25 Last Public Speaking Class

Today I listened to one informative and twenty-one persuasive speeches and put paid to three decades of teaching public speaking.

As I was collecting self-addressed-stamped envelopes so I could send them their graded outlines by snail-mail, a saw a couple of the women with their hands on the cabinet in the back of RDM 306.  They were laughing and saying, "Next we want to . . .".  Big smiles stretched across their faces.  I thought they might be up to something sentimental so, with my understanding of how scenes from life's theatre need to flow, said, "No, we need to get the business done first."  Then I went to the RDM office and got their going-away tchotchkes .   As I've done for many years, I handed out the key rings I've used to mark the last day of class, the ones that say, "I survived Public Speaking with Karen Huck."  As I gave these away, moving from the back to the front of the classroom, I overheard one student say, "Oh,  I've heard about these!"

When I arrived at the front of the classroom I saw a beautiful cake sitting on a small table.  That's what they'd been going for in the cabinet.   One young woman, an ex-sailer named Michele, said that folks had chipped to purchase me the cake because they were my last speech class and to celebrate my retirement.  They'd also purchased cupcakes decorated in the same fashion for everyone in class. 

The tie-dye icing was selected because I am so "colorful."

I will be delighted by the beauty of the cake until it's eaten up but warmed by their thoughtfulness for years to come. 

The speeches topics I heard today, my very last set of speeches, were:

Make-up informative:
Why Prescription Drugs are So Expensive

Persuasive Speeches:
Try Dry Needling to Relieve Pain and Stress
The Importance of Smoke Detectors
 We Should Support Military Canines
Give Blood
The Children of the Affluent Grow Up Weak (Don't Give Your Kids Money)
Support Programs for Celiac Disease Awareness
People With Tattoos Should Not Be Discriminated Against in the Workplace
Prevent the Use of Biosolids on Farms and Ranches
Lack of Physical Activity in America
Programs Should Be Established to Teach Teenagers about Suicide
Weight Training is for Everyone
Poverty is a Problem in Central Oregon
Support Local Farmers by Eating Local Food
Be a Responsible Pet Owner by Spaying and Neutering
Try Chiropractic for Lower Back Pain
Eating Fat Does Not Make You Fat
Why Obamacare is Bad for the Young, the Old, and Small Business
Get Rid of the Electoral College
Legalize Marijuana
Get Rid of Studded Tires.

26 WDL A Day of Being Informed

I listened to 20 informative speeches today.  They may be the last student informative speeches I ever hear, unless the two people who were absent today show up tomorrow.  Here are the topics:

1. How to Taste Scotch
2. How to Pack Correctly for a Move
3. The History and Duties of Parole and Probation
4. How to Prepare Cannabis in Food
5. What is Singlism
6. What is Celiac Disease
7. Fire Prevention and Home Safety
8. A History of Chiropractic Medicine
9. Powerlifting
10. Running:  It's More Than Just a Number
11. A History of Tattoos Since World War II
12. The Use of Color as an Emotional Motivator
13. Life on a U. S. Navy Aircraft Carrier
14. China's One Child Policy
15. Healthy Families America Program in Deschutes County
16. Three Battles in the Pacific in WWII
17. The Damage Marijuana Can Do to Teenage Brain Cells
18. A History of Bend
19. The FIFA World Cup
20. Animals in the Military

27 "The Benefits of Masturbation" . . .

. . . was the impromptu topic my last public speaking class gave me tonight.

You see, I always do a sample impromptu as an illustration before my students give their impromptus.  The rules for the pass/no pass assignment are simple.   A student pulls a topic out of a bag or envelope.  Then he or she has 30 second to prepare a short speech on the topic.  To pass the assignment the speech must be at least a minute long, have an introduction, body, and conclusion, no pauses over four seconds and no babbling.  Students may redo the assignment as many times as necessary to pass.

I have students make up topics for each other and also a topic for me:  the "Huck Challenge Topic."   I collect the student topics and a volunteer collects the challenges.  Then I leave the room and the volunteer reads the challenge topics aloud and the class selects the best one.

Because I had mentioned my ignorance and dislike of sports earlier in the evening, a couple of people were joking that "football" would be a good topic for me.  I was worried enough that when I went to my RDM office to wait, I "cheated" and looked up FIFA so I could at least say something about the approaching World Cup, just in case I got football as a topic.  It was taking a while for them to make the decision though and even with the door closed I heard occasional bursts of laughter.  Laughter that had a particular wildness in it.  I began to hope for a sex question.

You see, sometimes students give me a sex question thinking that I can't answer it OR that I'll get embarrassed or just to see what I'll do.   I remember back in the early part of this century when a class gave me the topic, "What's your favorite flavor of Lube."  I later learned that the topic was suggested by the step-son of someone who worked in H. R.   I had a fun two minutes talking about various flavors.  (I actually used to talk about lubricants during the "sex week" of the Communicating Love class so I had more than personal experience on which to draw.)

