Tag: voice

68/365 Volume, Alone, is not Enough for Student Voice

Volume knob

A familiar trope in the education world is that of voice. Specifically, teachers are concerned with what they can do with voice, and the conversation positions them as wizards. Teachers can give voice, silence voice, encourage voice, privilege voice. If there’s an active verb lying around, it’s entirely likely a teacher can use it to affect student voice.

Most frequently, though, teachers speak of voice as a gift – “I really want to work to give my students voice.” This is to speak of voice as though its allocation resides within the domain of the teacher and students enter classrooms voiceless and hoping to be awarded their voices through the benevolence of teachers. Those claiming to give students voice treat students’ interactions with their friends, family, and communities as though they are not authentic uses of voice. They do the same of any online space where these students might contribute content ranging from reviews to status updates.

This said, when we speak of “student voice,” we are usually speaking of sharing, and not just sharing anything. We are speaking of sharing the work we assign to students in more open ways than the traditional teacher-student assessment transaction. What’s more, the goal is usually to position that work (authentic or not) so that students are sharing their school voices as loudly and vociferously as they are sharing the voices of their every day lives.

Volume is good.

In the moments when projects are seen as authentic and relevant to students’ lives, and they raise their voices digitally or otherwise, the increased volume can be a beautiful thing.

What must be done, what is incumbant upon teachers, is more than drawing out increasing volume. Along with volume, we must teach students the value of nuance when they speak in spaces physical and digital.

Here, too often, the schools we have depart from the schools we need. In the afterglow of students sharing loudly the learning they’ve accomplished and what they’ve created, it is all too easy to miss the opportunity to ask if what has been voiced has been voiced well.

We do not remember Martin Luther King, Jr. by saying, “Wow, he talked a lot, and it was loud.” It is in the nuance of voice that we can find great value. How can we help students to think of what they have to say as Hemingway did and knead and fold their words to hold more meaning than they’d considered possible?

1. To bring nuance to voice, the work must be worth doing. A rough draft can be coaxed out of the most reluctant students, so too, can a few edits before submission. To work toward a well-crafted and considered use of voice, students must be presented with work that draws upon their curiosities, challenges them to find answers, and then calls on them to create something of value.

2. A nuanced voice also comes with practice and the chance to do something more than once. Some science teachers will ask their students to conduct one experiment within a year and then present their results at a school science fair. In such instances, a student’s voice cannot be expected to have great nuance. This would come with the opportunity to design, conduct and share multiple experiments throughout the year. This is how practitioners within fields refine their own voices, by using them on real things over and over.

3. Some audience required. As much as practicing in front of a mirror or its textual equivalent can be helpful, nothing beats an audience who isn’t yourself. Through practice sharing voice with audiences, students gather practice with the real thing. Feedback will come whether asked for or not, and it needn’t nessicarily come from others. Simply by sharing their voices with others, students will hear their own feedback, understand where volume has been mistaken for nuance, and (assuming authenticity of purpose) work to add that nuance to accomplish the task at hand. As they grow, the feedback of others can be added and helpful. This can be pairing in class, larger groups, whole-class presentations, public forums, etc. The key, is audience and the chance to hear where nuance fades so that it might be shored up.

Argument of where the voice originates aside, volume will be inherent in student voice. In many cases, increased volume is cause for celebration. This volume must not be the end of the lesson. To prepare students to operate adroitly as citizens, they must have nuances in what they voice and expect it from others.

Things I Know 209 of 365: Teachers neglect their Teacher Voices

There is no index of character so sure as the voice.

– Benjamin Disraeli

More than once when speaking to a room crowded with non-students I’ve forgone a microphone and decided to use my “teacher voice.”

I usually make reference to my choice, and people chuckle and nod knowingly.

Everyone knows the teacher voice.

In all the talking of toolkits and techniques, the teacher voice rarely, if ever, comes up.

We’ll discuss cooperative learning strategies and phonemic awareness until we’re offered early retirement, but the teacher voice gets no play.

Until Monday when Chicago school teacher Adam Heenan launched his “Use Your Teacher Voice” campaign.

Heenan is asking teachers to create 30-second videos in which they talk about any edu-topic they’d like. His only requirement, they use their teacher voices. (He’d also prefer they remain civil.)

Heenan claims “our authority, our teacher identity has been taken away or stolen from us. In others cases we just haven’t capitalized on the opportunities to say what we love about teaching and what we believe needs to change in ways that are best for teaching and learning.”

I agree.

As of this writing, Heenan’s Teacher Voice channel on Youtube has only two uploads.

But, word is spreading.

I’m excited to see more.

I’m excited to make my own.

Everyone has an opinion about public education, and most people see themselves as education experts because the majority of Americans spent around 13 years of their lives in public education systems.

Still, teachers are the authority.

They know classrooms and the work it takes to make them places of safety, learning, creativity and community better than anyone else.

Heenan’s campaign encourages teachers to speak with authority to their own authority.

It’s a great way to spend 30 seconds.

Things I Know 94 of 365: The difference between inside and outside voice

Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud.

– Hermann Hesse

The school psychologist sitting two stools down from me at the coffee shop making calls to teachers and parents about students on her case load wasn’t the part that upset me the most this afternoon.

It should have been.

The moment she started talking about the student she evaluated earlier today and the outcomes, that moment should have been the moment that took the cake.

If not that, then when she started talking to a colleague who happened by and asked, “The level of incompetence is nowhere near as bad as it is in Philadelphia, right?” or commented, “I was there an hour and there was no instruction. It was just an hour of poor management.”

That public destruction of our profession should have been my lowest moment.

It wasn’t.

As I assumed was a common core standard in elementary school before such things became sheik,   a difference exists between inside and outside voices.

It’s what we talk about to people we know, but no better than to speak of to anyone who’s not us.

I learned the lesson well as my mother scrubbed shampoo into my hair for the eighth time when I was 7 and got head lice the day before my aunt and uncle’s wedding.

“Zac, tomorrow, you tell NO ONE about this. Do you understand me?”

I understood perfectly.

The teachers at the end of the counter never reached proficiency.

At first, all I knew was that they were teachers by the few words of jargon I caught as I attempted to get my work done.

It was more than that.

They were grading – aloud.

One teacher was reading her students’ answers to her friend with a voice that at once belied her consternation that they were getting things wrong while mocking them as well.

“I let them draw pictures here of their answers and then had them write to explain,” she said.

Then, they marveled at the poor grammar, syntax and quality of the responses.

I can understand frustration. I know we’re at the long home stretch of the school year in a district where March featured not a single day off.

I get all that, and I know the tired that can come when you feel as though you’ve taught a concept in every conceivable way to no avail. I do.

Still, we are teachers. We are entrusted with our students’ and their learning. We would have taken an oath to do our best by our students, but there was too much to get done, so we work by an unspoken oath.

In a time when the profession is fighting for credence from the society we serve, openly mocking those in our charge who are most in need does nothing good, nothing nurturing and nothing to show the true potential of the classroom.

When we should be building sanctuaries, these two were building cliches.

And then the conversation turned.

They started to plan their next careers – their logical progressions.

“I kinda want to run a school?”

She didn’t mean it as a question, but she said it as one.

I know the answer.

A Humbling Moment

The Whole Story:

This semester has afforded me the opportunity to teach a class I’ve always wanted to teach – Storytelling. Thus far, we’re still fumbling with the ideas of what makes a story and what stories tell us about who we are. We’re playing directly and academically with those ideas every day we meet.

Except one.

Each Tuesday is story slam day. A blend of the stylings of The Moth and Philadelphia’s own First Person Arts’ story slams, the slams in class have some simple rules:

Five storytellers are randomly selected for each slam.

Their stories must be inspired by the week’s theme.

The stories must be true.

No memorization / scripts.

After each story, three randomly selected audience judges score the storyteller on content and presentation on a scale of 1-10. All the SLAms are here and here.

The room is re-arranged and coffee and tea are served.

In general, it’s a light-hearted, informal experience.

This Tuesday, though, proved one of the most profound and humbling experiences I’ve had in a classroom from my first days in Kindergarten.

The theme was “Giving Up,” and Lewam took the stage.

(audio not available in feed readers)

I’ve been working to process the story from the moment she told it.

Here’s where my mind stands. I’m at once incredibly sad and incredibly proud.

No matter how much I’ve tried or organized or listened or worked, a student in my charge felt pain within my room and within my walls.

In talking to Chris about it, he gave me the words I think I needed. Pieces of what we do will always be invisible. Pieces of our students’ lives will always be invisible. Unless we want to suit up with full-on, both-end-of-candle-burning messiah complexes, we will never see all of the invisible pieces of each child’s life. I’m not so dense as to be ignorant of this fact.

When the fact stands at a microphone in front of 30 of its peers and pronounces itself, though, the effect is markedly different. It is strikingly visible.

She stood in front of the room and said that, to her, the care and culture and collaboration had, for much of her time, failed her.

So, what do stories tell us about ourselves?

What does this moment mean?

It is complex.

When her name was called, she did not hesitate to take the mic. She did not attempt to negotiate to tell her story later or go last. She spoke truth to the power of community because the community told her it was ok.

What do we do with that?

That is, of course, rhetorical. We must honor it. To maintain integrity, we honor it.

Ego is pushed aside, and the community must reflect.

She found her voice, but felt we did not honor it. I am saddened by this and feel I did the best I could by her. It would be easy to go to “My best wasn’t good enough.” Instead, I’m drawn to the idea that my best should have been different. I’m not the only player here. Her classmates, the faculty, Lewam – they’ve all played their parts. My part is to be responsible for what I do and what I can influence. For sure, I’ll be asking Lewam for advice for the future. I’ve already told her her words impacted me more than most anything I’ve experienced in the classroom.

The Gist:

Lewam likely couldn’t have told this story last year or the year before.

She told it though.

And the room listened.

The applause you hear were the longest and most sincere of any slam we’ve put on. Even the kids who tune out or make cute jibes were silent. They saw her, they connected.

Not altogether surprisingly, she received straight 10s from each judge.

Something sits and works at my brain. What do I do with the fact that her story points to the community’s failure, but her telling of the story leads me to believe the community had something to do with helping her find her voice?

What do stories tell us about who we are?