Embracing Introversion: Ways to Stimulate Reserved Students in the Classroom

In April, Mark Phillips wrote this article for Edutopia that highlighted the importance of recognizing the introvert in your classroom. If you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, please do.

It’s okay, I’ll wait.

Phillips most poignant point was this:

As an introvert, I couldn’t agree with him more. I don’t see introversion as anything different than being left- or right-handed, boy or girl, naturally athletic or not. It’s a part of who we are, and just like those other qualities, introversion is not something to be “overcome.” In fact, I would argue that as educators it is our job to harness the sometimes hidden gems hiding within our introverted students. To do so, I would suggest we keep in mind the following:

Introversion and shyness are not the same

In her book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, Susan Cain makes a clear distinction between introversion and shyness when she writes:

The key is how your student re-energizes. If she does so by being with others, she’s an extrovert. If she does so by being alone, she’s introverted. It’s important to realize, however, that introverts are not always shy, and extroverts can be shy. Shy extroverts may appear to not be shy because they are often found with others, but they do so wary of the vulnerability that comes with being public.

Conversely, introverts are not necessarily shy. How often have you had that student who says little, but when she does, she is able to push the thinking of others? Or how about the student who offers a piece of writing that is so profound you wonder why he doesn’t share these thoughts more often in class?

As educators, we have to first determine if the student is shy or introverted. The difference is profound because you are either trying to minimize the pain of a shy student or respecting the process of an introvert -- which leads to my second point.

Introverts Need Time

Recognizing that we already don’t have enough time to work with our students, introverts need time to process. In The Introvert Advantage How to Thrive in an Extroverted World, Marti Olsen Laney, Psy.D., makes the case that the brain chemistry in introverts is markedly different than that of extroverts. In short, processing pathways in introverts are longer and more complex than the pathways found in extroverts, thus it takes them longer to process information, which causes a problem in our schools.

There isn’t a more time-depended institution than school. Forty-five minute classes. Six hour days. Forty-five day quarters. One hundred and eighty day school years.

In many ways, time is the currency of education. The more time one has, the more one can do and presumably the more one can learn. Of course, our time in school is fixed, so instead of adding time we tend to move through our curriculum faster. We tend to cover instead of discover. This can work for the extrovert feeding off the energy of the classroom but can wreak havoc on the introvert with the slower processing as described by Laney.

Introverts Need Space

Literally. Because introverts re-energize through solitude, it’s important to provide the space needed for them to be alone. While there is more information coming forward relative to classroom space and introverts, it doesn’t have to be too complex. Introvert friendly classrooms provide private spaces for those who need them. In an elementary classroom, it may be a tunnel or a “cave.” Older introverts may enjoy the peace and quiet found in a small couch or chair tucked into the corner of your classroom. It could be something as simple as not seating introverts in the middle of your classroom, but instead, providing a desk on the edge of the class instead. Further, you may be able to assign the introvert to the back row as the privacy may be just what is needed to allow for maximum learning.

But, there is another way we can provide space for our students. Headphones. Yes, why not allow students to listen to headphones that allow them to cancel out noise interruptions from the outside world? Kids do this all the time, and I learned this myself when attending ISTE11 in Philadelphia. After spending much of the day wearing my headphones as I walked around the enormous convention center, someone later told me, “I didn’t think you wanted to be bothered because you had your headphones on.” In other words, she was giving me space.

Asynchronous Learning Opportunities

In her book and this article in the New York Times, Susan Cain talks about the rise of “groupthink” despite the fact that “research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption.” This presents a real challenge to schools as cooperative learning and collaborative projects have become a staple of the American classroom.

This group work can be a challenge to the introvert as the time and space often needed for learning is not always consistent with groupthink. In fact, the introvert may be a pushed out as the extroverts of the group dominate the conversation even if their thinking is not on target.

But there is an exception. One space where groupthink has worked and it is one that schools have been slow to endorse: online communities. As Cain writes:

The asynchronous environments found on the Internet can provide introverted students with the ideal space needed for them to learn. The freedom to explore their passions, the ability to connect with similar learners, and the time to participate at their personal pace and depth, all with the solitude needed by the introvert, can make these communities the ideal space for learning and creativity to blossom in the introvert.

I don’t mean to paint a picture of a student alone interacting with a screen, tucked away in the corner of your classroom, or cowering to the almighty extrovert in your classroom. In fact, introverts aren’t averse to being with people; it’s just that they need solitude to re-energize, engage in deep creative thinking, and process the mass sensory input that the extrovert thrives on. But, since we live in an extrovert-dominant world, we either forget to provide the environment needed for introverts to grow or we consider that environment to be peculiar. Instead we need to begin to create and embrace the environments needed for introverts to flourish. By providing space, time, asynchronous opportunities to learn and acknowledging that introversion is not something to be “overcome,” educators can help natural introverts shine in their classrooms.