Two of the rooms in which I have lectures are about 25 yards from the construction of a new lecture block. While I’m thrilled that the construction is moving on well, it’s rather hard to project your voice to 40 students while a cement mixer is churning away.
I took the opportunity to remind my students to use their teacher/parent/preaching voices when reading lessons in chapel, as I could barely hear the reader this morning. One student spoke up and requested that we request the chaplaincy to purchase a PA system for the chapel. I countered that we should all master the skill of projecting our voices, because we can’t tell the congregation, “oh, I’m sorry, there’s no power, so I can’t preach.”
The same student then said that he thought that one of his classmates, who has a rather soft voice, would be able to project well either when his time comes to serve in the chapel. The class laughed, and I felt so bad for him. So I talked in my regular voice, to point out that they couldn’t hear me at my normal volume.
Then I had to bring out the teacher voice to point out that naturally, I am rather quiet. This brought the laughter. Apparently, not one of those 40 people believes me! They honestly don’t think that my natural tendency is to be quiet. They don’t believe me when I tell them I’m an introvert.
Keeping 40 adult students on track when there’ s a cultural divide takes quite a bit of energy, and when I leave them, I’m quite tired. I still maintain that I’d rather be quiet, not matter how much that makes them laugh.
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