Voice of the People
by John Pearson
Ladies and gentlemen, call the Olympics people back because we have a new world record: LESS THAN three weeks into the school year, I have already gotten sick!!
Not just your common cold, either. Nope, I came down with sinusitis last week, which seems to be merely a cold at first – congestion, sore throat, itchy eyes – until it brings out its big guns and takes away your voice.
That’s right, on Thursday afternoon, I lost my voice and could barely speak. I don’t know if I just didn’t get enough sleep, or if I caught it from one of the kids, though I do have my suspicions. I always give each student a high five as they walk into my room, and early in the week, one little girl gave me five then said, “I have a cold.” In exactly the same informational tone that she might have said, “I like turtles.”
I think the kids were frightened by how I sounded with no voice. I could either hiss like Voldemort speaking Parseltongue or I could talk at the top of my voice, which was like hearing a weak AM radio station coming in on every fourth word.
Frightened or not, though, they never seemed to get the idea, “maybe we should give Mr. Pearson a break and not require him to talk so much.” Instead, it was as if they got even needier, taking no visual cues and having to be told what to do for everything.
I always have a list of things to do written on the board so that the students can (theoretically) come in and start working without needing any additional instructions from me. On Friday morning, though, most of the kids came into my room and either sat and looked at me or stood around and looked at me. I tried a visual cue – pointing at the board, where task number one was clearly defined. After that, I still had about five kids looking at me expectantly, their eyes saying, “Good, good, ok, I see you pointing, that’s fun, ok, now tell me what to do!”
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Other readers' comments on this article:
Posted by Margaret on Sep 16, 2008 9:11 pm
I think we should douse them all in disinfectant. :-)
Posted by Kia on Sep 16, 2008 11:14 pm
Posted by Stacy C on Sep 17, 2008 1:20 pm
Feel better,
Tweenteacher
Posted by tweenteacher on Sep 29, 2008 5:00 pm