Not because they think differently. Because they are afraid to show that something matters to them. And what a teacher can do about it – not with one student, but with the whole class.
Students are rarely afraid of having a different opinion. They are afraid of showing that something matters to them. In a class where learning is “boring”, raising your hand doesn’t mean “I know the answer”. It means “I care”. And caring in front of your peers at fourteen is a risk. That is why this problem isn’t solved one student at a time. It is solved when what the group considers normal changes.
From my practice: I was running a career session at a summer camp – a mixed group of students from different schools. I could see which ones were hooked. You can tell: the question grabs them, their eyes open wide, their body leans forward. And then – the back slumps, the elbows go down on the table, the eyes drift to the neighbouring tables to check what they are doing there. They didn’t answer. Not because they didn’t want to. Because they didn’t want to look like the ones who try. The ambitious ones. The pushy ones. The ones who care about the “boring” stuff.
For the rest of the camp we worked through “Voices” and the other activities from the first mission of “My Career Path”. We also talked about how it can even be cool not to depend on what others think. By the end, almost everyone was taking part. Not everyone – five or six stayed on the sidelines: bored, apathetic or determined to show that none of this concerned them. But the majority turned. And it turned not because someone became a hero, but because the group as a whole tried out a different idea: I can be myself without it costing me my place in the group. And maybe some will even come with me.
This is an observation from my practice, not research. But it turns the question around. Not “how do we get the shy student to speak”, but “what in this class makes speaking up so costly”.
Why does belonging weigh so much in adolescence?
There is a fundamental human need that rarely gets the place it deserves at school: the need to belong. To be accepted, liked, to have our people.
It doesn’t appear in adolescence. It stays with us throughout life. But it is between thirteen and seventeen that relationships with peers take on particular weight. Young people are building their identity, seeking independence and orienting themselves more and more by the social world outside the family. Friends and the group become the main source of information about who I am, who I want to be and what behaviour is acceptable.
This has many positive sides. Peers motivate us to learn, to try new things, to discover interests. But there is another side too.
In 2021, Brett Laursen and René Veenstra published a review in the Journal of Research on Adolescence on the functions of peer influence. According to the model they propose, people in friendship groups gradually become more alike, because similarity makes relationships easier and reduces the risk of social exclusion.
In other words: sometimes we change in order to belong.
This is not necessarily a loss of individuality. Every community has shared interests, values and norms. The problem comes when difference starts being punished and a young person feels they have to choose between their own opinion and their place in the group.
If belonging depends on being like everyone else, how free are you, really, to be yourself?
Source: Laursen & Veenstra, 2021, Toward understanding the functions of peer influence.
When does group influence turn into pressure?
Rarely does anyone say it outright: “If you don’t do this, you’re not one of us.” The rules are unwritten.
In one class it isn’t cool to study. In another – to be interested in art. In a third – to refuse to join in the jokes at a classmate’s expense. And the student goes along with it. Takes part in something they don’t approve of. Stays silent despite having something to say. Gives up an interest that excites them because the group has declared it weird.
Conformity – going along with the opinions, norms or behaviour of the group, sometimes against our own preferences. A student’s outward behaviour doesn’t always match their convictions. Sometimes on purpose.
It is important not to treat every act of going along as a problem. Making compromises, adapting, respecting shared rules – that is also social maturity.
The difference lies in the freedom to choose.
Can I disagree? Can I like something different? Can I say “no” without it automatically meaning I will be rejected?
These questions touch on far more than classroom discipline. They touch on the shaping of a personality.
What does the data show about Bulgarian students?
The PISA 2022 results give us reason to look more closely at the social environment in Bulgarian schools. According to OECD data:
- 28% of Bulgarian 15-year-olds feel like outsiders or left out of things at school. The OECD average is 17%.
- 24% feel lonely at school – against an OECD average of 16%.
- 20% of girls and 24% of boys report having experienced acts of bullying at least a few times a month.
There is also a positive finding: 75% of Bulgarian students say they feel they belong at their school – the same as the OECD average, and better than in 2018.
