Years ago there was a song by The Smiths’ Morrissey with the happy sing-a-long line ”shyness is nice”.It might have been catchy but I didn’t agree with him at all, even if he was being a bit of a tease!
At that time I didn’t find shyness nice at all. It felt like a burden, a dark cloud that affected everything I did involving other people. Animals were fine- I could talk freely to them!
At University I would sit in certain English seminars or tutorials bursting to speak, but more often than not finding I would leave the room without speaking up. How frustrating too, listening to others speak who had often said something I had wanted to say as well…..
I think it was teaching that helped transform me. When you teach you have to say something and I was aware it was a role that could be ‘ acted’ too. I was playing at being a ‘tutor’.
I deliberately modelled bits of my teaching self on the teachers and tutors who I had found most helpful.I wanted to be a positive tutor and remembered the positive teachers I had been lucky enough to meet….so I took time to reflect on how they were positive, how they made students feel safe and confident…
- I can remember asking myself, how did they do that?
- How would they ask a question or get people to work in groups? How did they show that they wanted to hear what you had to say?
I would still say I enjoy my own company but I also can talk freely to others without worrying about blushing, stuttering or just being ‘wrong’ somehow.
Q:So what can you do to make shyness into something positive and even helpful?
A: Well just looking at what I have written, it shows that I took a decision to examine how to ‘do teaching’ instead of ‘doing shyness.’
It did help me to recognise that ‘being shy’ is something we DO.
WE ARE DOING SHYNESS in other words.
Think about it…how do you ‘do’ your shyness?
So here’s your question:
1) Do you enjoy putting your hand up in class?
Answer honestly…
What happens when you try to out up your hand? Even if you try in your head? Where do you feel shy? Where do you feel that you uncomfortable? Imagine how you will feel when you can put up your hand because you want to, because you are going to ask something or say something or answer a question..or even argue!
In my next blog I will offer a simple solution to this problem.
Many thanks,
Janet Lewison
What an outstanding understanding of shyness. I recall too well the impossibility of raising my hand to ask a question at school and my frustration of hearing someone else be credited for answering half as well as the answer I had in my head. Somehow I felt I wasn’t worthy of being listened too. Nowadays, nearly forty years on I enjoy addressing groups of hundreds of people at times and it’s all a controlled act defeating any residual shyness. If they only knew.