chapter 9
How Introverts Learn
“I hate it when teachers put me on the spot in class by asking me questions in front of everyone. I never know what to say.”—Chandler, Age 15
The classroom—it plays such a large role in our children’s lives. A place where they learn far more than just reading, writing, and arithmetic, modern-day school campuses are also one of the primary socialization environments for children. As extroverts make up as much as 75% of the general population according to some researchers (Laney, 2002), it’s reasonable to assume that there are three extroverted students for each introverted student in the typical school. What does this mean for the introvert? Like elsewhere in society, the introverted child is likely the minority and is typically misunderstood.
Introverts, as I have mentioned previously, often present with two distinct personas—the mask they wear for the world, and the authentic person beneath the mask. Their outer mask helps them function in a world that seldom appreciates the quiet strengths of introversion.
But not without a price.
The mask works as a barrier to the near-constant bombardment of sensory stimuli most introverts are faced with in all aspects of their public lives, especially the classroom. Often noisy and highly visually stimulating, the classroom can overwhelm introverted students long before instruction has even begun. The mask most introverts wear enables them to detach from both the physical stimulation caused by the senses and the emotional stimulation that comes from spending large amounts of time with extroverts.
Unfortunately, the mask also gives the wrong impression to others, including teachers. Many may characterize the introverted learner as overly aloof or disinterested in learning. Sometimes the introvert is thought of as unmotivated or a loner. In truth, the introverted student is just trying to find a way to fit into the extroverted school setting and survive. He typically enjoys learning and is capable of making deep connections with the material and can offer deeper levels of conversation and debate than many of his extroverted counterparts. That is, when the classroom supports mixed temperaments.
Introverts are deep thinkers, as I’ve previously stated. Because of this, they tend to engage in much inner dialogue about the material being taught. They are often the students who will remain quiet at the start of educational discussions, only to offer profound insight toward the end of the conversations. In this way, they can often “fool” the teacher into thinking they are unmotivated or not understanding the material. In truth, they often just need ample processing time in order to participate fully in conversations.
This type of learning, having deep inner dialogues regarding the material and offering insight during instructional discourse, is great in high school honors classes or in college. But what about the elementaryand middle school-level classrooms? In these settings, lessons are often taught in bite-sized chunks with an emphasis on rote learning, automaticity, and assessments. Timed tests are used to develop mastery in areas like math and spelling. Short-term memory is stretched with immediate feedback assessments. These are not areas of strength for many introverts. If the classroom strategies are not balanced between using these types of assessments along with short-answer assessments, projects, and more in-depth measures of mastery, the introvert may appear as though she is not learning the material.
What’s the solution? Balanced classrooms that allow for measures of mastery that enhance multiple temperaments and multiple learning modalities. In short, classrooms with variety within assignments and assessments.
Don’t get me wrong—I think it is important for every learner to become adept at taking a timed test that pulls on information in her short-term memory. But I also believe that the application of knowledge to new situations, something introverts are hard-wired to do more efficiently, is of equal importance. When the introvert has the opportunity to make deep connections within the material, he or she is able to more fully connect to the learning environment overall. This, in turn, makes him or her much more comfortable and “safe” in the school setting. And as we discussed in Part II, feeling safe and comfortable is exactly what the introvert needs to flourish within any environment.
Another aspect of introversion and learning relates to the current practice of collaborative learning groups. Throughout current Western culture, both in the workplace and in the school setting, collaboration is being used as the example of how people should work. “Two heads are better than one” seems to be the battle cry currently used in our schools. Teachers form pair-share groups to edit each others’ papers. Group projects and oral presentations have become the norm, all as a way to prepare students for the working world where collaboration is king.
Although I completely agree that all students should learn how to work in a collaborative setting, it is important to understand that extroverted and introverted students approach group work in very different ways. Extroverts tend to have lively discussions over material, presenting counterarguments and alternate points of view. Introverts, on the other hand, are more collaborative in their approach to group work, seeking solutions to differences of opinions and reconciling multiple points of view (Nussbaum, 2004). Depending on the teacher’s point of view regarding her purpose for the group experience, introverts may appear to not be meeting group expectations.
Furthermore, working in collaborative groups does not always promote independence. Nor is it necessarily the only path to innovation or deeper learning. Many introverts struggle with group work, especially if the group is larger than one or two additional students, or if there are particularly strong extroverts within the group. The introverted student may shut down, withdraw, or become frustrated, all resulting in inhibited learning.
The key, like with other aspects of learning, is balance. Introverted students should participate in structured group activities, as well as be given time to independently explore topics of interest and work individually on assignments. All students would balance from this approach, especially introverts.
So what can you, as the parent, do to assist the teacher and the school in establishing a balanced approach to learning in the classroom? The first thing, I believe, is to make sure you fully understand how your child learns. Know the types of activities that your child excels in, as well as the things that may be initially problematic for him or her. Support your child’s education by providing a consistent time and place for homework. Remember that introverts love structure; having clear structures and expectations with regard to homework time can help your introvert. Encourage your child to pursue academic interests on his or her own to enrich the learning that happens at school.
