I too tend to treat kids as small adults and they love it because no one ever really has any respect for them.
I talk to them about things that are supposed to be ‘above their level.’ It doesn’t matter to me if they understand or not. What matters is giving them every possible opportunity to rise above the tiny place the world has given them.

Most adults herd kids like little sheep and indulge the mediocrity of their infantile state seeing it as ‘cute.’
Watching the typical ‘day care’ approach to children turns my stomach.

I want to help them grow!

Besides, if you’re doing substitute teaching you can find the really self-aware and curious kids this way by giving them a chance to shine and rise to the top.
I once subbed for a class of 7th graders and ended up having a conversation with one of the students about the philosophy of Nietszche after class.

These are the kids who go through pretty much all 12 years of school aware of the drudgery and pointlessness of the system with no one in the world who will actually listen to them. Life for them is like a bad dream that lasts for years and they respond ecstatically to someone who actually gives a damn.

My wife and former wife had a lot of difficulty trying to teach a child because they looked at teaching a child from their own perspective and only wondered “why can’t this child pick this up like I did?” But when I took time with the child and looked at their own approaches and saw what they saw, we were soon able to change things around a little and get good results. The mothers said I had great patience, but it’s not patience so much as seeing the kids as real people and being with them, seeing with them, understanding them, not being above them.

Children always gather around me, listen to me and share stories with me, and just love to be with me, because I enjoy being with them, treating them as equals. I enjoy this very much, and think it is an important part of their development to associate with adults who will not simply ignore them or wish them away.

Anyhow, the poster related that she had always been very good with kids despite not fitting the stereotypical view of the person who’s good with kids, i.e. warm, “fuzzy,” enthusiastic and extroverted. Then one day at a function with lots of children where she was, as usual, quite well liked by all the children, one of the parents, grinning ear to ear told her: “You’re so great with kids! You treat them just like they’re regular people– only smaller!” To which the OP smiled, somewhat bemused, and said thanks– only to hear the same thing said back again even more enthusiastically, and tinged with a merry tone of shock and positive bewilderment: “You treat kids just like they’re regular people!!!”

Naturally, as I suspect you’ve already pieced together, the OP’s bewilderment came from the fact that she had theretofore assumed “treating kids just like regular people– only smaller,” (with the necessary caveats that little kids aren’t fully cognitively developed yet and so… etc.) was the norm– not some marvelous gift from the heavens as her interlocutor seemed to believe.

The reason this was so interesting to me (and may be to you) is that I’ve always done very well with kids– whether the little tiny runts, the tweens or the early teens– and wasn’t sure why, since I’ve never been very outgoing or warm to them. They seemed, however, to like me despite this, but now it seems that they liked me because I actually viewed them as real people– only smaller.

After reading the aforementioned post, I found that a large segment of the general population really does seem to not treat kids as “regular people– only smaller,” but as objects, or almost-humans of kind. Certainly not all extroverts, probably not even most, but– judging by my own personal observations– a very surprisingly large percentage.

This probably translates into any situation where one party is has more status or authority than the other. To use your terminology– a loud person’s concern with status markers can be so excessive that they may view those with ‘inferior’ status markers as lower humans or even less than human, whereas the subtle person doesn’t view these external markers as proof of greater humanity.

It very may well be that your students liked you because they sensed you didn’t view yourself as a superior sort human just because of your status and authority. Perhaps it was easier to establish yourself as an authority figure precisely because they could tell you didn’t view your authority as proof of inherent superiority.

Now, for the last 10 years and off-and-on before that, I have taught a pullout gifted program rather than regular classroom. I am the only person in my district with my particular job description, which makes my being a bit “odd” kind of expected.

The end result of this is that the failure rate of his classes was greater than 60%, but as he was one of the heads of the education department at the university, no questions were asked. I was one of those who failed twice, (they had a 2 strikes at that subject and you’re out policy) therefore, I could not become a teacher, and effectively the end of that potential career, and actually a major contributor to the end of my marriage, after 3 years of study. I had done quite well on other subjects, achieving high distinctions in english and politics, coming out with a bachelor of arts in english literature.. largely unemployable at 35 years old. Not finding my place in an Extroverted world.

In any community, professional or otherwise, life is going to be difficult if you don’t fit in with the group vibe.

Each profession attracts a certain set of personalities just like a local bar. I wouldn’t surprised if the right sort of community was the biggest predictor of professional success.