Stuttering in School
Posted on: September 18, 2009
- In: Posts
- 11 Comments
Now here’s something really profound. It is not always easy to stutter publicly. People’s reactions are as unpredictable as my stuttering is.
I work in a high school, which is challenging enough. Add to the mix some stuttering and it feels like a roller coaster ride some days. Anyway, part of my job is to train all the students in the building on sexual harassment prevention. Its a big job for one person. There’s about 500 students in the building, half there in the morning, the other half in the afternoon.
The only way one person can get this done is class by class, so a whole bunch of presentations. So I am talking to kids about negative sexual attention all day. And kids get giggly when we talk about this! Sometimes I have trouble with “s” words, which sex and sexual both begin with. And it would be stupid to try and substitute those words – it just wouldn’t make any sense.
So I have muddled through this week, doing fairly well, managing the stuttering. But yesterday, I was having a stuttery day and “sexual” was not easy to say. Some kids were giggling as I stuttered on the word. It was coming out “se-se-se-se-sex-u-u-ual”.
One kid shouted, “don’t worry miss, no need to get nervous about saying sex. We know even older people have it.”
Whoa, even I had to laugh at that one! The whole class did. We were laughing together, and it was OK.
11 Responses to "Stuttering in School"
September 18, 2009 at 3:23 PM
Haha, thanks for sharing Pam! Always fun to stutter on those kinds of words =) Glad you could all laugh together!
September 18, 2009 at 8:29 PM
LOL.
I think, That’s an experience which could be a great ice-breaker and also puts you in a relaxed state in spite of your stuttery day.
🙂
September 19, 2009 at 1:35 AM
It is good to be able to laugh at your own imperfections that’s one thing I have to learn in regards to my speech. Steve Harvey whom is a comedian is a stutter and in a article I was reading he was discussing his speech. He said in his earlier years dealing with his stutter was a pain but now when stutters he just laughs.
September 19, 2009 at 11:43 AM
Thank you all for reading and sharing this funny moment with me. Its hard for me to believe that just a few years ago I owuld have been mortified by this. Now, I can take it in stride and laugh with my students. He did not mean any harm – he was just being a typical male teenager.
All week its been fun going to the classes and talking to the kids. They are so goofy andf silly at this age, and its nice to just enjoy that. At one point yesterday, the whole class was laughing so hard, including me and the teacher. Who says school can’t be fun?
Pam
September 19, 2009 at 4:09 PM
Oh you can sooo rely on kids …and yep u gotta laugh !!!!!!!!!!!
September 20, 2009 at 6:08 AM
The mindset of kids is amazing. It’s unfortunate that adulthood then has the strange effect of making us more stupid!
September 20, 2009 at 11:30 AM
Absolutely, Hiten, if we could just keep the mindset of kids into adulthood, we wouldn’t have so darn many issues!
September 20, 2009 at 3:38 PM
hi pam i read your story, i thought it very cool! just so every one knows , i am pams sister and she is sooooo cool in my book! i think is took a lots of guts to be so open. she didnt always have those guts! so to me that makes her even more special! to know her is to love her. and not everyone i know gets that, esp. not in our family. just thought id let you know that! and you should all keep on reading!!! bye bye
Make Room For The Stuttering 
September 18, 2009 at 11:00 AM
Awesome! And in this case, even though he didn’t understand that you weren’t stuttering because you were nervous, he released a lot of tension the rest of the class was feeling. Definitely the right time to laugh together!