If You Do Not Hear A Student, Is The Child Really Present? A Cartesian Problem.

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Today I am writing about children in school who are seen but seldom heard. Each of these conditions, to be seen and to be heard or not, is a personal choice a specific group of children. While most kids clamor for the attention of their peers and their teachers, there are kids who are inclined or consciously choose to be visibly present every day AND to be audibly and participatorily absent. It raises a spin on Cartesian logic. If a shy or introverted child is present in the classroom everyday but never volunteers to speak and shuns large group engagement is the child really here? Is the child successfully learning? Is school supporting and helping shy and introverted children?

A different kind of invisibility.

While learning can be exciting, schooling can be devastating. Universally, our youngest children are social beings when they enter school. As they look at their classmates, they only see other children just like themselves and they instinctively move toward and with their new age-mates. If they cannot be the first in line, they all want to be the second. The group, like a swarm of bees, moves together and any child who wanders off, quickly scurries to rejoin. Their judgements of each other only last a micro-second because the very next moment holds new excitements and things not to be missed. They seldom see differences that may exist between themselves and others.

Early school days are filled with the excitement of new things. Children have large eyes and hands that want to touch everything. There is sensory stimulation galore. Most children are energized by the sounds, sights, and activity of their school environments. In fact, they contribute to the managed chaos. School is a beehive of activity.

Early in their school experiences, children learn that attention swings between the whole and individual students constantly. When their teacher asks a question, many children want to answer at once. Before the question is finished they have their hands in the air waving and saying “Call on me! Call on me!’ At school, taking turns is a learned school behavior. However, with taking turns comes the spotlight of attention. When a child asks the teacher a question or the teacher asks a child a question, the attention of all other students and the teacher is on THE student. How a child responds to being the focus of attention can decide whether the child will choose to be visible or invisible in school.

Elevated levels of sensory stimulation and focused attention abound in school. In fact, schooling promotes these and success in school requires children to adapt to these two conditions. So, what about the child who is shy or introverted?

Yes, the child may be present every day. Yes, the child is present but seems to cower at sudden and loud noises and overly excited and prefers to work alone. Yes, the child has opportunities but declines to speak and never volunteers to speak. Yes, the child can learn successfully if the child can do so independently. And no, schools typically prefer and reward extroverted children and do not help and support shy and introverted children very well.

Choosing to be a non-participant is both an unlearned and learned behavior.

What causes a child to clam up in school? Fear and/or avoidance. Shy children fear or are highly self-conscious about being negatively evaluated by others. Introverted children avoid external stimulation and prefer quiet and solitary environments to process their own thoughts. Fear and avoidance – each is a distinct psychology and emotion and are not the same. They may overlap – shy children can also be introverted. And they may seem contradictory – introverts can seem outgoing, and extroverts can prefer shy environments. However, in school, we tend to lump the shy and introverted together. They are children who seldom volunteer in class or do not like to take part in public and social activities. They avoid being in the spotlight or being singled out. As a result, most teachers “let them ride,” do not call on them, and leave them alone because they do not cause trouble or draw attention to their needs. We let shy and introverted children become invisible in our classrooms.

Shyness is a real behavior and can be the product of a variety of things. Shyness or behavioral inhibition can be genetic. This inherited trait is related to about 15% of children who appear shy. Inherently, some children are cautious, tentative, and sensitive in social settings. They can be shy by nature.

Children can become shy and tentative when their parent(s) is domineering. A mom or dad who is overbearing, overly critical, and loud in directing a child can cause that child to become tentative. If the child were older, we would say they are “brow beaten.” An overly critical parent diminishes a child’s willingness to take risks. Why volunteer for loud, unwanted criticism? Adults around them can cause children to be shy.

Shyness, as in social anxiety, also can be attributed to personal experience. A child builds confidence and social security when she is successful in engaging with others, in raising a hand to volunteer, and giving correct responses when asked questions. Overtime, these successes encourage risk taking. However, the lack or success and a personalization of failed attempts can cause the opposite. It does not take many disappointments in social settings for a child to self-create a fear of any events that could result in public failure.

Social anxiety also can be the result of peer intimidation, ridicule, and harassment. If a classmate(s) makes fun of a child’s failure to answer a question correctly or asking a question another student labels as “stupid,” that child can become inhibited from speaking in class. Student to student bullying is a hot topic in schools today with interest on stopping bullies and helping the bullied. Too often the bullied already face other challenges.

At an extreme level, shyness can be a social phobia and is classified as a mental health issue.

Introversion and extroversion also have a genetic basis. Heredity accounts for 40% to 60% of children characterized as either introverted or extroverted. In their inherited biologies introverts have a higher level of baseline cortical arousal and dopamine sensitivity in their brains. They already are intrinsically stimulated so they avoid extrinsic stimulation. Over stimulation with more dopamine actually drains their energy and makes them emotionally edgy.

At an extreme level, introversion also is classified as a mental health issue.

Classroom anonymity.

Being shy can just be shyness and being introverted can just be introversion. They are are not related to intelligence and are not synonymous with school failure. Many valedictorians, National Honor Society members, accomplished athletes, and school leaders are shy and/or introverted students. They succeed in the classroom fringe and school shadows where they avoid attention or environmental distractions. They find anonymity in taking tests and submitting written assignments and papers. Given the solitude of paper and pencil, now digital schoolwork, these students can quietly earn As and Bs and build strong academic records without raising a hand in class or being in the front of a line. They learn to work independently, whenever possible, and often are the most creative and divergent thinking children in class. If assigned to group work, they make positive contributions, often leading the group in a behind-the-scenes way that does not draw overt attention.

