How to care for your u
nderestimated,
introverted student.
by Dani Eckstein on 2/15/17
To all the amazing, dedicated
teachers out there, let me help you with a
special type of student. The introverted
student. The student usually seen as an
outlier or unintelligent. As educators you
must understand these children, and to
understand these children we must
understand the bias we all have. We are all
subject to a bias that is deep and real in our
society. To see this bias we must understand
introversion. First we must differentiate
introversion from shyness. To be shy is to
fear social judgement. To be introverted is
how you react to stimulation; introverts feel
most alive and capable in quiet and low key
environments, although not ALL the time.
The bias comes in in schools and
workplaces because they are designed for
extroverts mostly, and their need for lots of
constant stimulation. Modern day
classrooms have desks shoved together,
group work with everything and constant
stimulation. The children who want to work
alone are often seen as outliers or problem
cases. Although contrary to popular belief
of most teachers, who reported that they
believe extroverted students are more introverted students are more knowledgeable
intelligible, the factual truth is that and get better grades than their extroverted
peers.

To understand, and
help your introverted
students.
The insights of contemporary
psychology explain that we cannot even
be in a group of people without
instinctively mimicking their opinions.
I learned that we tend to follow the
opinion of the most
dominant/charismatic person in the
room, even there is no correlation
between being the best talker and having
the best ideas. To come up with the best
ideas it is better for people to go off
alone, come up with ideas individually
free from the distortions of group
dynamics then to come back together
as a team and talk through all the ideas. This is why, for introverts, solitude matters. If you look
at all the major religions of the world, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha all have stories of
going off, by themselves, all alone into the wilderness where they have profound epiphanies and
revelations that they then bring back to the community. Just like introverts need solitude to
come up with their own unique ideas. Coming back to introverted students, they need solitude to
thrive in their education. If more individual work was given, you would see your introverted
students thrive like never before. Give them a designated quiet space. Many kindergarten
classes have adopted new ways of learning. There are schools that have quiet rooms, covered
in white boards where introverted students can go for solitude and to
come up with their own individual ideas without the pressure of their
extroverted peers urging them to move quickly and along the same path
that they take.

To help your longer and more complex than pathways of

introverted yo9ur extroverted student. It takes
students you must introverts longer to process information
understand a few which often causes problems in classrooms.
basic things. One Marti Olen Laney, Psy.D. explains this in
is, introverts need her article How To Thrive in an Extroverted
time. The brain chemistry in your world. Your introverted students need more
introverted student is different than that of time, to process and to work, so they can
your extroverted student. The processing thrive just as much as your extroverted
pathway of your introverted student is students.
 Your introverted students also need
space. Solitude is the air they breathe and
without it they may suffocate. An introvert
friendly classroom just needs a private
place. This could be a special quiet room,
sitting them at the ends of the classroom or
giving them chairs in the corner to make
them feel comfortable. Another way to give
them space is headphones. They can cancel
out the outside world and be given space.
Group Work may be hurting your
introverted student. Of course, they need to
learn to work in groups and with others but
constant group work can be a challenge for
their education. Introverts can be pushed
out as the extroverts in their group take over.
But, working online in groups helps
introverted students thrive. Online, these
Never make an introvert feel
ashamed of who they are.
Coming back to creativity, when
psychologist look at the lives of the most
creative people, what they find are people
who are very good at exchanging ideas, but
who also have a serious streak of
introversion in them. Bringing us to the
historical references, starting with Darwin.
He would often take long walks alone in the
woods and emphatically turned down dinner
party invitations. Dr. Seuss would write
alone in a belltower in the back of his house,
afraid to meet the children who loved his
books in fear they would be disappointed
that he was not a jolly old man. And Steve
Wozniak, who invented the first apple
computer sitting alone in his cubicle, said he
would never have become such a computer
expert had he not been too introverted to
leave the house when he was growing up.
The world is in the midst of many
extreme problems in science, humanities,
economics, politics, etc. And to solve these
problems we are going to need large groups
of intelligent people coming together to
students are given the ideal space to come
up with their own ideas and learn. They are
given freedom to explore their passions,
participate at their own pace and depth and
have the solitude they need to creatively
blossom.
Dont think your introvert needs to
be tucked away all the time or cowering to
all the extroverts in their class. They simply
need solitude to reenergize, regroup, come
up with their amazing individual ideas, they
need time, asynchronous opportunities to
learn and they need their teachers and peers
to understand and recognize that
introversion is not bad, it does not make
them any less than an extroverted students
and it is NOT something that needs to be
fixed.
come up with solutions. The more freedom
introverts are given in school, the
workplace, and just all around, the more
likely they are to come up with their own
unique solutions to these problems. The
world needs introverts. And we need
teachers like you, to help them become the
best they can be so they too, can change the
world.*