The Teacher Voice

Before I started student teaching, I’d heard rumors about how once you start, it’s like you never stop. You come home and correct people’s grammar automatically, and when your little sister asks what a word means, you tell her and then proceed to use it in a sentence and start to restate the definition before she interrupts you with an exasperated, “Okay, I get it. I just wanted to know what it means!” and then you remember you’re not in a classroom anymore. Or how, when you’re with a group of people—maybe some friends—and you’re trying to get everyone to coordinate or whatever, and no one’s listening so you use the infamous “teacher voice” to get everyone’s attention, expecting it to work on your 20-something friends just like it does on the 9^th graders you teach. I always laughed at those stories, but secretly I thought that it would probably never happen to me.

Until sometime during Fall Semester when I had that exact vocab conversation with my sister.

More than once.

After that, I kind of just waited for the day I would accidentally use my so-called “teacher voice” in a setting other than the classroom. But it never happened. I heard stories from my classmates though, about times it happened to them. I started to wonder if maybe it was just my personality. After all, I’m a pretty quiet person. I thought that maybe because I’m shy and introverted, I would never really try and take the lead among my peers, even if I could lead a classroom just fine. I thought, Maybe my teacher voice will just stay at school.

That’s the way things went. Until Spring Break. Over Spring Break, I used the dreaded “teacher voice” on my friends: not once, but twice. Over the course of like two days. And I got called out for it both times. It was something I never thought would happen. It wasn’t exactly on purpose either—I didn’t notice I was doing it, until someone started teasing me for it.

Afterwards, after the late nights at the park, the spur of the moment get-togethers, and spending time with people I haven’t gotten to see in ages, I thought about those two moments. And I realized that being a teacher (unofficially) has changed me. And people told me it would, but they never really elaborated on what that meant, and it was just some sort of vague idea in my head. Don’t get me wrong—there were definitely ways teaching changed me before this. I could see how it changed the way I think, the way I explain things, probably even the number of times I use the words “Does that make sense?” But I never thought it would change a part of my personality like that. Before teaching, I would never, ever, in a million years have taken charge in a group of my friends like that. No matter how frustrating they were being. I prefer not to have everyone paying attention to me, to be on the outside, and wait until the talkers are done talking, even if it takes a while.

But then I didn’t. I spoke up in a group of people and explained the rules of the game we were trying to play in the same voice I use when my students aren’t paying attention. Honestly, I was kind of shocked with myself at first. But after I thought about it, I realized that it’s because of teaching. Teaching in at least some small ways has changed who I am. Because when you’re a teacher, you’re not just a teacher at school. You’re always a teacher. It’s part of who you are, and it alters who you were before a little bit. And I’m okay with that.

When You Sound Like an Ugly Old Toad

The incessant beeping of the alarm pulls me out of bed at 5:30 in the morning. Actually, that’s a lie. The alarm goes off, and I turn on the lamp beside my bed, but I don’t get out of bed for like another fifteen minutes. When I finally drag myself out of my warm blanket cocoon, I’m still rather incoherent and mostly asleep. But I as I get dressed and shove my computer in my bag, my brain begins to wake up and the first thing I notice is how my whole mouth seems stuck together, and my throat already hurts even though I haven’t said one word yet today. Is my voice even going to work? I begin to wonder. Spoiler: It croaked like an old ugly toad all day.

Before I leave, I swallow an allergy pill in the hopes that it will do something to fix this mess. After all, I usually end up dealing with seasonal allergies this time of year, so that’s definitely all it is. I don’t have time for anything else. On the way to school, I begin to wonder how exactly I’m going to teach my classes today, especially the freshman who like to talk. I keep thinking about how I can’t wait for this day to be over. And it’s only 7 A.M. Great.

When first period starts, the first thing I say to my kids is that they’re going to really have to pay attention today because I’m losing my voice and can’t talk loud. They laugh, and one student who is sarcastic and never fails to make me laugh says, “Ms. K. are you ill?”

“I better not be,” I reply, “I do NOT have time to get sick.” This makes everyone laugh, and I laugh with them. We move on, and the lesson goes well. Better than I expected, fact. I asked them to look at two short stories, one fiction, and one not, to see how they were breaking the “rules” of writing. After they finished reading and discussing with their partners, we talked about the two pieces as a class, and I swear these kids have never said more in a class discussion than they did today. Even the girl who doesn’t speak at all if she can help it, and even then never above a whisper spoke up two or three times. I’m not sure if they were truly getting into our topic, or if they felt bad for me, but either way I’ll take it. The rest of the day passed in a haze of normalcy, and I realized after the fact that it took actual effort for me to recall anything we did.

