When it became commonplace to have classroom icebreaker activities, I am unsure, but what I am certain of is how they have always made me feel deeply awkward and unwilling. The classic and dreaded “fun fact” question has, in fact, kept me up at night. I could have 13 pets, be an avid letterboxd user, travel to 6 continents and even be a pescatarian, but as soon as the “fun fact” question is uttered, all brain activity ceases, and I find myself scrambling to find anything useful to say about myself at all. In those moments, I become the most boring person alive. At one point, I even created a note on my notes app to write down fun facts to preemptively prepare for such situations. These situations have left me sweating and dreading the start of any course. Though an extreme, I have even heard of individuals skipping the first sessions of a course due to their aversion to such activities.
That being said, I completely understand why they are used. What better way to introduce everyone within a classroom setting than for everyone to state their name and some personal information? Problem is, what if I prefer to keep my information and personal business to myself? What constitutes public and private information? This launched me into a nonproductive spiral of finding a possible fun fact which reveals some personal information, but not too much. Oversharers may potentially avoid this problem. Regardless, the concept of sharing a random piece of information to a silent classroom of strangers always felt manufactured and unnatural. I prefer if it were a more common practice to treat everyone like Shrek and un-peal their “onion layers” through natural social interaction, rather than a random get-to-know-you activity.
Additionally, the whole objective of ice breakers is to lighten the mood, but is the mood ever lightened? Generally, a decent amount of any class is on edge during the first section of a course, and for the socially anxious or introverted, icebreaker activities like these inspire even more fear and distress.
I understand that getting to know classmates is important, so what I feel could replace classic icebreaker activities could be assigning people to groups to complete a subject-based activity. These activities could be relevant to the course, so as to provide individuals with an opportunity to actually work on a productive project. That way, on a smaller scale basis, individuals can grow familiarity without having their brains blank. Those interactions also feel more natural and more conducive to friendly class relations in the long term.