They excel in sports and arts that feature independent, solo performances in more controlled environments. They run and swim, play golf, and chess and e-games, and debate, and build robots. The endure negative aspects of these with a focused commitment on what they can control – their personal achievement.

Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, each stupendously successful in their business lives, were shy and introverted in school. Buffett says he became physically ill in anticipation of public speaking and would do all he could to avoid it. Gates is a classic introvert who focused on academics and showed asocial behaviors of awkward or rude social awareness. Introversion can cause children to miss or not recognize social cues clear to others. Successful introversion breeds continuous introversion.

Though good examples of introversion, Buffett and Gates are outliers. Few shy children will reach their levels of worldly success. The question before us is “What potentiality, like a Buffett or Gates or just a good, solid, and productive person, lies behind the shell of a shy or introverted child in school?”

Insecurity is a hard nut to crack.

Success in school requires a substantial level of risk taking. Children must navigate different environments each having its own challenges. School busses, hallways, cafeterias, restrooms, playgrounds, recesses and before and after school activities, as well as classrooms, are risky places. They also can be places possessed by elevated levels of activity, noise, lights, and chaos. In each of these, we see children walk along the walls, sit alone, appear head down, and talk with no one. They are risk and chaos averse individuals. And they can thrive when their work is evaluated not their persona.

There are self-help routes available to shy people and introverted children. Buffett enrolled in a Dale Carnegie public speaking course and says what he learned changed his life. With determination and strong personal effort, an introvert can become less introverted. The last words are key to Buffett – he became less introverted by learning skills of social engagement, like public speaking. Two things are true – earned billions of dollars and he still is a shy person.

Bill Gates was a loner in school avoiding large group activities and social events. He also is a gifted as a computer programmer and scientist. He has extraordinary strategic vision, critical thinking skills, and intellectual rigor. He overcomes his introversion when speaking about his work passions but prefers solitude when not. Due to his many successes, he can selectively choose when to be less introverted.

As educators, we can be as life changing for shy and introverted children as Dale Carnegie was for Warren Buffett. Our goal should not be to change shy children into attention seekers or introverts into extroverts. We need to teach them less shy and introverted behaviors and mentor them to optimize their personal assets. At the end of the day, shyness and introversion are not bad behaviors, they are behavioral preferences.

We can help and support the shy and the introverted child in your classroom by –

  • Providing opportunities for children to engage in independent and small-group work. Give all children to choice to work autonomously or in a small group (2-3) as often as possible. While some lesson activities are most productive as whole group activities, alternatives support all children.
  • Before whole group or larger group activities, incorporating time for children to process their thinking alone. Private time promotes their thinking and creativity.
  • Having quiet spaces in the classroom – a table and chair, a puff pillow chair, or a rug – where a child who prefers to engage in their lesson privately can do so.
  • In whole group discussions, quietly encouraging a shy child to take part with “I see you have done some good thinking/work. I would like to share it.”
  • Or quietly forewarning the shy child that you will call upon that child to take part. Give the child time to prepare for risk taking.
  • Using digital tools for student participation where a shy child can contribute ideas, written responses, or turn in work without speaking.
  • Expanding your definition of participation if you grade or record each child’s level of participation. Positive engagement in learning is not always extroverted speaking. Substantive participation can be the level of personal note taking, submission of quality work to a group, non-verbal contributions. Participation is not always what is seen and heard.
  • Scaffolding oral participation. Assign lesser time requirements or smaller audiences as beginning points for shy children. Consider the quality of thinking and planning prior to their speaking not just the length of time they speak.
  • Frequently using one-to-one checking with shy and introverted children to assure you, the teacher, that they are on track with their learning. Extroverts give lots of clues.
  • Valuing progress being made by a shy or introverted child as a class participant. Extroverts grab attention but may not improve the quality of their thinking or planning as much as a progressing introverted child.

We need to

  • stop applying negativity to children whose fearful shyness keeps them from raising a hand or volunteering for class activities and introversion avoidance moves them to fringe of classroom excitements. Their preferences are not a statement about our teaching or their classmates but about how they can learn best.
  • Find the academic and performance strengths that shy and introverted students bring to their studies and create curricular pathways for them to achieve our curricular goals using those strengths. When we hold to curricular goals, individual pathways don’t matter.
  • Expand how we communicate and reinforce communication with all children. The private, quiet, and individualized touch with shy and introverted children assures them that our teaching includes them.

Principals and administrators can help and support shy and introverted children by recognizing their quieter and less demonstrative successes and contributions to the school and their classmates. There are usually more shy and introverted people “backstage” contributing to the success of the few extroverts “on stage.” Personal recognition by school leaders reinforces the self-esteem of a shy or introverted child who avoids the limelight.

The Big Duh!

Increasingly, we are seeing the whole group of a classroom as a collection of diverse children. Some have special education challenges. Some have cultural and linguistic needs. Some are gifted and talented. And some are shy and introverted. The characteristics we once considered normal are now a small group within the diversity.

Educators need to respect the preferences of shy and introverted children for independent and less stimulating school environments AND provide them with diverse opportunities to express their intelligence and skills as students.

These are four references that can be helpful for the informed educator.