Every Child Is Different: How We Are Learning to Teach to Each Child’s Natural Style

Watch a classroom door at eight in the morning and you will see the whole range of childhood. One child strides in, greets the teacher with a firm handshake and wants to know why the lesson has not started. Another arrives chattering, halfway through a story about her hamster. A third drifts in calmly, smiling, in no hurry at all. A fourth waits at a distance, watching, until the teacher is free.

None of these children is behaving badly. Each is simply being themselves. This term at Ameen Islamic Institute, our teachers are learning to notice those differences and to teach with them in mind.

Why this is necessary

A teacher who sees only a ‘difficult’ or ‘slow’ child will respond with frustration. A teacher who understands that the child is energetic, sensitive, easy-going or quick to move on can respond with something better: a task that uses that energy, a quiet word for a sensitive child, a gentle prompt for a slow starter.

The study of children’s temperament goes back to ancient Greek physicians, who described four ways people tend to be: lively, forceful, sensitive and calm. Modern researchers no longer treat these as fixed boxes. They describe temperament as a set of natural tendencies, such as energy level, reactions to change and the ability to settle after frustration. What the research does support is simple: children differ in these ways from an early age, and teachers who notice and adapt tend to get better results than those who expect every child to behave the same.

Our own tradition has always paid attention to the individual. Classical Muslim scholars wrote about each person’s nature and about training children’s character with gentleness and habit.

What we are doing

We studied a book for teachers on the subject, written by an experienced class teacher, and we took from it the practical ideas that suit our school:

• Watching before judging. Teachers spend a few minutes on several mornings simply observing how children arrive, wait, settle and cope when something goes wrong. They write down what they see, and not a verdict.
• One lesson, several ways in. The same lesson opens differently for different children. In our daily hadith routine, for example, one child hears a short story, another takes on a challenge question, another talks it over with a partner first, and another thinks quietly before sharing.
• Calm responses to anger. When a child loses their temper, the adult stays calm, looks after anyone hurt, and talks with the child later, once they have settled. The conversation asks three questions: what happened, how do you feel now, and how can you put it right? It ends with a clear message that the behaviour was not acceptable and that we believe the child can do better. There is no lecture.
• Places and habits for calming down. Morning check-ins, a calm corner in each classroom and yoga breathing help every child manage strong feelings in a way that suits them.
• Teachers learning about themselves. The way an adult responds shapes the classroom. Our teachers reflect on their own natural style and on which children are hardest for them to understand.

What we will not do

We want to be clear about the limits. We do not test children, and we do not give them a label such as ‘choleric’ or ‘phlegmatic’. We do not record a type on any file, and we do not tell parents or children that a child belongs to a category. Most children are a mixture, and they change as they grow.

We also do not leave out the hard cases. If a child is persistently sad, withdrawn, anxious or aggressive, or if their behaviour changes suddenly, that is not a matter of temperament. It is a reason to speak to a trusted adult, and it is passed to the school’s safeguarding focal person.

The book we studied comes from the Waldorf tradition and draws on a philosophy of its own. We have kept the classroom practice and left the philosophy aside, and our scholar reviews the religious content.

What we expect, and how we will know

This term is a pilot, and we will be honest about what it shows. We are not measuring a change in children’s personalities. We are checking whether teachers find the approach useful, whether lessons offer more than one way in, and whether children recover more easily from frustration and take part more fully. We will share anonymised findings, including what did not work.

An invitation to parents

You know your child’s ways better than anyone. If you would like to tell us what helps your son or daughter settle, learn and feel at home, please speak to their teacher. We would like to hear it, and it will help us teach them better.