Firm Voice

A teacher once said to me: "Talk softly so that when you talk loudly, they'll listen."

My students call it my "firm voice" or "teacher's voice".

Either way, I hate having to use it! I try to use it as rarely as I can. And when I do, they do listen. Most of the time.

Usually, I just have to pull them to the side and have a "chit-chat". I do this for all kinds of things. Sometimes it is just to compliment them on something I saw that I really liked and hand them a sticker or a pat on the shoulder. Sometimes it is just to go over their homework or talk about something random. Sometimes, though, it is because they did something I need to make sure doesn't happen again.

Then there are those times where the teacher voice gets used. One is always if a student dives out into the street, even if it is the pick-up point for the buses, without looking/listening and letting me know they think it's safe. Once they do it once or twice, they don't even have to wait until they hear all of their name and they are backing up quickly. You can understand why that one earns my teacher voice!

Then there was the other day where I was absolutely shocked at the behavior I saw. I've worked with the kid for years now and I've never ever seen anything like it before. I won't go into details, but I had to call this kid to come over and have a seat next to me. It was potentially dangerous (nobody would have actually been hurt, but in this case it was the action that drew my attention). Dangerous is just something that always gets that voice. When I called this student's name out the second the student did it, they froze. All the students in the room froze. This kid did immediately what I told the student to do and I could hear this student talking to themselves about it, so I let them sit and think for awhile. Then I went through the typical line of questioning about the behavior and sent the student off.

It gave me time to think though. Time to think about how much I dislike using the firm voice and yet, how it is sometimes necessary. That it is twice as effective when it is not used all the time. Mostly, I like to head things off before they get there. Sometimes that means being quick on my feet. I try as quick as I can to turn whatever the trigger was into something funny. For example, one of my students tripped over something the other day and I could see her building up to yell at it or themselves for it and I immediately jumped in with:

"ok, ok, I know I've said this before, but you know the rule. The rule is no hurting yourself! and that goes for everybody. You know that is the rule my husband told me too. I turned around the other day and I was thinking about something and ran straight into a wall and that is what he told me! Like I meant to run into that wall! Geesh!"

It took the students a second to figure out what I said (and I said it in a exasperated voice) and then they all bust up. It seems silly, to say something like that, but it helped them all realize that sometimes it just happens, we just hurt ourselves.

My husband quoted something from Dr. Laura (he likes to listen to her sometimes) the other day: "Confusion is great to grab a teenager's attention". I liked that because that's what I do. Just say something silly out of the blue and I know instantly if I have their attention by how they react. The sillier, with the group I've got, the better! And I get to laugh too! That's the best part. I hear them doing it with each other now and that's even better.