They don't teach you THAT in teacher's college...

I had to use my teacher voice today. Want to know why? Read on, friends; I think you'll enjoy this post.

So far I've been pretty good about talking a normal volume in class...perhaps turning up the volume a few clicks when the class needs to settle down.  Even that's pretty rare, since I generally use hand gestures to get the students' attention (as you can imagine, trying to holler over a room full of honking instruments isn't the best idea for vocal health). Since I'm still quite sick, I've been trying especially hard this week to preserve [what's left of] my voice. 

"Awwww, you're still sick?!" I hear you say?

Oh no, my dearest, darlingest readers - dish out your pity elsewhere! Because there is a silver lining to this sad tale of upper respiratory infections. Even though I've jeopardized my 'strong female' identity by legitimately sounding like a hoarse man, I've discovered that for the first time, I can sing down to a C3!  (for non-music folk, its the C below middle-C...you can see it notated here). I could be a tenor! That's mildly exciting!

Now, I want you all to know that up until the class with the incident prompting voice-raising, it had been a truly great teaching day.  Instruments were rented and were starting to show up in class, and I got to hear the first sounds of a few of my bands; the class that was originally the worst-behaved of all 13 of the classes was so great I couldn't stop smiling; and one of my students unexpectedly told me that I looked pretty today, just out of the blue.

By this point in the blog, I'm sure you're aware that I've been cleverly stringing  you along, knowing full-well that the only reason you have been holding on this long is because you want to know what this big, shocking event was that prompted me to bring out the big guns....or 'big lungs', if you will.  Well, here it is:

Like I said, I've been pretty cautious about raising my voice. But, you know, when a grade 5 student decides to smoke pot in your classroom, it warrants the use of the big, bad, teacher voice.

Yep, go back and read it again. That's right. Something possessed this child to think that pulling out, lighting up, and smoking the ol' Mary Jane, IN my classroom was a good decision.  I mean, COME ON. It's not even like it happened DURING my class, outside. I'm talking about IN the actual classroom.  Are you serious, kid? You're like 10 years old - how do you even know what weed is?

How did all of this happen, you ask?  Well, maybe it was partially my fault.  I will abashedly accept the Poor Teacher of the Year award.  You see, it was a pretty unstructured class, admittedly:  I, a lone teacher, trying to run through almost 30 students on the flute, disinfecting the mouthpiece each time, recording how they sounded, meanwhile trying to manage the rest of the class, too.  It was in all of this chaos that one of the students came up to me and told me what was going on at the back of the class, with an explanation more typical of a 10-year-old (something about "doing smoke weed").  

What was the protocol? What was I supposed to say? As you can guess, I lost it.  After about 3 seconds of having my mouth gaping open in shock; running through all the teacher training I did with no immediate solution; smelling the pot; looking the kid in the eye and being so appalled at what was happening that I didn't know WHAT to say...I just snapped.  The volume and tone of voice that came out of my mouth even scared me a bit; and I can tell that by the faces of the other 30-or-so kids in the class, that it scared them, too.  I sent the culprit straight to the office, gave the rest of the class a lecture about acceptable classroom behaviour, and left the class just buzzing.  

On the bright side, after class I joined the staff-only weekly jam group in the music room.  Ending the day up with some piano jams, pop/rock songs and -- best of all -- cold beer (!) with a group of colleagues made the incident slip from my mind for a little while. 

What to do when a kid smokes pot in your classroom - THAT's what they don't teach you in teacher's college.

Many more exciting adventures to come, I'm sure.

Until next time,
B.

P.S. Mom, don't worry. One of the teachers I spoke with afterwards assured me that, although this IS Grande Prairie, grade 5's smoking weed in class is not something normal.