1st Day - "Motivational Speech"

Today, I made my first visit to the Algebra and Science classrooms. The teachers and I had agreed that I would do a “motivational” speech on the first day as a part of my introduction. I put motivational in quotation marks because I have never given a motivational speech and I haven’t really considered my life to be motivational. Nonetheless, I was challenged with the task of figuring out a way to frame my life in a way that motivated others.

In the Algebra class, Mrs. Porter turned the class over to me right at the beginning of the hour (after announcements). I introduced myself and told a summary of my life story starting with elementary school. I tried my best to demonstrate obstacles that I have had to overcome along the way and focus on topics that a high school freshman could relate to. For example, I mentioned that my father passed away when I was 11 and I was raised by a single child. I mentioned that during high school my mother lost a job and effectively would travel for weeks at a time to work at other hospitals, which forced me to become more independent. I also talked about my middle school infatuation with girls and that being the reason why I choose to attend an all male high school. Toward the end of the speech I talked about my career as an undergraduate engineering student and some of the different summer experiences that I have had.

Different parts of the speech captured some of the student’s attention more than others. I did my best to ask questions of the audience to keep them engaged. I tried to walk from side to side so that I was in front of all the students at some point. All in all, I was very proud of the entire interaction. At the end, several students asked my questions. One student even challenged me to prove that I could explain how a manufacturing process that I had referenced from one of my internships worked.

In the previous class, I was surprised by the undertone of talking that persisted even while I spoke. Some of the students seem to have no problem talking while someone is speaking to the class. The number of students who were doing this really created an audible level of noise in the class. I felt challenged to use the tone and inflection of my voice to try and maintain the audience’s attention. I also had to make an effort to speak above them and keep a quick pace with my story so as not to lose their attention. The experience was very different from the presentations that I am accustomed to giving where the audience is entirely polite and attentive.

In Mr. Sowder’s class, I waited until the end of the hour to give my introduction. This seemed to make a big difference in the level of attentiveness of the students. They were really rambunctious and anxious for class to end. Their attentiveness was much poorer than the previous class. I really felt like I was struggling to maintain the interest of the students that I had. To combat this, I paced through the aisles and gently tapped students who were talking on the shoulder. This approach worked moderately well. All in all, I should’ve definitely presented at the beginning of class.