If you find that your child is struggling, reach out to the teacher and help the school understand the influence of temperament on your child’s learning. Set up a time when you can speak to the teacher regarding your child’s performance and develop a plan for addressing the concerns together, keeping both the child’s unique learning style and temperament in mind. Make a list bulleting the way your child expresses his or her introversion. Then use the tip sheet on page 99 and meet with the teacher. Together, you can help your child be successful in school.
Talking With the Teacher About My Child’s Introversion
❖ Start with mutual high regard for the teacher and educational staff, assuming that everyone is working for the good of your child.
❖ Discuss your concerns in clear and specific terms. Try to remain nonemotional.
❖ Ask what concerns the teacher has, if any.
❖ Develop mutual goals and a plan for working with your child that can be consistently implemented across settings.
❖ Discuss a time to review your child’s progress.
❖ If there is disagreement, work through the concerns with an open mind, focused on meeting the needs of your child.
One of the biggest potential problem areas for introverts and learning involves risk-taking and perfectionism. As mentioned earlier, introverts are not known for their risk-taking skills. That is much more the extroverts’ game. Introverts struggle with failure, especially if the failure happens around others. Because they are easily shamed, failure is often interpreted as a character flaw, something that threatens their humanity.This becomes a barrier to learning, as the introverted student resists even small academic risks.
Helping the introverted child overcome the fear of failure begins with establishing a nurturing environment at home and at school. Once this has been achieved, risk-taking can be taught in incremental steps, starting with small risks that have a high probability for success. For example, if the child is afraid of taking a risk when learning his or her multiplication facts, start with the ones he or she can master quickly. As successes are achieved, the willingness to take additional risks will increase.
Another way to help introverted children take educational risks is by helping the child see the journey toward learning as the goal, not the grade. We live a culture that places an overemphasis on mastery and end results. Although these are important, they do not replace learning. Creating balance between being goal-directed, or having an emphasis on grades, and being learning-directed, or focusing on process, is vital and necessary in order to teach appropriate academic risk-taking and combat the paralyzing aspects of perfectionism.
Encouraging Academic Risk-Taking
❖ Teach and practice practical problem-solving skills.
❖ Praise and reinforce effort, not only results.
❖ Lead by example by being willing to try new things.
❖ Focus on the process more than the outcome.
❖ Ask your child the following with regard to academic risks:
○ Is it safe to try the task and/or take the risk?
○ What are you afraid of?
○ What is the worst thing that could happen?
The tips above will help you support your child in taking academic risks.
Perfectionism is the extreme version of having an aversion to risk-taking. Often present in gifted introverts, striving for perfection and becoming rigid in those efforts can lead to a form of paralysis when it comes to education. My experiences with my gifted and introverted daughter, as well as my own struggles with perfectionism, have given me firsthand knowledge of the paralyzing impact of this type of perfectionism. Many a sleepless night trying to complete work has happened because I was stuck in my need to do things “perfectly.”
Overcoming perfectionism relies on many of the same strategies as encouraging risk-taking, including shifting the focus from result to process. This shift often releases a perfectionist from his rigidity, allowing him to again move forward. The tip sheet on page 101 will provide additional help in overcoming the cycle of perfectionism.
Remembering how introverted children learn, as well as how they may appear in class, is important in supporting their educational progress. Furthermore, dealing with their potential aversion to risk-taking and possible perfectionism before these things become a barrier to learning can go a long way to negate the potential problems introverts may face in the educational setting.
Moving Past Perfectionism
❖ Teach your child about his or her introversion and perfectionism.
❖ Help your child develop realistic goals.
❖ Focus on the process, not the outcome, and teach your child to do the same.
❖ Teach your child to have a realistic view of his or her performance. Poor perception can lead to increased concerns.
❖ Teach your child to ask him- or herself the following:
○ Is my plan realistic?
○ What would happen if I fail?
○ What can I do instead?
The next chapters will look at other aspects of learning, including competition and a deeper view into the introvert’s perception of failure.
Class Notes: A Letter to the Teacher
Dear Teacher of My Introverted Child:
I am writing you as a concerned parent, scared about my child’s future. I see my child as a deep thinker who loves to learn. I see how he likes to analyze the world and develop creative solutions to unusual problems. I see his potential.
And I am so afraid that you don’t.
I am afraid that you see how different he is, how sensitive and unsure. And I fear that you see those qualities as weaknesses.
I know he can’t do timed tests as well as the other children. I know a typical multiple-choice exam will never show you how much he actually knows on a given subject. And I know that his brooding nature will make you think he isn’t learning.
But there is more to him than these things, things that I am afraid you don’t see.
Do you see how he waits before answering you, wanting to fully digest your questions and ponder the possible answers? Do you see how he watches the other children, extracting meaning from every movement, every breath? Do you see how deeply he explores the things that interest him, how purposefully he experiences life?
Do you?
My hope is that you will understand my introverted child; that he will find in your classroom the safety he needs to blossom into more than he thinks possible. I hope that you will nurture his tender soul and give him the strength to let his introversion develop into a source of strength. I hope that you will see him as I do.
Let’s work together for my child, and help him develop the skills he needs to venture into this world confident and secure.
