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.