rainy day.
With Friends: They like to plan activities with their friends. They are careful with their money and like their friends to be the same. They join teams, clubs and organizations because they give them a sense of belonging.
Romantic Relationships: Being loyal and faithful is very important to them so they expect this of their dates. They expect them to be dependable and on time. They show their affection in more practical ways. They are more likely to give a practical gift rather than a flashy object that will be used only once.
With Family: They like the stability that a family provides, enjoying family traditions and celebrations. During teenage years they may draw away from family, but underneath family is still important.
A Few Career Suggestions: Accountant, Air Traffic Controller, Bookkeeper, Child Care Worker, Corrections Officer, Court Reporter, Dental Hygienist, Elementary Teacher, Insurance Agent, Health Care Worker, Lawyer, Police Officer, Restaurant Manager, Statistician, and Travel Agent.

Idealists
Want to be authentic, benevolent and empathic. Search for identity, meaning and significance. Relationship oriented, particularly valuing meaningful relationships. Romantic, idealistic, wanting to make the world a better place. Look to the future. Trust their intuition, imagination, impressions. Focus on developing potential, fostering and facilitating growth through coaching, teaching, counselling, communicating. Generally enthusiastic. Think in terms of integration and similarities and look for universals. Gifted in the use of metaphors to bridge different perspectives. Diplomatic. Frequently drawn to work that inspires and develops people and relationships.
Intelligence and Language: Their strength is diplomacy—they have the empathic ability to know what the other person needs, and are able to bridge the emotional gap between people. They have excellent use of words and language and tend to use more abstract concepts in their speech, particularly describing feelings and emotions.
Learning Style: They like to learn by participating in group discussions. They need to feel that the teacher cares about the subject and the students. They like the teacher to be friendly. Their favourite subjects are about people, languages, drama, literature, and psychology.
Animal Metaphor: The dolphin likes to be in contact with other dolphins, keeping in touch by communicating with one another. They are playful and friendly. They have been known to rescue people stranded at sea. Idealists have a need to feel connected to other people. They like helping people fulfil their potential.
With Friends: They want people with whom they can share their deepest feelings. They want to know that they can trust their friends with their innermost secrets. They belong to groups for the opportunities to make friends and form new relationships.
Romantic Relationships: They are looking for the perfect love. They want their relationships to be very romantic with lots of touching, holding hands, love poems and notes, flowers and quiet talks.
With Family: They want their families to be happy and loving. They are very sensitive to rejection and conflicts, even when they are only on the sidelines. They value their family’s positive opinion of them. They like to have at least one family member they can have intimate talks with.
A Few Career Suggestions: Career Counsellor, Drug and Alcohol Counsellor, Drama Teacher, Family Care Provider, Fashion Writer, Foreign Language Translator, Journalist, Music Teacher, Recreation Leader, Religious Leader, Sign Language Interpreter, Singer, Social Work, Therapist, and Writer.

Rationals
Want knowledge and to be competent, to achieve. Seek to understand how the world and things in it work. Theory oriented. Everything is conditional and relative. Oriented to the infinite. Trust logic and reason. Want to have a rationale for everything. Skeptical. Think in terms of differences, delineating categories, definitions, structures and functions. Hunger for precision, especially in thought and language. Skilled at long-range planning, inventing, designing and defining. Generally calm. Foster individualism. Frequently gravitate toward technology and the sciences. Well suited for engineering and devising strategy, whether in the social or physical sciences.
Intelligence and Language: Their strength is strategy—the long term planning that sees to over all needs and prepares to avoid possible problems. Their use of words tends to be rather scholarly, even to correcting improper use of words by others.
Learning Style: They learn best in a lecture style presentation or learning on their own. They have lots of questions and respect teachers they think are competent. They can get bored when the pace of the class moves too slowly. They have wide ranging interests and often study on their own any topic they think is worthwhile pursuing. Their favourite subjects are sciences and mathematics, particularly at the advanced and theoretical levels.
Animal Metaphor: The owl sits quietly in a tree, looking so wise, surveying the ground. It is very methodical in the way it goes about the business of surviving. They are quick to pounce on the unsuspecting mouse. Rationals want to know all there is to know about any given subject. They demand a very high standard of themselves, as they demand a high stand in others. In their need to be right, they can be rather merciless when dealing with others.
With Friends: They may seem rather cool and without emotion. Their emotions are there, but hidden and deep, and not easily accessible to even themselves. So they expect friends to relate on a more intellectual level. They join groups to satisfy their intellectual needs. They may join sports activities to develop competencies in specific areas.
Romantic Relationships: They are attracted to someone who can stimulate them intellectually. On dates they may go to intellectual activities. However, when they are smitten, they can be head over heels in love.
With Family: In the family they often appear as loners as it is unusual to find someone they can relate to in an intellectual way within the family. They like private time to think. They may find family activities boring and have difficulty following family rules that don’t make sense to them.
A Few Suggested Careers: Airline Pilot, Archaeologist,  Architect, Chemical Technician, Industrial Designer, Movie Critic, News Broadcaster, Photographer, Psychiatrist, Scientist, Speech Pathologist, Software Programmer, Stock Broker, Surgeon, and Technical Writer.

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