These numbers don’t describe one reality, but two. Many students have friends and feel good. Others live in serious isolation in the same building, sometimes in the same room.
That is exactly why the data matters. We cannot assume that because a class looks close-knit, every student in it feels accepted.
Source: OECD, PISA 2022 Results — Country Note: Bulgaria.
And outside school?
Social relationships don’t end with the bell. They carry on in group chats and on social media.
In 2024, the World Health Organization published the results of the international HBSC study for 2021–2022. Among 11-, 13- and 15-year-olds in Europe, Central Asia and Canada, 15% report having been cyberbullied.
This doesn’t prove that social media is the reason young people are afraid to be different. It shows that the risk of rejection and humiliation keeps no office hours.
What does all this have to do with learning?
Much more than it seems.
Think about group work. One student proposes a different solution. The others dismiss it straight away. Will they put forward a second idea? Will they insist on explaining their reasoning? Or, after two or three situations like this, will they decide it is cheaper to just agree?
And what happens to creativity when a different idea draws laughter instead of curiosity?
The PISA 2022 analyses show a link between students’ sense of safety, support from teachers, belonging and well-being. The data is observational – we cannot claim that a change in atmosphere will automatically raise results. But it is hard to talk about active learning while staying silent about the environment in which we expect students to think, to ask and to make mistakes out loud.
Source: OECD, PISA 2022 Results, Volume II: Life at School and Support from Home.
There is also a quieter consequence.
We teach students critical thinking. To check sources, to separate fact from opinion, to build an argument. But are we ready to help them question their own beliefs as well?
“I’m not good at maths.” “People like me don’t become leaders.” “There’s no point in trying.” “That’s not for girls.”
Where do these sentences come from? From real experience? From a single failure? From something someone repeated for years? From friends’ expectations?
Whose voice is speaking when a student judges themselves? And did they ever really choose to listen to it?
This is the question the first mission of “My Career Path” is built around. We will get to it. First – the classroom.
How does a class change – as a group, not one student at a time?
The usual recipe is to encourage the shy ones. To give them the floor, to praise them, to support them.
A half-truth.
The shy student is not the problem. The problem is the price the class has put on trying. While that price stands, encouraging an individual student asks them to pay more than everyone else. When the price drops, the shy ones start speaking on their own. That is what I saw at the camp, and it is what I see in the classes I work with.
The price doesn’t drop because of one lecture on tolerance or a poster on the wall. It drops because of the way we respond to difference – every single time.
1. Make disagreement a normal part of learning
When a student says something different from the rest, don’t rush to decide who is right. Ask:
“How did you reach that conclusion?” “Who thinks differently?” “What arguments support each position?” “What would make us change our minds?”
This shows that disagreement is not a conflict to be avoided. It is an opportunity to think.
There is a line, of course. Disagreeing with an idea is fine. Humiliation, discrimination and personal attacks are not.
2. Don’t turn every contribution into a public test
If the only way to express an opinion is to state it in front of the whole class, some students will choose silence. Give them steps:
- Everyone writes down their answer on their own.
- They discuss it with a partner.
- The pair shares the different arguments with the class.
This doesn’t remove social pressure. But it lowers the price of the first step – and it is the first step that costs the most.
3. Watch the group’s reaction, not just the student
The most important moment is when someone says something unusual, gets it wrong or suggests an unpopular idea. What do the others do? Do they laugh? Throw in a comment? Interrupt? Or do they ask?
That is exactly where the unwritten rules of the class get written.
If mockery goes unanswered, it becomes one of the rules. If the teacher calmly, and every time, defends everyone’s right to be heard, the message is different. There is no need for a long speech. This is enough:
“We can disagree with the idea. But here we don’t mock the people who suggest it. Let’s hear the arguments.”
With systematic bullying, however, a conversation in class is not enough. It calls for action under the school’s procedures, protection for the students affected and the involvement of specialists.
