The Phony Voice
May 8, 2008
There’s something I’ve never been able to understand about the way some adults interact with children. I call it “The Phony Voice.”
I’m sure you know what I mean. It’s the guest speaker who speaks naturally to adults before a presentation, but then hops up an octave and goes into patronizing mode when speaking to children. It’s the sugary sweet, fakey-fake, I-could-never-sustain-this-for-a-whole-day voice, and kids pick up on it right away. Even by second or third grade, when this occurs, I’ve had students shoot me quizzical glances as if to say, “Are you kidding me?” But the owner of The Phony Voice never picks up on the students’ amazement, and it seems a bit rude to try to correct the person in between sentences.
So to everyone who reads this blog: please, speak to children in a dignified manner. They can handle it.
Entry Filed under: Education, Elementary Education, Fifth Grade, Fourth Grade, Learning, Secondary Education, Students, Teaching, Third Grade, school. .
5 Comments Add your own
Leave a Comment
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed
1.
Mathew | May 8, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Yes! The tone of your voice makes a huge difference when talking to children. And students can spot a phony.
2.
eyeingtenure | May 8, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Amen, brother. I hated hearing this at my summer camp.
3.
Liza Lee Miller | May 8, 2008 at 10:15 pm
I have always spoken to my own personal children in a normal tone of voice and with regular words. I think it is one of the reasons they are such great communicators and why they have such huge vocabularies. It pays off in teaching too. The Phony Voice is a big irritation of mine.
4.
oreneta | May 9, 2008 at 5:47 pm
And then there are the ones, often the same ones, who refer to themselves in the first person! “Mommy is really going to be upset if you hit Mommy again, because Mommy doesn’t like it when you hit her.” What is that?
5.
rebel | May 13, 2008 at 1:39 am
In HS I briefly dated a guy who had a ’sincere’ voice…after we broke up he was in the school play and tried to use his ’sincere’ voice in the romance scene. The drama teacher’s response “You sound too sincere - no one’s ever going to believe you!” LOL