When quiet kids get forgotten in class

While US society at large tends to value extroverted behavior, many other cultures - particularly some Asian - are more apt to train their children to be polite, restrained, and reflective.

It's a difficulty native Americans have coped with for decades, says Loren Spears, a Narragansett Indian and mother of two boys.

"Native learning is that you are supposed to be contemplative and reflective, thoughtful, and you aren't supposed to be competitive," she explains.

In public school, however, she found that her naturally quiet sons were often viewed as slow or lacking in social skills.

Eventually Ms. Spears took her children out of public school and founded a K-8 private school she felt would be more compatible with native American ideas about learning.

It's an issue mainstream schools need to do a better job of addressing, say some educators.

"We need to make room for every child in the classroom," says Anne Sabatini, professor of practice at Columbia University's Teachers College in New York, and a veteran teacher herself. "It's a belief system. Without unconditional acceptance of each child, a teacher will have difficulty reaching all children."

One way to incorporate quiet children in the classroom is to establish a cooperative learning environment, says Professor Sabatini.

In such an environment, teachers form heterogeneous groups with interdependent tasks: A quiet child may engage in an activity initiated by a more outgoing child, and the tasks required to complete the activity draw on the different strengths and skills of all involved.

This environment teaches all students about group dynamics and group discussion.

When quiet students are not engaged, they may find themselves misunderstood not only by their teachers but also by their fellow students.

Research shows that until age 7, kids don't see their quieter peers as odd, but after this age quiet children become more self-conscious about their style, and are seen as different by their more verbal peers, says Elaine Aron, a San Francisco psychologist and author of "The Highly Sensitive Person."

Having a smaller group of friends instead of a large circle is not necessarily a problem for a child, say experts.

"There are people who are quite content to be by themselves," says Robert Brooks, a psychologist on the faculty of Harvard Medical School and author of "Raising Resilient Children."

One child may have only one or two good friends, while another may have 40 friends but not be able to play by himself, he says. "Anything taken to extreme can be a problem, but in the normal range there's a wide variation."

A teacher ready to seek out the varied strengths different children may have can help increase the amount of peer recognition a quiet child may receive, says Dr. Brooks.

In a sports-dominated school program, he says, for instance, a quiet child with a passion for art or music could be encouraged in that interest.

Leppela says that now at her school she and fellow teachers are receiving training to help them deal better with quieter children, including those who might not be native English speakers.

For one thing, Leppla says, she is learning to foster class discussions that involve more reflective, open-ended questions that encourage deeper thinking.

Instead of asking, "who were the main characters in the story," she has learned to ask, "Have you ever found yourself in a similar situation as the main character?"

This training, Leppla says, definitely helps quieter students, many of whom are from non-English-speaking cultures.

"You want to give them time to think and answer because the English-only kids will totally dominate," Leppla says. "It's a real issue around language learners."

Once quiet children begin to respond, specific, public praise can help them to feel important and valued, says Sabatini.

Leppla agrees. "Kids are receptive if the teacher sets a social code," she says. "I have this little Asian girl who speaks so quietly I can hardly hear her. And every time she speaks up I go, 'Wow - Lindy's talking so we can hear her!' And we all clap, and the kids totally get it."

• Marjorie Kehe contributed material to this story.

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