Voice Down

One week ago, while at my placement, I became very focused on one student in particular. Cody always gets in trouble for speaking too loudly. He is told time and time again that he has to keep his voice down while inside. Sometimes, this has to do with him speaking loudly in small groups, or out of turn, or sometimes feeling the need to scream out in excitement in frustration. However, what first drew my attention to Cody was that, even when he is making productive points or raising his hand, he is sometimes still told to lower the sound of his voice. During this placement, the sound of his voice was actually used as a focus of the whole class when Teacher Linda explained to the class, after already explaining to Cody, that sometimes people’s voices are too high or too low and we have to be able to speak at just the right height when we are inside. Although there are obvious consequences of calling someone out in front of the whole class and repeating the same message to someone multiple times, this instance got me thinking about other times that I had seen Cody’s voice come up as a problem. Cody, in previous weeks, has been asked to, if he feels the need to scream for whatever reason, to go to the cubbie area and gather himself. Having gone to an all boy’s elementary school from kindergarten until eighth grade, it feels strange to me to have two female teachers telling a young student who is a boy how to deal and contain his emotions while also constantly trying to tell him that how he speaks is too loud. Obviously these skills are important, but I believe that the kindergarten class at Rose could do a better job.