Teach 180: My Voice (Day 61)

To a teacher a voice is a valuable thing.  We can't really do our jobs without it.  This week, I have been losing my voice.  It usually happens around this week, because I have my church Christmas concert and my voice gets quite a workout.  Usually things are fine as long as I don't get a cold.  Unfortunately, my daugher had a slight cold and throat issue before Thanksgiving and she shared it with me. (Thanks, Cassie!) This blog will be a progression of my voice during the day.

8 AM: I don't teach for the first few periods.  I am planning on writing two quizzes and doing lesson plans for next week.  I don't plan on talking much.  My Yeti cup is filled with tea and honey.  I have a chat with a colleague about using our online grade reporting system and visit the Upper School Director for more tea and a chat about Christmas break plans.(Fridays is Dylan's open door day to his office.)

10:15 AM: It's advisory period and we have class meeting first.  Luckily, I don't have to talk during this time.  When class meeting is over, I take my advisees to my classroom and we play banana-grams.  We don't have to talk much to play the game.  Another voice saver.

11:00 AM - 3:15 PM: Lunch and three classes. Unfortunately, I need to do quite a bit of talking in Prob/Stat and PreCalculus.  In Prob/Stat, we are starting a new chapter.  There are basic concepts to be explained related to mean and standard deviation of a random variable.  There is really no way to make this lesson, where students teach each other the concepts.  In PreCalculus, we reviewed two examples involving completing the square to determine the vertex of a parabola and did a Kahoot.  (My random question of the day (RQD) was "What is the name of Mrs. Nataro's blog?")  The day ends with a test in my second section of Prob/Stat and my voice is saved from talking too much.  However, in that class I had multiple students come up and ask me questions during the test.  Based on their questions, I am slightly worried about the grades on the test.  Time will tell.  I'm planning on grading them on Saturday morning.

I am now at home and I am working on finishing my blog.  How's my voice doing?  Not so great.  I am guessing it will be about a week before I am back to 100%.