Finding My Voice: Online Reflection #2

 In the midst of teaching my KPTP unit, I have had to step away from grading a plethora of writing assignments and handling my own near-constant questioning of how I can increase my student's motivation and interest in regards to reading Night  to address one issue that lies almost solely within my sole control: my 'teacher voice'. I have always considered myself to be a fairly loud individual; meekness has never seemed to be my issue and while I do tend to talk quickly when I get particularly enthusiastic about a topic, I have never previously found myself spending too much time worrying about my teacher voice. I could be loud. I could be serious. I have a strange 'accent' but I was just fine, thank you very much. I had it down (or so I believed.) Most of what I thought I would face as a teacher would be about modifying my lessons to fit students needs. I would focus on inspiring my students to become better learners because I was already a great teacher. Of course, I would grow and mature but at least I had the teacher voice down already, right?

     Not quite, it turns out. Luckily, I can address this issue. I just need to step back for awhile and focus on my own needs, so that I can better address students needs in the future. Finding my teacher voice has proven difficult; sometimes the perfect tone for a situation seems terribly elusive; I tend to escalate it all too quickly, a habit that seems to throw off my student. As one kid in third hour so aptly put it "Oh wow, you're mean now, that was fast".

     Was I mean? I wouldn't go quite that far, but I had certainly lost control of the situation and thus had resorted to using a loud voice to 'throw around' my authority abit, rather than using a firm voice throughout my lesson to ensure that I was heard but not seen as suddenly overly harsh. I had made a mistake and my students knew that something was awry.  I had gotten my students attention, but I had also made them balk; their attention wasn't on the lesson it was on me suddenly doing a 180, as  I had gone from joking to almost angry too quickly. I should have instead used a firm voice that demanded respect but also showed that I was not going to 'yell' to get their attention. Instead, I would speak  just loudly enough to be heard and demand engagement, rather than send students on the defensive. Joshua Block, an educator at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia reminded me that "Power and authority are an inherent part of the teacher's role, but respect and engagement don't result from threats or stern voices. Effective teacher voice entails a combination of flexibility and firmness while keenly reading individuals and the pulse of a group ("Reframing Teacher Voice, 2015, 4). Essentially, I need to strive to be an authority figure that demands respect with the teacher voice I use at all times.

Now, I need to work on fixing this issue. When a few of my mentor teachers and several research articles mentioned practicing my teacher voice when I was alone, I filed the thought away, and have since finally put it into practice. It's still in the very early stages and naturally, it does feel a little silly but I think I can already see just the tiniest bit of progress.

That being said, I believe it will take awhile for the students to see that progress, so I must keep practicing. Please, if you have any tips in this area, feel free to share. I would love to hear how you all are handling it!

      Reframing Teacher Voice. (2015). Retrieved February 24, 2016, from    http://www.edutopia.org/blog/reframing-teacher-voice-joshua-block