Blogging with Mr. Oldham

Today was the final class of School-Community Relations at St. Bonaventure. Our final class consisted of student presentations. Going into the presentation I had everything planned out in my head and on my notes. Introduce the idea, discuss its relevance, and then close with questions.  I didn’t anticipate the butterfly’s that developed when I stood in front of class to deliver the speech. Here I am a teacher, a person that speaks publicly for a living with butterflies. I learned a lesson today and that is that I need to give myself more opportunities to speak in front of various audiences. I also should have a backup plan if my mind freezes up. I should probably have had my speech scripted so that if I needed to fall back onto something that crutch would be there to catch me.

 Afterwards, I began to reflect about my students and realized that I need to give them more opportunities to stand in front of their peers to deliver information. Public speaking is an important quality for future leaders and I would hope that my students will become leaders in whatever profession they chose. In the future I will definitely provide more opportunities for my students to share information in various formats.