How Schools Are Failing the Shy

Everyday schools inform their students that they are preparing them for their futures. Grades allow us to get better jobs. Uniforms are necessary to become used to work clothing. Listening to the teacher helps us learn to follow instructions. Talking in front of the class helps us build confidence. Or does it?

Without a doubt there is at least two people in each class, in every school, who struggle with simple tasks such as raising hands to ask or answer questions or talking to unfamiliar peers, anything that will draw attention towards them. Some will gradually overcome this problem while others will remain the same or get worse. So what are our schools doing to help? They believe that enforcing speeches and similar activities in front of peers will help them to gain confidence, but they remain blind to the real effects.

From the moment a student is told they will have to get up in front of their classmates and perform they will immediately begin to panic. This effect lasts right up until, and after, the performance takes place, will the feelings being worse if they will be alone. Teachers often dismiss this as nerves that 'everyone gets' and very rarely allow a student to sit out or perform it privately. But it's not just 'nerves', the classroom will often include students who have bullied the student before or would laugh and make jokes during the event, further ruining any chance of confidence. This can even extend to ordinary lessons, with the anxiety of being bullied stopping students achieving their full potential.

And it's not just lessons and public speaking, physical education (PE) is on the national curriculum to help fight obesity, but it's not working. Any student that is obese, especially girls, may choose to just feign illness or injury to sit out because even the thin students will be shouted at by peers if they aren't fit enough. Team sports especially encourage bullying and excluding certain students from getting the best out of the lesson. In three years of PE, I only got the netball thrown to me once, and was often one of the last to be chosen for teams.

How can schools claim they are doing everything they can to help and prepare us when it is often the more popular students that get encouraged while everyone else is left behind and scorned?