Signed,
A concerned parent
HOW INTROVERTS LEARN Q&A
I have spent the better part of my career working in education, helping parents, teachers, and children gain meaning from their experiences as a school psychologist. It is a job that has allowed me to talk with hundreds of people about how we learn and how to teach. The questions below are a sampling of those I have been asked whenever the topic of introversion arises, both during workshops and in random e-mails that cross my desk.
What is the “ideal” educational environment for an introvert?
Similar to a question in Chapter 5, there is no recipe for creating the perfect environment in which the introvert can learn. There are just too many other variables. That being said, there are a few things within a typical classroom environment that are beneficial to introverted learners.
Classrooms tend to be overstimulating on the best of days. Desks positioned with little room between the students, as well as walls that are overdecorated with brightly colored posters and work samples, can cause a sensory overload in some introverted students. Paring down the visual stimulation slightly, at least on one wall, can provide respite for the introverted learner. Similarly, taking care to seat introverts out of high-traffic areas in the classroom can also help calm the environment.
The tips on page 104 provide additional considerations when designing an educational environment that works for introverted learners.
How can introverts survive in a classroom built for extroverts?
Although it is true that classrooms are built for extroverts, with lots of activity and stimulation, group projects, and large social gatherings, that is not the only aspect to school. Most educational settings have places for students to go at lunch and break, like the library or a classroom, affording them with a respite from the social demands. Similarly, more and more campuses are understanding the need for a balanced approach to education, both in terms of the use of group activities and in terms of allowing some choice within content areas. Teachers are beginning to differentiate for different learning patterns. This can easily be extended into differentiation for temperament.
In addition to the strategies schools are beginning to incorporate into the traditional learning environment, parents can support their introverted children by teaching them how to advocate for their needs in the classroom. Additionally, helping your child develop social competency skills, something discussed in Part IV, will help your child feel more comfortable around extroverts.
What are the main differences between how introverts and extroverts learn?
I discussed a lot of the brain chemistry differences between introverts and extroverts in earlier chapters. These differences in the uses of neurotransmitters, as well as the differences in the neuropathways themselves, affect learning. Introverts, preferring the longer pathways in the brain, take longer to process information. They prefer to think deeply and analyze prior to commenting or engaging outwardly on the information. Extroverts, by contrast, think more quickly and act almost impulsively on information. They enjoy the discourse, but don’t always engage with the material in deep ways. In other words, they are into breadth of information, while introverts are into depth!
Creating the Ideal Learning Environment
Creating a learning environment that meets the needs of all learners is a Herculean task. However, the following considerations can make your classroom more introvert-friendly while not excluding extroverted learners:
❖ Limit visual clutter on the walls and in the room.
❖ Try and create some room between desks.
❖ Include a time away area where introverts can get away from the bustle of the classroom.
❖ Seat introverts away from high traffic areas.
❖ Balance expectations between collaboration and individual tasks.
As a parent, what is the best way for me to advocate for my introverted child’s educational needs?
It’s important for parents to partner with schools in the education of their children. Don’t assume that teachers understand temperament and learning styles simply because they are educated in the field of teaching. Unfortunately, most teacher programs only touch on learning modalities, not delving into temperament at all. The neuroscience is recent and still has not found its way into most teacher preparation programs. Furthermore, many teachers don’t see the strengths of introversion, focusing instead on making introverted students more outgoing. They do not understand that introverted children have their own unique strengths (Henjum, 1982).
It is important that you share the things you learn about your child with the school. Work together to solve any problems your child is having. Refer back to the tip sheet, Talking With the Teacher About My Child’s Introversion (see p. 99), to assist you in developing strong communication with the school. All of these things will help you support and advocate for your child’s needs.
I am a teacher. How can I ensure that I am creating an ideal learning environment for both my introverted and extroverted learners?
Balancing the educational needs of diverse populations is challenging in the best of situations. Many times you have students with unique learning needs, temperaments, mental health considerations, economic issues, and various cultural backgrounds. To meet the needs of all children is best accomplished by balancing the types of assignments you give, the ways in which you measure mastery, and the interventions you need for students. Is this challenging? Yes! But adapting differentiation strategies and positive behavioral interventions can help you establish a classroom in which the majority of students have an equal opportunity to feel safe and learn.
In a Nutshell . . .
Big Ideas
❖ Introverts often have two personas—the public mask they wear at school and the private self they save for home.
❖ An introvert’s public mask creates a barrier to the overstimulation present in a typical classroom.
❖ The introvert’s public mask may give the impression of being aloof and not caring about school.
❖ Introverts actually love to learn. But they prefer depth with a few subjects over breadth of many.
❖ Introverts may struggle with group work, timed tests, and quick-answer assessments.
❖ Introverts may struggle with academic risk-taking and perfectionism.
Supplemental Pages
❖ Tip Sheet 10: Talking With the Teacher About My Child’s Introversion—page 99
❖ Tip Sheet 11: Encouraging Academic Risk-Taking—page 100
❖ Tip Sheet 12: Moving Past Perfectionism—page 101
❖ Tip Sheet 13: Creating the Ideal Learning Environment—page 104