Silent Kid

I can’t tell you what it was like to speak, in class, from, oh, about Kindergarten to grade 12. I was too scared. Petrified. Frozen. Full of ideas, but unable to express them. Wrapped up in the thoughts in my head. Locked up. Standing alone on the playground, thinking about things, and not knowing how to say them.

You may know the feeling: having an interesting thought that’s bursting to get out, but thinking the thought, and figuring out how to say it, until, wow, the conversation has moved on. Another opportunity missed!

I didn’t speak in class from kindergarten to grade 12. I didn’t know how. Every interview was about “he’s painfully shy”. He’ll come out of his shell. I didn’t know I was in a shell. I was too scared to speak, though. You might know that feeling. Desperate fear that the teacher will call on you. Mumbling a response when she did. Feeling embarrassed for an hour afterwards.

Is school a good place for introverts?