Why do teachers constantly tell me my kids are ‘quiet’?

[MagdaRegis]

27 minutes ago, LifesGood said:

Actually, I’m beginning to wonder if there might be a problem with what the curriculum is trying to achieve. Is it maybe too much to expect teachers to churn out 30 kids each year who are all expert communicators and extrovert public speakers?

The curriculum is up for review currently, and they are actually proposing changes to that area. Yr1 "use interaction skills including turn-taking, speaking clearly, listening to and responding to the contributions of others, and contributing ideas and questions (AC9E1LY02)" and Yr6 "use interaction skills and awareness of formality and audience when paraphrasing, questioning and interrogating ideas, developing arguments, participating in discussions, and sharing and evaluating information, experiences and opinions (AC9E6LY02)", in lieu of the outcomes I quoted before. 
So perhaps there is hope that these concerns have been acknowledged and there will be some systematic change, as opposed to relying on individual teachers to make accomodations and adjustments to what we are expected to teach. 

[Sincerely]

10 hours ago, LifesGood said:

Does speaking up in class contribute to the grade they are given?

There is one oral essay in each senior year, but otherwise in my daughter’s high school experience, no. None of her teachers in high school marked her down because of her lack of contribution to class discussions. She still got the top mark in the year for every subject.
 

A couple of times in primary, there were teacher changes in the second half of the year and I strongly suspect that the new teachers had very little idea about her when reports were written. When she got straight Cs including for maths for which she was getting HDs in external comps and was helping the students who got As, we decided not to continue at the school once she finished primary. It was a good thing though, because she was at a $14K per annum private school with higher fees for secondary school. If she’d continued there and her siblings had joined her, we would be half a million dollars poorer. As it was, I thought we couldn’t really do worse moving to the public school system, but overall, public has been much better. 

Edited June 17, 2021 by Sincerely

[Ker]

14 hours ago, LifesGood said:

Does speaking up in class contribute to the grade they are given?

It must depend on the school. DD is rather shy and doesn't like speaking up in class, yet is consistently on A's and B's. Her teachers worked out pretty quickly that even though she's quiet, she's listening and she's very clever. She's not quiet at home, but she gets very anxious speaking up in group environments.

I never got called quiet in school. I was very smart and picked things up quickly. I would do the work while the teacher was explaining it and then got bored because I had nothing to do, so I'd distract everyone else.

I remember my year 8 English teacher misspelled something on the board and I pointed it out. She told me I was wrong, I insisted I wasn't so she looked it up in the dictionary. I was right. After that, if I said she misspelled a word, she changed it. She complained to my mum that I corrected her. Mum said " was she right?" "Well...yes". Mum said "Then what's the problem?" I probably would have had an easier time in high school had I been a quiet kid!

[Julie3Girls]

Actual grade was usually unaffected, as high school grades at least tend to be based on the set assessment tasks. Only issue was when the assessment task included some form of public speaking.

But our reports have all those general categories for social skills etc, things like actively participating, working in groups, contributing to discussion. Doesn’t necessarily affect the grade, but is on there, and often where my girls get marked down.  Tends to change in yr11 and yr12, as my girls classes have become very small at that stage, are doing subjects they enjoy, with like minded kids, and are far more likely to participate. 
 

I was never happier than I was when dd1 was in yr11, and the school decided to actually make alternatives for public speaking.
An assessment task that normally required a research task followed by a presentation to class was modified. The research still needed to be done, the presentation created. Students then had OPTIONS - presenting to the class, presenting to small group (as few as one) plus teacher, presenting to the teacher privately, or recording a presentation which would be viewed privately by the teacher for marking.
When the task was first assigned, it was going to be standard present to the whole class, it was changed about a week before presentations, and it was amazing the difference it made.  Teacher basically said that by this stage, you had kids who could present with no problems, and others who were always going to have issues, so didn’t see the need to subject the kids to that additional stress.  The quality of the work, and the anxiety levels in the classroom, improved immensely once the threat of needing to present to a large group was removed. 
 

[LifesGood]

Had DS's P-T interviews this afternoon. I asked one teacher about the 'quiet' thing and she said it is simply a literal description of DS - he isn't loud, he's quiet. But he speaks when he needs to and is doing fine. 

I really think it is completely overused and adds no value. No more than if they said DS is slightly above average height for his age. 

[pelagic]

Oh no! We've failed to produce extroverts! Is how I'd read that.