In one class, a teacher might have students who command the teacher’s attention and students who ‘melt into the background,’ and who do not want to be noticed. There are various reasons for this. From my experience, I have realized that there are good reasons why some students are over energetic while others like to keep to themselves. Most of the reasons can be discovered during parent-teacher meetings, when the teachers find out about each student’s family background.
To give just two examples from my past experience: I had a student who was reluctant to speak up in front of the class because her parents wanted their daughter to be perfect and make no mistakes. Being reprimanded by her parents every time she made a mistake, the girl decided to say only what she knew was 100% correct, and chose silence in case she was not sure what the correct answer was. This made it quite difficult for me to make her think for herself, to engage her in exploratory talk. Most of the times, her answers to what-questions were correct.
On the other hand, in the same class I also had a very outspoken student, who always shouted out the answers, without putting his hand up. On most of the occasions his answers were correct, but he just could not wait for his turn and he would not give his classmates the chance to answer my questions. When I spoke to his parents about this problem I found out that they were not aware of the fact that their son was such an outspoken child because they did not spend enough time with him. The boy was being looked after by a nanny, the parents spending a lot of time at work. This boy was not given too much attention at home and that is why, in my opinion, he was always looking for attention at school.
