A CI Teacher's Worst Nightmare: Vocal Cord Polyps

Hey guys! Sorry it's been so long since I've posted.  I had a busy summer, and I'm just starting to think about school again.  I wish I could be writing a post about how I would start my year on day 1 with CI, but this year and every year to come is probably going to look different than I imagined it would.  In mid-July, I was diagnosed with vocal cord polyps.  I had heard of these before because many famous singers have this issue, but the idea of me, a teacher, having polyps was crazy to me.  You can watch my video at the bottom of this post to see more about the what my journey has been so far... but I'm also hoping some of you can help me with ideas for starting my year with no voice or possibly not even being able to be present.

Here's a summary of events:
-Fall of 2018: started using CI in all class and became very dramatic with story telling
-Feb. of 2019: began easily losing my voice and becoming hoarse
-May of 2019: voice was so bad I couldn't even speak in class
-July of 2019: went to regular doctor who referred me to an ENT who told me I will need surgery

While I wait to find out for sure when my surgery will be (hopefully I will find out tomorrow), I am planning for the worst: being on complete vocal rest during the first week of school.

What ideas do you have for lessons for me? To give you some background information, I teach 5th-8th grade Spanish in a school where they start learning Spanish in kindergarten.  All of my students will have had CI for at least 1 year, and we use the Somos curriculum in 4th-8th grades.  I may have some new students but will put them with mentor students to work with.  Here's what I've come up with so far:

  • Making my own videos
  • Dreaming Spanish YouTube Videos
  • Class novels with packets of questions/activities
  • Class stations using stories/content from last year (Thanks Martina Bex for the stations templates)
  • Lots of free choice reading... possibly having small groups pick a novel to read together and create smash doodles or other things?!
  • Create new simple stories that students draw images for (comic strip, story board, big books for our class library)
  • Sr. Wooly videos
What else?! Thanks for all of your help and support.


Comments

  1. Ben SlavicAugust 12, 2019 at 12:02 AM

    Thank you for this. We must learn that we are not entertainers and that we get to teach in accordance with our own personalities. Period.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. KaitlinAugust 23, 2019 at 10:42 PM

      Yes, I advocate for this every time I present and talk with people who believe they have to be a certain way in order to teach with CI. We have to be ourselves otherwise it won't work, we'll burn ourselves out, and the kids will see right through it.

      Delete
  2. Sarah RAugust 13, 2019 at 3:46 PM

    Oh! I wish you luck with your surgery and recovery! I've loved all your work with Tina H this summer! If you love Dreaming Spanish videos (and who doesn't??!!), you definitely need to check out Edpuzzle. You can upload one of Pablo's videos and then insert questions during the video for students to answer. They can re watch as many times as they want and on the Teacher's page you'll be able to see their status, answers and what parts they re watched and how many times! Edpuzzle is fantastic!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. KaitlinAugust 23, 2019 at 10:41 PM

      I love Dreaming Spanish and can't wait to try EdPuzzle!! I just need to take the time to figure out how to use it ha! Thanks so much for your support and kind words!!

      Delete

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