We Don't Need No Edumacation

For two weeks I served as a substitute teacher for a former college teacher of mine, and my lawyer, Lisa. I ran her Speech 101 class and got paid nicely for it to the tune of $200 for five and a half hours work. I was a straight A student for this teacher just a couple of years ago and I never thought that a speech class could be so much work, but I have say that it continues to pay off in my life. I have used the techniques I learned at Antietam when I volunteer. I have applied them in job interviews (more on this in a little while) and even used them on the job when I have had to run a meeting or give a presentation. I would like to say that the students I dealt with put forth the same kind of effort, but unfortunately they did not and two weeks before their final exam speech it showed. My favorite persuasive speech was by a guy in his early twenties and it was called, “Why Lisa Should Give Us All an A.” He used a power point presentation that he made to illustrate his points and his first point was about – and I am using his spelling here – “STAGE FREIGHT!” He kept saying “fright” while pointing to the word “freight” and no one in the class caught the error, but me. Obviously he didn’t pay attention in any spelling or writing classes, and he had become too dependent on MS Spell Checker. By this time in the semester the speech students should have their speeches so well rehearsed that they are practically memorized. I can tell you that that did not happen. Every student relied heavily on a huge stack of index cards that they had written out their entire speeches on. These are the future leaders of American politics and business, as long as that business is McDonalds and they are serving politicians. I hope they don’t need note cards to say, “would you like fries with that?”