Pol

So why the concern? 

Pol doesn’t talk enough in the classroom. She sits at the back and is “too quiet”. Who says? Some pastoral staff, like Ms Limpet the Freudian. Her sin seems to be silence. Introspection. She’s too often “elsewhere”.

Pol is shy. It used to be a virtue. Ask her a question and sometimes she blushes like a poppy and gets all flustered. She’s not keen to join group discussions or being conspicuously spontaneous all over the place. The buzzword is “interactivity”. It seems that we’ve all got to be loud and assertive and interacting like billy ho. Inside and outside the classroom, we must endure the tyranny of the garrulous, histrionic clots, shrill opinion and unreflecting noise. Extroverts Rule. Pol’s not keen on this Babel. The world seems to her to have gone Tourette’s. So she sits at the back, still and says nothing.