Educators--Protect Your Voice!

Add the following to your classroom: carpet (On a teacher's salary?...Well, maybe this is unrealistic.) or rugs, curtains, book shelves or other pieces of furniture, bean bags, plants.

Organize desks so that they are close to the area that you do most instruction.

Instead of relying on your voice (shouting or speaking loudly) to quiet your students or transition them from one activity to the next, use a whistle or a timer with a dinger.

Minimize the time you are at the front of the class teaching and maximize the time you do individual instruction (walking from desk to desk).

Caffeine is a diuretic, which, um, makes you pee a lot and is subsequently dehydrating to the vocal folds. So drink plenty of water and avoid caffeinated drinks and foods. (I feel like a hypocrite here; 4 cups of coffee and 1 1/2 soda pops are what I've had to drink today.) One tip though, instead of trying to lug around a water bottle all day, I've found that I am apt to drink more water if I leave water bottles every where I go (albiet not today). I have bottles (water!) at the office, the therapy room, the car and on my bike. Some caffienated drinks and foods include coffee, tea, soda pop and chocolate.

And the root of all evil....cigarette smoking is also dehydrating to the vocal folds. Not to mention a big cause for a bunch of other really icky stuff it can do to your vocal folds and throat and lungs and heart and teeth and skin and probably your toenails, too!.

Now the root of all fun....alcohol is also dehydrating to the vocal folds.

Do you read aloud to your students? Could you have an upper-grade student from another class read to them instead? Ask for volunteers to read, like the principal. He or she doesn't have near enough to do, right? Janitors or cafeteria workers might enjoy reading to a classroom full of kiddos. The idea is to lessen the amount of talking that you do.