A form-time activity: “Voices”
This is the first activity from Mission 1 of “My Career Path”. I give it here with its mechanics – the full text of the story and the cards are in the mission’s Guide, but you can also run it with a short story of your own.
Duration: 45 minutes (one lesson). If you have less time, shorten the discussion in step 3. Groups: 4–5 students each. Aim: for students to recognise which of their beliefs “about themselves” are actually other people’s voices.
Step 1. The story. The group reads a short story about three friends who make different choices about their future – and what then happens to each of them. In the Guide they are Maria, Sam and Yavor. If you write your own story, what matters is that the three chose for different reasons: one because of their parents’ expectations, one because of what “looks good” on social media, one out of uncertainty.
Step 2. The voices. For each character, the group answers:
- Which outside voices influenced their choice? (parents, friends, social media, school, fear)
- Did this belief help them, or hold them back?
- What would you advise them?
Step 3. Discussion. The groups share which character they were hardest on and which they were most lenient towards. It almost always turns out that the leniency goes to the character who is most like them. This is the moment when the conversation quietly turns from “the character” to “me”.
Step 4. Personal reflection. Everyone completes this on their own, without sharing:
“When I judge myself, the voice I hear most often is…”
Why it works with made-up characters rather than personal stories: analysing someone else’s character creates emotional distance. Students are more honest about the character than they would be about themselves – and then they carry that honesty over. Don’t ask for personal stories of bullying, rejection or family conflict. The hypothetical is enough.
What outcome are we looking for?
We don’t expect everyone to start boldly standing their ground after 45 minutes.
The first aim is more modest and more important: for the student to be able to name the source of one specific belief. That is a skill. It can be practised.
What is “In the Mirror World”?
The first mission of “My Career Path” is called “In the Mirror World” and it answers the question “Who am I?”.
Its logic is simple. The student comes in with beliefs about their abilities, limits and worth, without knowing where they come from. Their self-image is mostly a reflection of outside voices – family, peers, social media, cultural scripts. They leave able to name the source of a specific belief and to tell what they have evidence for apart from a story imposed from outside.
The mission is not a psychological test and does not promise to remove peer pressure. It does something smaller and more lasting: it teaches the student to hold their picture of themselves as something open to review, not as a fixed object.
The four activities:
- “Voices” – you discover which of your beliefs actually belong to someone else.
- “I Am” – you tell the story of a moment when you overcame a difficulty, and put one core belief of your own into words: “I succeed when I trust my ___.”
- “By My Own Rules” – you write your own definition of success.
- “The Mirror” – you see what social media is really telling you about yourself.
For the teacher, the mission comes with ready-made instructions and a Guide. There is no need to be a psychologist or a career counsellor. The teacher’s role is to create the environment, to ask the questions and not to tell students who they should be.
Explore Mission 1 “In the Mirror World” from the “My Career Path” programme →
Can we be different and still belong?
This may be the most important question we can put to young people. And the most important thing about it is that the answer is not “break away from the herd”.
For a teenager, standing alone against everyone is not just hard. It is terrifying. Asking that of them means asking for heroism as a condition for taking part in a lesson.
That is not what I saw at the camp. I saw a group that decided together that trying is nothing to be ashamed of. And then the same students whose backs had slumped on the first day were raising their hands. Not because they had become brave. Because they no longer needed courage.
The aim is not to teach students to ignore everyone else’s opinion. Nor to convince them that they must be different at any cost. The aim is for them to be able to listen, to weigh things up, to check, and gradually to decide what they accept as their own.
And this is where our responsibility comes in.
We can encourage independent thinking, but if a different opinion draws ridicule in our class, encouragement won’t be enough. We can talk about confidence, but if we only give the floor to the boldest, some students will stay invisible. We can teach critical thinking, but it must also have room when students question beliefs, expectations and social norms – including the ones they have heard from us.
So the next question for our students is not only “What do you think?”.
It is also: “Can you hear your own voice among all the others?”
And one more, this time for us:
“Are we creating a class where they don’t need courage to say it?”
