Climbing the mountain of public speaking
By Dr. Glen Coleman
I believe at the center of meaningful teaching is asking students, “What do you think?” —and listening to their answers. When teachers and students research and question, we embark on a sacred journey. When we use course content to better understand our world, we get outside our comfort zone and grow personally and professionally.
I try to hit that target with an end-of-unit assessment that I call Two-Minutes to Mastery. Students complete two-minute speeches with no notes. In the best sense, it scares students; it causes them to band together, hear divergent points of view, learn from each other, and work as a team. The goal is for students to complete that challenging task in a workshop setting and use course content to deepen their insights into societal issues. We climb the mountain together.
The task begins with students addressing challenging prompts. I call them Shangri-la prompts because they lead us to good places. The prompts require synthesizing course content with our world today. As a social studies teacher, I have asked these kinds of questions:
- What Enlightenment ideal (e.g. democracy, trial by jury, rule of law, election) needs an update so as to avoid another January 6th raid on the capitol?
- Based on your understanding of the French Revolution, what’s next for Venezuela? Predict or suggest a solution. What lesson should the Venezuelans or their government learn from the French Revolution to avoid further calamity?
- Should Andrew Jackson stay on the twenty-dollar bill?
- To what extent is China’s presence in Angola imperialism?
- How did African-American music help end segregation in the South?
These questions require students to show mastery of course content. As importantly, they use that knowledge to better understand their world. It’s not easy: students need to know what happened on Jan. 6, 2021, need to know what is happening in Venezuela today, need to understand current events in Africa with regard to China’s presence there, need to wrestle with the legacy of Andrew Jackson, or appreciate the historic impact of African American music that continues into the present.
I believe good questions can emerge from any topic: math, science, music, language arts, and on and on. By good, I mean questions that spur interest. It starts with silence on the other side of the question mark. If I ask, “What do you think?” allow perfect silence, and care enough to listen, that’s when the learning starts. That’s the opportunity.
I want to give you courage. Don’t think of your subject as calcified. Your subject is dynamic, new, and now.
If our intention is to grow, we must ask inspired questions. Do so with this North Star: “I don’t know, but I will find out with you.” Yes, math too evolves. Take, for example, geometry, with its two thousand year old proofs. When we insert the world into the curriculum, the statue steps down from its pedestal. It draws a breath. It’s no longer an inanimate object confined to a museum.
Two Minutes to Mastery must get students to think, stretch their limitations, communicate, fail and feel excited about participation. In short, I want it to catalyze the creation of community, the kind that inspires growth. Early in my teaching career one of my students cried because I told her to do her speech again. The girl was brilliant and a perfectionist, but she was thrown off by my request. The room got very tense very quickly, but a touch of humor defused the emotion. Soon, everyone, including the girl, was laughing in a hysterical, joyful way. We were learning that we could do better than “one and done,” getting only a single shot at a project or performance. “One and done” is a lot of weight to carry, a lot of stress that undoes heartfelt effort.
Instead, we workshop, get critical feedback from peers, improve, and eventually create something really good by any measure, for college and beyond. The student who got emotional over her grade later delivered an amazing and powerful speech because she felt empowered by not being bound by a single performance. Ultimately, do-overs allow a class to improve when the bar is high and the intention to improve is genuine, when opportunities to try again are real and the topic engages.
Delivering the speeches
Many adults can’t speak for two minutes in an organized, compelling, and informed fashion about the complexities of current events. It takes practice, failure, overcoming stage fright, and a supportive audience/team. But when we do the work, a feeling of empowerment emerges.
Speeches are generally delivered from the back of the room, a space typically not associated with where speeches are traditionally delivered. All desks are pushed to the front of the room, except for one. I push it against the wall in the back of the room. The speaker sits on that desk to deliver their speech. This reduces stress.
I position myself between six and 10 feet away, seated to their right at a desk by the wall, taking notes as each student speaks. If prompted, I may offer suggestions. Students do the same. We create a big U shape around the speaker. In chairs only, we sit close to the speaker, creating an intimate atmosphere. Of course, this had to be modified during the pandemic. Each student has only a notebook, a pen, and perhaps a printed copy of what I handed out previously concerning the expectations for the speech. We’re now ready to help.
By the time students present their speeches, they have already researched for at least a day, brainstormed with me for another day, researched with the librarian to learn more deeply about the topic, and spent a day writing their scripts.
Generally, one student volunteers to go first. (There’s usually someone who wants to get it over with.) Within a minute, the speaker will realize it’s far less stressful than she imagined, even though expectations remain high.
When someone volunteers, I comment on one of the four outlined expectations:
- Content mastery (showing a balanced understanding of course-content and societal issue).
- Thematic coherence (when an idea, insight, or suggestion integrates the various elements addressed)
- Organized presentation (talking about each topic in detail—no switching back and forth—in thoughtful, organized, and well-developed paragraphs)
- Unique insight and research (no repeating other students’ answers).
The goal is to get students organized, lucid, and conversant with the material. Together they develop an informal, confident command of the material as each student sits on that desk and tells us what they think. This requires students to become comfortable speaking to the class. They receive feedback and try again. If a student is tongue-tied, no worries. We can discuss alternative approaches. If the theme doesn’t work, students suggest ideas or facts to elevate the game.
In other words, on the first go-round, we workshop. We dissect and get a collective sense of what sounds right, although mindful that each student needs to present a unique point of view. No parroting. If someone speaks impressively, we acknowledge it. If a speaker sounds lifeless, as if a speech has been memorized, we’ll say, “Say what you think. Don’t recite a script.”
The whole point of speaking without a script—or with only 20 words of notes—is to get students comfortable. This may seem counterintuitive, but a script kills the engagement. The notecard with only 20 words raises the bar and demands focus and the creation of something meaningful. Meaning drives the bus. Students present speeches that are impressive in various ways—serious, witty, soft spoken, dramatic, or authoritative. There are many ways up the mountain, but to summit we must show command of the topic, argue coherently, be organized, and present our unique point of view.
When we give students the opportunity to say what they think, research deeply, use course content to promote divergent thinking, and learn in community with multiple attempts at mastery, the classroom becomes a powerful place indeed.
What has made Two-Minutes to Mastery successful?
- The high bar that might have seemed intimidating at first.
- The teacher who cares and appreciates the difficulty of the task
- The common purpose that provides an incentive for students to work together.
- The workshop format which helps make the goal attainable.
- Most importantly, real opportunities to “fail gloriously,” try again, and learn with feedback from classmates and teacher.
Dr. Glen Coleman teaches social studies at River Dell High School, is an HP Teaching Fellow for using technology for powerful learning, and hosts a podcast, Teacher Breathe. Coleman is the author of 100 or Nothing: Reimagining Success in the Classroom. He can be reached at info@teacherbreathe.com.