Teachers Have Sensory Needs Too

Being an Avoider does not stop at childhood.  These sensory processing patterns tend to stay with us throughout life.  Hopefully the more we understand our sensory selves, the more we can develop strategies to help us navigate through life.

Having grown up in a large family, I am used to a significant amount of auditory chaos.  I can generally tolerate a noisy working environment.  This suits me in my current job as I work with students in a variety of natural environments: classrooms, loud cafeterias, boisterous playgrounds and gyms with poor acoustics.  Each classroom has different noise levels.  I think this reflects the range of tolerance individual teachers have for sound.  If a teacher is an Avoider, the classroom is probably more structured and quiet.  If a teacher is not bothered by noise, the sounds of students working and playing are more noticeable.

The TooLoud! app is ideal for the teacher who needs to limit noise in the classroom environment.  It records decibels, displaying the volume levels in numbers.  Use it to let the class know when they cross the auditory line.  Hook your iPad up to the projector and manage the working noise level in class by letting the students see the feedback for themselves.  The data is also visualized in a live graph and in a sliding bar that indicates the rising levels of clamor and babble.  Watch out for the red zone...time to bring the level down!