Growing up, I hated being tall. I hated standing out and being visible to the rest of the world in a way that my average-height teenage peers were not, and it made me deeply uncomfortable. So much so that I changed my posture to the extent that I walk in a way I have been unable to undo ever since.

I am sure most of us can remember a time or instance when we wanted to just blend in. And yet, this is something about human nature that we all too often ignore in how we treat young people. We do it for all the right reasons, and with the best intentions, but that, as ever, is no excuse. Let me explain.

Last week, at an event about ACEs - adverse childhood experiences - at Portobello High School in Edinburgh, the list of speakers included Chris Kilkenny, a twentysomething whose childhood was marred by poverty and his mother’s drug abuse.

He recounted the struggle to feed and clothe himself and his younger siblings, and get them to school on a daily basis. Kilkenny recalled lying to his school friends about his life at home and desperately trying to iron that familiar crease into his siblings’ school trousers. When so little of their life was “normal”, they just wanted to be like everyone else in school, he said - and he urged teachers in the room to remember this when dealing with students affected by ACEs.

While he was talking about his school experience, the same will apply to all colleges dealing with young people who have faced poverty, abuse or any adversity of that kind. We spend a lot of time talking about giving all young people “a chance to stand out”, “a chance to shine”. And helping every young person to find what they might be exceptional at has to be at the heart of what education is about.

But consider that what many will actually want to do more than anything else is quite the opposite of “standing out”. And make sure that your classroom or workshop is the one place where they feel safe, and can simply be “one of them”.

@JBelgutay