Not the Loudest Voice in the Room
Most teachers I've had over the years have been able to project their voices loud enough for an entire room full of kids to hear. They all made it look so effortless, and I recently found out that I have to strain my voice a lot before I can hope to reach even close to the same volume level.
Did I lose my voice, or do I just not have a teacher voice? Do I need to start doing voice exercises at home? Should I go looking for it in Ursula's cave?
You'd think I would've discovered this sooner, but the only times I ever needed to project my voice was during a presentation in school--a situation in which the teacher had made it mandatory for everyone to be silent and attentive. The irony of this is baffling, I know. But how did my teachers do it?
When kids chatter, their voices can easily muffle yours, especially when you are trying to give instructions or just move the students through content. This happened to me when I was trying to give instructions, and not one student shifted their focus back to me.
Out of panic, I did not wait for their attention. My mentor teacher was informally observing this whole lesson and I needed the class to quiet down. I asked them multiple times to listen and I did not know to wait. Instead of staring them down, I looked around frantically.
I repeatedly asked for their attention, and I was not heard. The worst part about my voice is that the more loud I try to be, the more shrill it becomes. After that class period, I felt discouraged with my own voice. Other teachers in my life had told me about the teacher voice before, so where was mine?
When my mentor teacher and I debriefed the lesson, she asked me to notice particular ways she held the students' attention. I was relieved that she hadn't said anything about the volume of my voice.
We also had a conversation about wait time. Until now, I had been introduced to the concept of wait time in terms of giving a student enough time to answer. I have not perfected it, but there is a balance between asking for attention and waiting for it to happen.
My understanding of the teacher voice so far extends beyond students being able to hear me, it's all in what I choose to say and the way I choose to say it. I watch my mentor teacher do this every day. She even manages behavior in her classroom when she is speaking in front of the whole class without detracting from the lesson!
She leads students to the answer, and she structures the questions she asks in a way that both challenges them to think and encourages them to raise their hands. She pieces together things they have already learned with new concepts.
To me, a teacher voice is more than just how loud I'm capable of being. It's about how I can connect students to understanding and learning. Capturing a series of learning moments with students is something I am still working on.
In addition to this, knowing students is vital to getting them to listen. Who wants to listen to someone they barely know or trust on a Monday morning before 9AM? I've found that having smaller conversations is a huge help.
My final thoughts about the teacher voice will likely develop as I spend more time teaching--but for now, I know that I do not have to be the loudest person in the room to be heard by students.
Here are some things I observed my mentor teacher do:
1. Use shorter phrases to get attention My mentor teacher used, "Eyes up here, mouths are closed," and she sometimes pointed at people excitedly and said, "Go!" Other times she said, "Let's get focused." Sometimes, you have to be blunt and just say, "(Name), stop talking." Keep it short.
2. Use students' names to your advantage Naming students when they are off-track is effective, and it's a simple way to tell a student that they need to be listening. An example would be, "(Name), stay with us, please."
3. Do not derail students during independent work Let them work! You do not always need to stop and have a long conversation with every student. Sometimes all they need is a quick glance over the shoulder and a word or two like, "Super," or "Nice work."
4. Do not be afraid to laugh with the students and have fun. A teacher's priority is to ensure students' learning, but that doesn't mean that things are no longer funny and that you can't talk to the students like a human.
Bottom line, there is no such thing as one almighty attention-grabbing equation that every educator uses. Teachers are flexible and they plug in what works for the situation.