There was a point to all this when I started writing, but I think I lost it somewhere along the way. Another victim of the ever-growing brain-fog that’s spreading over me. And while I have no idea if this was the original point or not, something I learned today is that is in fact possible to teach through the brain-fog and the throat that seems insistent about enforcing silence. It may not be easy, or pleasant, but it is possible. Crack a joke, remind your students that you’re human too, and move on. Croaky throat and all.

Where Was I Going With This?

Alright, here’s the deal. For every research paper you grade, you get to eat one jelly bean. I am not above bribery. So far, I’ve earned 1 ½ jelly beans. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s not bad either. It’s like the plethora of sticky notes covering the front of my folder, my computer, the pages of my planner, and every other available surface that (supposedly) keep me organized. I still forget things, but I forget less things than I would if I didn’t have the sticky notes. And maybe the jelly beans don’t actually help me grade papers, but they make it better in some weird way.

Honestly, I’m not entirely sure where I was going with all of that. I was going to tell you some funny story about my kids or whatever crazy thing happened at school today, but instead this half-finished mess about imperfect systems of candy-bribery and endless squares of neon paper popped out.

But you know what, I guess it still works, because it’s kind of like a picture of my school experiences. Half-finished, not-quite-sure-where-I’m-going-with-this, but still good. There are days when I’m at school and nothing seems to go right, or when the kids won’t talk (or won’t stop talking), or when I sleep through my alarm and wake up ten minutes before I have to leave. And on those days a part of me wonders What in the world are you doing? Where are you going with this? And in the pre-coffee, please-let-me-just-get-through-the-day haze that surrounds my brain I’m not sure. I’m not sure why I thought all this seemed like such a wonderful idea.

And then one of my sophomores says, “Ms. K look, I finished that picture!” And she shows me a picture she’d started the day before that was inspired by our reading of Lord of the Flies. And then later, one of my freshmen says as she’s leaving class, “I really didn’t think I would like reading Romeo and Juliet, but I’ve actually really been enjoying it.” I smile and tell her I’m glad she’s been enjoying it so much. And the next day, one of the girls from my seventh period class who I haven’t seen since going back to half days, happens to be walking down the hall, smiles, says, “Hey Ms. K!” and comes to give me a hug. And the day after that, two of the boys from sixth period (who I also haven’t seen) shout (at the top of their lungs, across the hallway) “HI MS. K!” And while I’m cringing a little because really guys, it’s not even eight in the morning yet, do you have to yell? I’m also realizing that this is the answer. When I wonder what in the world I’m doing as I slosh coffee all over my hands in my rush out the door, this is the answer.

And if I don’t always know what I’m doing, or where exactly I’m going—well, it’s a learning curve. And I’ll make mistakes. And I’ll be so frustrated with myself, and with kids who get low quiz grades because they didn’t read the instructions. And I’ll wonder where exactly I thought I was going to go. But then, someone will say they were surprised by how much they’re liking what we’re studying, and someone will greet me with a grin and a little more enthusiasm than 8 A.M. is prepared to handle, and I’ll remember. I do have somewhere I’m going with all this madness. And it’s pretty awesome.

Mistakes

I started writing and then deleted everything twice before this round. Third time’s the charm. Hopefully. The reason is, I wanted it to be right. Not perfect, necessarily. I don’t care if my prose is 100% flawless, or if it sounds exactly the way I want it to. It doesn’t have to be the most moving story every written, or the funniest. I just want it to be right. Not perfect, just honest and good.

I wanted it to be well done.

This is true of me when I teach, too. I want my lessons to be well done, my feedback to be the right kind so that it’s beneficial to the student. Obviously, all of this is a good thing. I should want to do my job well. And I do. Desperately.

But I make mistakes. I forget to remind the kids of something important, or my explanations fall short, or my instructions don’t make sense. I miscount the points on a quiz, or grade an essay to hard or to easy. Situations come up in class, and only afterwards do I realize there was a different way I could’ve handled it that would’ve been a million times better.

And when one of those things inevitably happens, there’s always another just around the corner. And another after that. And another. And so on. Mistake after mistake after mistake till it feels like those are all I can see.

When I make a mistake like that, my CT always says something like, “It’s okay, just do it next time.” The second part is easy. I can change what I did wrong. The first part is harder. The knowing that it’s okay. That my students aren’t going to fail because of me. That it’s okay to just realize you messed up and fix it the next time around.

I’ve learned all kinds of things. I know how to write lesson plans, how to create assessments, how to explain things five different ways, and I’ve learned that even if I repeat myself multiple times, then have somebody else say what I just said, there will still be that one kid who doesn’t know what’s going on. I’ve learned that no matter how well you thought you knew a text, when you go to teach it you can always discover something new about it. There are lots of things I’ve learned, and lots more I’m still learning.

And the hardest thing to learn is how to make mistakes.