14/04/2026
What begins as a participation gap can become a systemic opportunity gap over time.
"The problem is not simply that some children talk more than others. It is that schools often mistake fast, public participation for understanding and then build opportunity around that mistake. A child who speaks quickly and often is usually read as engaged, confident and capable. A child who hesitates, watches or offers little is more likely to be read as uncertain, underprepared or less able.
Yet speaking in front of others is not a simple measure of understanding. It requires children to process a question, organize language quickly, tolerate public attention and respond while everyone is listening. For learners, it may also mean searching across languages while monitoring pronunciation and trying not to make a visible mistake...
When schools confuse reduced public response with reduced competence, they begin shaping a trajectory. That trajectory is rarely built through cruelty or obvious exclusion. More often, it emerges through small instructional decisions that seem reasonable on the surface. When participation in whole-group discussion decreases, teachers—often out of care—may call on certain students less, simplify questions or stop asking for elaboration. Meanwhile, other students are invited to explain, justify, extend and defend their thinking.
Each decision appears minor, but over time they accumulate. Opportunities to demonstrate complexity expand for some students and quietly contract for others. This is how underestimation takes root in schools — not through overt exclusion, but through a subtle redistribution of opportunity." - Iryna Liusik
https://www.the74million.org/article/why-some-students-dont-raise-their-hands-how-early-education-can-change-that/
