Public Speaking
I’ve been surfing youtube in hope of finding some sample public speeches delivered by students that I can show to my public speaking class. I’m looking for examples that don’t have that polished, produced look common to publishers’ supplementary materials. There are an amazing amount of student speeches on youtube. Unfortunately, most of them seem to be videos of students delivering their speeches to their sofas. This depresses me. Clearly this is the product of online public speaking classes, something I have very mixed feelings about. Ever since I taught an Intro to Women’s Studies class through distance learning about fifteen years ago, I’ve been wary of online teaching.
There’s an MSN Money article going around about whether or not the web will kill colleges. There’s also dispute about what and how students learn in online learning environments. The article makes some interesting points about the ways that online education provides better accessibility and value for the students than do traditional universities and colleges. I found some of these arguments persuasive. As tuition is increasingly priced out of students’ pockets, online options make education available to those who might not otherwise have access for a variety of reasons. Moreover, someone posted to the POD list some recent research demonstrating that students actually learn more from online classes than face to face because it’s more collaborative and interactive. (I wish I saved the links, but I didn’t.)
When applied to public speaking, however, speaking to your sofa is NOT an adequate substitute for addressing a live audience. So my youtube surfing frustrates me. I recognize that I’m privileging face to face over CMC, which is ironic given how much time I live on line. Still, I think students need to confront their fear of addressing audiences, they need to learn to engage the people directly in front of them, and they need to have the possibility of feeling the positive energy or handling the negative energy that comes from a highly specific situation. Public speaking in front of other human bodies (that are not your parents or your romantic partners) is the only way to accomplish this experience, at least today.
On the flip side, though, public speaking does not exist in the artificial laboratory of the public speaking class. It’s always stumped me about how to get students out of that environment. I’m not sure there’s a way to do it that isn’t burdensome to everyone involved.
So, in the end, as I do with all these issues, I take the path of least resistance and teach the same ol’, same ol’, like everyone else.
Sigh.
Related posts: