School Speaking

Let’s face it, we’re near the end of the school year and it’s an outside day. It’s tough to keep their attention. How do the teachers do it?

I spoke this afternoon at the Middle Grades Academy at Rawson School in Hartford. It’s a school-within-a-school, a new concept I’m seeing more often. My audience was four classes of six graders dressed in casual school uniforms and sitting in the auditorium.

Let’s face it, we’re near the end of the school year and it’s an outside day. It’s tough to keep their attention. How do the teachers do it?

I told the teacher who invited me she was doing “sainted work.”

I brought hardboiled eggs to suck into Snapple bottles and my not particularly accurate air cannon. I showed my presentation on hurricanes.

There’s no way of knowing whether I broke through. If one kid watched and decided math and science might not be a bad thing to study I was a success.

My level of success was probably lower, but it is nearly always worth taking a shot.

3 thoughts on “School Speaking”

  1. Don’t kid yourself that your level of success is lower. We had a visitor who came over from Poland who during the war was sent to Belsen in 1942, he had very vivid memories and a great presentation style It made me take history seriously enough to go to University to study. What makes this even more similar is he said nearly the same thing as you did. ‘I Don’t know if any of you have taken in anything I’ve said but I will keep trying regardless’. Years later after my 2nd year of University I went back to High School and found out his name and where to contact him. I sent him a thank you card for introducing me to the area of study I enjoy so much. I bet there was more than one kid there who thought what you did is fascinating and I’m sure you’ve influenced many over your 27 years on television.

  2. You never know who you might have influenced as you go by. I have a few great stories of kids that have showed up YEARS later and mentioned that I, or one of my kids, even, was an influence on them. All you can do is keep trying. Occasionally you get lucky and get some positive feedback, and trust me, that little bit of feedback makes ALL the effort worthwhile. I spent countless hours as a Boy Scout leader in past years, and have three Eagle scouts in the family, and all of them have influenced others…and the chain keeps going forward.

    Pay it forward, and enjoy the occasional feedback–you still weild some influence, even if you don’t hear about it directly…

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