The Way They See It

From Tuesday, April 19 to Thursday, April 28, every student in grade 10 gave a speech based around widely differing topics and questions. These topics varied from things like why China did not advance with the rest of the world during the Industrial Revolution to the extent to which the SAT is an appropriate test for college admissions in the USA.

Since the schedule and list of students in order was posted, many students and teachers attended. Mr. Parker, IB and grade 9 history teacher, was asked whether it is beneficial for students that are not in tenth grade to watch the tenth grade speeches, stating, “My answer would have to be yes. I believe it has benefits on several levels. 1. It exposes students to new ideas and content—expanding their knowledge base and potentially igniting their curiosity. 2. It exposes students to the skills of public speaking. This helps them identify and differentiate between effective and ineffective public speaking skills. 3. Hopefully, it also helps students realize that public speaking is a skill, one that can be developed.”

We spoke with tenth graders Gwen Farm and Tiffany Chan about their topic selection and preparation for the speeches. Gwen told us, “My topic was about Disney Princesses and how they portray an idealized life for females. I chose this question mainly because instead of focusing on historical events, I wanted to focus on socialization and how society thinks the way they think…with that, my mind went directly to childhood perceptions and thus I landed with Disney Princesses.”

When asked what she enjoyed about the assignment, Tiffany replied, “Well, that’s a hard one. I enjoyed finding out more about my topic, what I was interested in. It’s cool to learn something new especially if you are really passionate or interested in it. Strange as it sounds, I enjoyed being in front of my class and spilling out my ideas. I didn’t like the preparation and adrenaline but I did enjoy the speech itself.”

She continued, saying, “I thought that it was cool having 8 minutes of their life spent on paying attention to my ideas. Once I started my speech, I knew I couldn’t back down so I just went for it. There’s nothing to lose! I thought it was pretty fun despite the hours and hours I’ve spent on practicing it.”

Lastly, “What did you find challenging about this assignment?” was answered by Tiffany with, “Being able to manage my time and just to stay calm through all the adrenaline. It’s really stressful to have to think about in 1 minute I will have to do my speech in front of my whole class with bright lights shining on you. It’s not something people always do. When I have to think about all the problems I will face, like “What if I forget my line?” “What if I stop in my speech?”  You freak out about all those things and it really is challenging to handle it.

Additionally, she said, “Since this speech project as so spread out, it was hard to keep track of my work. There were a lot of ideas and research that was crammed in order for my speech to be the speech it was. There was also a time limit to the speech, and often it is hard for me to keep it within the time, I had to cut down around 300 words to make it possible. It was nerve wracking.”

This assignment continues to evoke thought from students and interest from the AISG community, and as each new grade 10 does their speeches, new topics are covered and people are forced to think about things they never would have before. Hopefully, they will continue to do so, and the quality of the speeches will simply continue to improve.