I came across a saying on the internet and it struck me as something I experienced firsthand. It was: “Don’t underestimate me. I know more than I say, think more than I speak, & notice more than you realize.” In my daily life, I was the quiet kid. I never would say much in school in way of answering questions. When my mom always got back from parent-teacher conferences, she told me the usual thing that the teacher would say: I’m really quiet. They wish I would talk more. I never did. But with that saying above, I definitely experienced being underestimated.

Because I am a typically quiet person in the classroom and when I’m meeting someone for the first time, I feel like they don’t realize how much I know and how much I see. It’s like I’m never even there sometimes. I’ve been spoken to as if I didn’t know any better not to do something, or I’ve been spoken to as if I didn’t know a piece of information. I remember once that I was spoken to by someone older and it was in a demeaning way. It was along the lines of “you’re too young to know” kind of thing. Well, unfortunately for them, I already knew.

Being the quiet one, I would say, has been a benefit for me. I’ve learned that through being quiet, I don’t immediately jump to conclusions. I tend to analyze a situation and present possible outcomes. Because I keep to myself, I’m mostly overlooked. People would say things in front of me because they would forget that I was there or never notice me in the first place. I was, in a sense, invisible. Sometimes I hated being invisible, even in my own friend groups in high school and in college.

Because I was the quiet kid, I am, of course, against requiring daily participation in classes. Participation is important in classes, but to make almost an entire grade based on participation is not something that should be done. There are other quiet kids out there like me. Some may not talk at all or talk very little. They shouldn’t be forced to talk in a place where they aren’t comfortable talking for points. But, certainly their knowledge shouldn’t be underestimated. They definitely know more than they say. Don’t assume that they don’t know something. For me, at least, one of my biggest pet peeves is being treated like I don’t know (and have never known) something. It might seem petty, but I also hate it when a few people give me a wealth of information that I have already known for years as if it is something completely new and I have never heard of. It starts off as amusing and then gets annoying.

So, please, if you encounter a quiet person, treat them as anyone else. Treat them as their age. Don’t underestimate how much they know and how much they notice. Especially don’t treat them as if they don’t know how to do something or lack any sort of knowledge. I am biased, but I believe that being the quiet kid has given me so much more and taught me so much more than if I was a louder kid. If you’ve got a quiet kid, don’t make them be louder or talk more. They’re comfortable as they are. You need to be comfortable with who they are.