Teacher Voice

Two summers ago, a former student from many years ago who is now my friend was passing through San Francisco and asked if I was free to catch up. We decided to meet at a casual bar in the Mission to tell each other the story of our lives since we had last seen each other. After giving each other a big hug, we ordered our drinks. I grinned at the bartender, jabbing my thumb towards my friend, "This guy was my student and now he's a teacher, too!" My friend responded with a similar gesture, "The woman standing next to me is the reason I became a teacher." The bartender could hardly contain herself: "Oh, this warms my heart so much!"

When we sat down to talk, my friend told me about his romantic quandries and his challenges in finding the right teaching job. He struggled to know whether he should stay teaching in California or pursue his long-distance girlfriend in another state where teaching was a less comfortable fit. He was up in the air at the time, but he was young, and either way would provide him so many options. I knew he could find satisfaction whichever path he chose.

Of course, I had my hopes of what he would do.

While I sipped my wine and he his beer, he told me a story of vacationing with friends in Poland. He explained how he and his friends were walking out of a bar and they witnessed one man throw another man out of a doorway down the block. Within seconds, both men were pummeling each other. Always the adventurer, my friend went toward danger rather than away from it. He didn't speak Polish, but he did have a weapon: his teacher voice.

He didn't raise his hands. He didn't get angry. Instead, once he was within ten feet of the men, he told them, very assertively in English because that's the language he had, to stop what they were doing. He told them, with that powerful voice, to take a break, for one of them to step one direction and the other to step the other. The men didn't step back from each other, but they did stop hitting each other. They stood, glaring and panting. My friend repeated his message, incomprehensible in language but clear in tone. Slowly, arms sinking to their sides, the two men walked away from each other. He credited the whole experience to his teacher voice.

Last winter my friend called me. He had broken up with his girlfriend and stayed in California. He had a teaching job he loved. He was happy.

The teacher voice is a real thing, a thing students need to hear. It provides confidence and familarity; it provides clarity and sometimes humor. But students aren't the only ones who need it. Using the teacher voice feeds the teacher.