As children across the world get ready to attend their first day of school their thoughts are filled with the anxious expectations of making new friends, playing with new toys, and starting a new journey in their lives. This new and exciting time of year was one that I, as an extroverted child who was very out going, always looked forward to. The idea that not all children wave their hands in the air to answer questions, belt out songs during group sings, and want to be the first to arrive at school for the day was baffling to my young adventurous mind. It was not until fairly recently that I considered the thought that some children are less than thrilled about having to go to school, that shy or more reserved children may find the hustle and bustle of constant activity or having to meet new people overwhelming. The notion of hesitating to speak out in class, or holding back from the group never crossed my mind. Now as a student teacher I spend a lot of the time in my classroom observing and analyzing these shy or perhaps introverted children. Having very little knowledge in regards to shy or quiet individuals I find myself constantly questioning how I will be able to get through to them, how, if possible, I will be able to make them comfortable enough to come out of their shells and feel comfortable in my classroom. This is why I have chosen to focus my inquiry question on “What are some strategies to prevent or lessen anxiety in the classroom?” As a self proclaimed chatter box I was always the first to put up my hand to answer a question I knew the answer to, however, if students similar to myself are always offering their answers, the quieter children will never get the chance, if they wanted to or not. Through conducting this inquiry I hope to acquire strategies for effectively handling the louder more boisterous children while ensuring that my quieter students do not fall behind or lack understanding.

For the sake of conducting my inquiry I intend to follow the five steps of the inquiry cycle, which include asking, investigating, creating, discussing and reflecting. The first step of the inquiry cycle, ask, is one that involves figuring out what in the world, or in my case classroom, spikes my curiosity. Over the past few weeks in my practicum classroom I have made sure to pay special attention to the aspects that brought up curiosity within myself, and within only a few short weeks it was evident that the majority of my curiosity was centered around the quieter students in the classroom and hence my question was formed. Now I am ready to move onto the next steps in the inquiry cycle investigating, creating, discussing and reflecting.

In order to fully explore my question I will be drawing on many different resources. I plan on speaking with many of my education mentors such as my school advisors, Sarah and Chrissie, as well as my faculty advisor Roxanne. Roxanne’s input will be of significant interest to me as she has a very broad understanding of stress and anxiety in children, which I think may be very useful when considering potential answers to my question. It will also be useful to speak with some of my professors at the University of British Columbia, specifically Claire as she is a faculty advisor within the social and emotional learning cohort and I believe she will be able to offer me a great amount of direction and advice on the topic, as well as Margret as she specializes in English language learners which I have observed to be some of the more quiet and reserved students in my practicum classroom. Other individuals I can draw on for support and guidance are the librarians, both at my practicum school as well as at the University of British Columbia. It will also be useful for me to collaborate with my fellow teacher candidates who are in the social and emotional learning cohort with me. It might be interesting to get the perspectives of peers who self identify as introverted or shy and to hear their experiences in school and what would or wouldn’t have worked for them. Also, if others in my class are working on similar topics it would be great to work collaboratively, sharing ideas and opinions. Other sources of information will come from readings found in books, such as “Quiet” by Susan Caine, as well as education and psychology journals in both the education library as well as the University of British Columbia’s main library, Koerner. Some of the article databases I will be looking into include “Education Source”, “ERIC”, “EBSCO”, “CBCA Complete” as well as many websites such as the B.C. Ministry of Education site and the Integrated Resource Package (IRP) site. Another source I will be collecting information from is videos, such as the Ted Talk given by Susan Cain on the power of introverts.

            While conducting my inquiry I expect to find many different strategies that can help to aid in the process of checking for understanding in quieter and more reserved children within the classroom. Some strategies that I might come across while carrying out my inquiry are being mindful of wait times and giving the quieter students more time to formulate answers, perhaps by saying something like “I am going to ask you a question, but please don’t answer right away, take some time to think”. Another strategy that I may come across is really getting to know the quieter students and forming lasting connections with these students. It may be discovered that once the student feels safe with you they are more likely to open up and offer responses in class. Perhaps another strategy that I come across will be to bring the quieter students interests into the classroom with the hopes that this might help to bring them out of their shells. While I am unsure of what exactly I will find, I am eager to dive into the world of these quiet and reserved children and come out the other side with some concrete answers and strategies.