So tonight, when I was called into the classroom, several people were laughing and saying things to each other like, "Get a picture of her face when she gets the topic."  And, instead of handing me the topic, like most of my classes have done, one young woman read it aloud, "We want you to answer this question: "What are the benefits of masturbation?"

I immediately wrote "Safety, Pleasure" on the whiteboard as my two main points.  Then I began my speech, "I'm so glad you've asked me, a person who has taught courses about love and sexuality for the past 12 years, to talk with you about the benefits of masturbation."  Then I went on to explain that it was the safest type of sex and also the most pleasurable kind of sex because, "If you don't know where your buttons are, who does?"  I actually said, "And if you don't know what you want, you need to take yourself in hand."

I got a lot of laughs AND performed a successful impromptu.  When it was their turns (all 24 of them), they did too.  They all had plenty of energy which I hope they can take into their informative and persuasive speeches.

I competed in impromptu speaking in high school.  It was the only event in which I ever achieved any success.  (I was a terrible debater -- I would cry if people were mean to me -- and if I tried to be entertaining I would laugh too hard at my own jokes.)

I don't think I'll miss giving impromptus, however,  because in retirement I plan to get out my old game of "spiel" and start having friends over for evenings of bullshitting.  I just don't want to let these important skills get rusty.

44 Last Organization Tree

Graphic Communication

Today I taught basic speech organization for the last time.  This is always one of the toughest aspects of public speaking for me to teach because I literally cannot remember a time when I wasn't able to put smaller ideas inside of larger ideas.  I don't understand minds which are not able to organize ideas in hierarchical and outlined fashion.  Nevertheless, I do my best to get across the concept of how this basic form of organization works and turn to an old metaphor, the Organization Tree.

Tree of Science (1663)

I'm sure this idea arises from the teaching of rhetoric in the Middle Ages.  I seem to remember seeing an organizational tree form on the door of a colleague some years ago.  Today I asked Professor Google to find that illustration for me but, sadly, I couldn't track it down.  I did, however, discover that Manuel Lima, author of  Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information,  has a new book out called The Book of Trees: Visualizing Branches of Knowledge, in which he provides a history of the use of the tree as a visual metaphor for various kinds of information.  Allison Meier provides a review of Lima's book at HyperAllegic complete with several illustrations (see one below).


So, I feel like my little tree is part of a vast and branching history of visual rhetoric.

Nevertheless, I'm not sorry to say good-bye to it.

50 The Cultural Insensitivity of Banner

Banner rules us, Banner runs us.   Banner doesn't care about human customs or concerns.  Hence, a stress point in my last quarter.

Banner (as managed by administrative assistants) does the scheduling.  The schedule made one year  rolls over into the next unless someone intervenes.  Combine that with the fact that my Public Speaking Bootcamp meets Friday, Saturday and Sunday and the fact that Easter is a moveable feast and you can guess the result.

I had some drops because we are meeting on Easter weekend.  But I also have some folks who wanted to keep the class but will miss all day Easter Sunday.  I've decided that I will gift the school three hours of my time and go in an extra day on Saturday, April 26, to give those students the Sunday April 20 lectures. 

As for myself,  I'm not all that comfortable working on Easter, not that I haven't done it before at home.  But even though I'm sanginolently cleansed, I'm also a Postmodern spiritual collagist.   So I'll be uncomfortable as I keep my contemporary commitment.

It's been an irritating week.

The schedule flapdoodle was combined with a miscommunication over the room.  I'd asked a Redmond admin back in January if I could have a room change for the class and she lost my email.  Then I reminded her again in February and she said our Admin could take care of it but our admin got the message a bit wrong so basically, I didn't have the room I wanted for the course until this afternoon.  Ack.  But, I got it. 

Add to this my non-school related irritation with St. Charles Health System double billing me (as they did my spouse AND a friend last year) so that I had to fax a copy of my cleared check to the Nebraska offices of their customer billing center and then make a follow up call. 

And add to this the fact of tax season, which reminds me of all the things I'm not happy paying for and also of all the people who don't pay their fair share (could I be talking about Caterpillar?)

But, at least I got my health, thanks to Loratadine and Fluticasone propionate

LY #48 Last Day Last Bend Bootcamp

Another working Sunday.  I've just finished writing a new quiz for my online sections of interpersonal communication.  Did you know that even though my quizzes are open book and objective, people students will still flunk them?

Today was also the last day of my last Bend Public Speaking Bootcamp.  The class listened to 15 persuasive speeches.  Well, 16 if you count Dr. Bouknight's 10 a.m. promotion of Spring Quarter in London.  We got out early because the class decided to take a short lunch break and push through.  That's one of the benefits of the Bootcamp.  Our focus in on learning and performing the skills.

