Who "Carries Shelter" in Your Classroom?
From the desk of Keela…
If you were to visit a classroom today, more than likely, you would find desks arranged in groups where students are encouraged to work and think together. Collaboration has become a central focus in most classrooms. It’s so highly thought of, teachers are evaluated on how successful they are implementing group work into their lesson plans. Principals observing a classroom will look to see that group work is happening and students are successful with it.
However, has collaboration become too much of a focus? Are educators forgetting about a specific group of children?
The journey of motherhood is what eventually led me to ask these questions. As I began to parent I quickly noticed my child has an opposite personality than mine. Unlike me, she needs time to adjust to new environments and new people. It takes spending some quality time with others before she becomes comfortable with them. She is happy playing alone and tires quickly when we have a group of friends over. I, however, have always needed people to feel complete. The more, the merrier. I have never met a stranger and will hold a conversation with anyone, anywhere. In other words, I’m an extrovert raising an introvert.
As a parent looking for advice I came across the book Quiet: The Power of Introverts In a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain. This book opened my eyes to just how much we as a society try to make everyone fit the extrovert mold. She says it best when she writes, “Extroversion is an enormously appealing personality style, but we’ve turned it into an oppressive standard to which most of us feel we must conform.”
Those words hit me hard. They made me stop and think about how my “outgoing, never met a stranger side” was driving me both as a parent and a teacher. I was guilty of asking my own child and my students at school to conform. I was pushing my daughter to be more “outgoing” and thought by arranging more “play dates” she might come “out of her shell.” My classroom was full of opportunities to work and think together, and if students struggled with group work, I would push harder assuming they needed to “come out of their shell” as well.
Then I read the words: “At school you might have been prodded to come ‘out of your shell’—that noxious expression which fails to appreciate that some animals naturally carry shelter everywhere they go, and that some humans are just the same.” I cannot think of better words to describe my child. They, also, describe many children who have filled the seats in my classroom over the years.
Children who naturally carry shelter need classroom environments that respect who they are. While the extroverted child needs opportunities to work and think with others, the introverted child needs opportunities to work and think alone. Helping children realize how they work best is an important role we play. I now have conversations with my students about this. If I notice they do their best work with others, I point this out to them and provide many opportunities for collaboration. If I notice the opposite, I no longer push my students to do group work. I encourage them to work alone or with one friend if that’s what they choose. If I embrace their learning style, they will do the same.
In the words of Susan Cain, “The secret to life is to put yourself in the right lighting. For some, it’s a Broadway spotlight; for others, a lamp-lit desk.” I believe this is the secret for educators, too. We need to remember that each child we work with requires different “lighting”. This is child-centered teaching at its finest.
Keela Gallagher is a guest blogger with ERG. She is currently teaching at The Downtown School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina where she shares her lifelong love of teaching and learning with kindergarteners.