This morning one student said, "We love you Huck, but we really hate the class."  I turned her words on her at the end of class when I said, "Well, I love you guys but we're finished I'm ready to go home so get outa here!"

I remember that long ago I had a student complain about me to the dean of instruction (or was he Vice President of instruction at that time?)  She said that I had been biased against her in an interpersonal communication class because she had made a similar remark in a previous quarter's public speaking class as the one I heard today.  In other words, she'd said that even though she passed the class she still hated public speaking.  I'd taken that a bit personally.  I hadn't thought that I'd shown her any rudeness in the class the following quarter but perhaps I did.  The course was around the time that I defended my dissertation and I know that I got the lowest teacher evaluations of my career that quarter.  I imagine that in my stress my immediacy behaviors and unconscious nonverbal displays of anxiety were bristling.  I wound up in a long telephone conversation in which at first I defended my presenting self and then, finally, apologized and cried.  Yes, tears, snuffling, sad voice and all.  I was really sorry.  I hadn't meant to hurt anyone's feelings but I had.

Nowadays, I apologize much more quickly.  It saves time.  And it was one of the most important skills I had as a department chair.  I made so many mistakes in that job that I probably expressed a good apology every couple of weeks.

LY #47: Grit

Is it my job to teach resilience now?

For the first time ever I had a student walk out of the weekend class on a second Saturday morning after turning in the outline for his informative speech.  He didn't give the speech.  He refused on Friday night to perform an impromptu.  In the first hour, as other students were practicing their speeches as they have the opportunity to do in the Public Speaking Bootcamp (I capture every classroom of the building in which I teach and people get into groups to do run throughs), he came to my office, asked if he would get an "F" if he dropped now.  I told him he would receive a "W" and that I could drop him through the school's Bobcat Web.   A moment later, realizing I'd forgotten to tell him that he had to take the final step, I stepped outside and yelled to him as he walked down the hill.

He then said that he just had too much anxiety.  This from a sturdy young man.  So I advised him to take interpersonal or small groups for his required oral communication course.

But he wasn't the first to drop in this final week before the second weekend.  I had three other people drop during the week.  People who had actually turned in their sources AND their draft outlines.

Are people no longer learning how to power through their fears?  We spent quite a bit of time talking about anxiety in our first weekend three weeks ago and they all did so well on their evocative speeches the first Sunday that I'm just surprised at these drops. 

LY #28 What I love about teaching! (1) Part of a Series?

I had one of those moments, this morning.

The students in my speech bootcamp killed doing their second speech.  They were hot!  The change in delivery skills from yesterday's introduction speech to today's 3 Point evocative was astonishing.  Yesterday they read their speeches and many had little energy.  Today their faces were off their papers, they smiled and made great eye contact, many had natural gestures, and they stood tall and spoke smoothly.  Their performances were filled with honest emotion.  It was terrific.  I sat there and listened to the stories about parents and children and friends and just smiled and smiled, except when the stories were too sad.  Three of the students themselves cried during their speeches but all stayed up in front of the room.

The tribute/eulogy that evoked the most tears across the room was about a dog.  One student asked me yesterday if paying tribute to a dog was allowed.   I said yes.  Her speech was organized appropriately, followed all the structure rules, and was deeply moving.   In the main point focused on the dog's courageousness, she talked about how he had blocked her childhood bedroom door from a father who had violent drunk rages.  Wow.

I love to see the miracle of anxiety made invisible, courageousness come out, and I will miss it.  It makes me smile so much.

It's not uncommon for the bootcamp students to excel in the second speech they have to write overnight.  Nevertheless, this was an exceptional group.  Now, I just hope that our second weekend together (November 1, 2, 3) they do as well on their informative and persuasive speeches.

LY#19: Public Speaking Bootcamp and Positive Student Feedback

Tonight was my last fall orientation for Public Speaking Bootcamp.  In the bootcamp I teach my entire 3 credit speech class in two weekends and an orientation evening.  I was wondering last week when I'd started teaching this course but didn't get around to reviewing my H.R. files. 

I DID, however, find the print out of an old email from back in 1999 in my files.  It was sent in January.  I no longer teach the weekend courses in the winter quarter because heavy snows can make the college inaccessible, as I learned one year when I had to cancel and get an entire class to commit to a different weekend later in the quarter.

The email, sent by a student named Susayn (a name I can no longer put a face to) wrote about some of the issues she was facing with group work as someone living in Prineville.  She ends with this paragraph:

"One more thing before I go . . . I felt great leaving the weekend workshop.  there seemed to be a real connection of people over a short period of time.  Sometimes in a class there is no connection.  Sometimes it seems like you don't even know everyone's name.  I think the way you set up the introductions had a positive impact on the mood of the class. . . I want to say thanks, and I wish all instructors would take the time to do this."

It's always nice to get positive feedback from a student, even if one must always take any kindness from someone over whom one has economic power (the power of the grade) with a grain of salt.