actions speak louder than words

When public speaking comes to mind most people tend to think of some famous person delivering a speech that they did not take the time to write. The famous person usually is living a life that isn’t relatable to their audience. So why should people listen to them? My first thought when signing up for the course was that I would have to somehow speak in front of large groups, which was one of my largest fears. With the service learning project I had to speak, but it was not in a way that I was not used to. Public speaking through the service learning project helps to reveal things that need change, but does not actually change them. In order for real change to take place the children have to be willing to be leaders.

 I was given an opportunity to help the youth to reveal the problems that exist in their lives in a creative form. It seems as if sometimes though our words did not have an impact. At times I saw and heard things that was occurring in these children’s lives that I would never want my own children to go through. A lot of the thoughts and behaviors of these children had already been influenced by their parents or being raised by the television instead of a human being. As an Education major it made me rethink the role I wanted to play in a child’s life. I used to be a ten year old child with many hopes and dreams. Many of these dreams I have already accomplished at the young age of eighteen, but at times it seems like all of the words of wisdom I hear go through one ear and out the other. I often make the same mistakes repeatedly and it’s not because I do not have or never had guidance, but because I feel like someone will always be around to help me succeed. As a teacher I want to speak words that will boost these children’s spirit, guide them to a successful future, and create independent leaders that will repeat the cycle.  The true art of public speaking is saying things and making them happen in reality.

–D’Andrea Green

REcap

Public speaking, in my opinion, is one of the most direct ways in getting your voice heard, message across, and point taken.  I was not shaded about the ability of this tool to achieve great endeavors prior to my enrollment in this course.  The speeches we have given thus far (narrative and informative) have played a role in speaking up for change as well.  The narrative speech let my audience know a side of me that they may not have, this could have changed any preconcieved notions about me prior to my speech.  We picked a topic for our informative speech that advocated change in society.  Also, the service learning project at Lafayette played a major role getting voices heard.   The service learning project was a great opportunity the let the youth be heard.   Their brilliance, their voices, their minds, and grievances were all voiced in various ways but there was one common link, verbally annoucing their ideas.Through my sector of the project, the children voiced their opinions about environmental issues and women’s role in the media.  Their insightful led to an excellent finished product and hopefully changed the views of their peers.  I hope that the kids in the other groups were affected as well because that was one of the incentives.  From this experience, I have learned the true cost of my voice and I will implement that with my children when I am blessed with them.  I also value the ability and strength behind my voice and will utilize it to the best of my ability from this day forward.

Final Blog

During this project I have learned that public speaking is not limited to older people speaking up for their own issues. Everyone has something they want to change, including fifth grade students. Anyone can speak up for change as we have learned through the service learning project. I never really thought of children speaking up for change. I always thought that that was something that should be left up to adults. I know now that anyone with “two-cents” has the capability of speaking up for change. I am proud that we were able to help some kids speak up for what they want changed in a fun and interactive way. Through this project we were able to teach youth that it is never too early to start speaking up for what he or she believes in. The project also taught them and myself that there are so many different types of ways to speak up for change. When the thought of speaking up for change comes across my mind, I think of a person giving a speech at a rally with people marching around a building with signs. This is only one form of speaking up for change. A simple video featuring kids acting out their 2-cent or a group of children singing their 2-cent can have the same impact for change as the rally. The overall project to me was satisfactory. I am happy that we allowed the children to speak up for their beliefs, but at sometimes everything seemed to be unorganized. From this project I have learned that anyone with an opinion can speak up for change at any age in many different ways.

recap

Even though i can finally exhale, Im going to miss the trips to and from lafayette.  As far as the reality show itself, I never got to shoot or see anything, but from what I heard everything went fine.  I knew as far as y group memebers we were all focused, even though we had people coming and going from group to group.  Once I see the video i can tell as far as, if our goal was accomplished.  The main of our group was to make the 5th graders realize that every action in life has a certain impact and that their voices were the most important.  I learned fromt the 5th graders that at least 90% of them wanted to speak up about violence especially black on black violence in the world.  To be honest in 5th grade, I would have never thought about violence.   Public speaking can be used in many forms both poisitively and negatively.  Before this project, i never really believed in ”speaking up for change” because why speak if change never occurs.  However since the project, I believe it because the 5th graders really bought in to the reality show and wanted to speak up for things that affect them directly and indirecty ie gas prices, violence, dress code.  Our project created positive social change because it gave the kids a positive means to express themselves, instead of fighting or doing something negative.  Hopefully the kids pick up instead of ribbing, fighting, or cursing they have another way of stating how the feel and not only do that, but feel that their opinion has meaning behind it.

Public Speaking = Tool For Change

Our project at Lafayette showed that public speaking does operate as a tool for change. The main idea of the project was to get ideas of change that the kids wanted to see and from the finished project, it is evident that our goal was accomplished. As far us, the public speaking class, using public speaking during the project. I think that was very minimum. the only thing that showed our public speaking skills would have been the first day when we introduced ourselves with our skits. From then on out, it was the kids using their voices which isn’t bad because the was the whole idea anyway. Even though the project started off rough with my group of kids, I still belive that we got through to them. One thing that I would like to see changed is for us to actually spend more time with the kids during the project sort of like mentoring them. While we were with them, we basically had the stress of completing the project on our shoulders. Maybe the day where the project was first introduced the kids could have been a time for us to sit down and talk to them about their experiences as well as ours. I got a lot out of participating in this project, but I have to sak myself what did they get out of it. Did they get more out of it than just having fun. Essentially, we wanted to grab their attention and keep it so we could complete the project, but I think more could have been done with them, besides workin on the project everyday and letting them run around outside when they got rowdy. I believe if we would have taken the time out to mentor them more, then we would have been using our public speaking skills as a tool for change more throughout the project.

Kids’ Voices: Effective and Insightful

        Public speaking is a very effective form of communication. It is essential in the promotion of change. If many of us were to constantly withhold our views of how things should be, the way we live our life would be restricted to the ideas of the few who have given their input of ideas. To speak up for what one think needs to be changed means to accept one’s call of duty. I think that the project at Lafayette Charter Academy was a great reinforcement of the aforementioned statements.

         The fifth graders at Lafayette showed everyone that opinions can be expressed in a number of ways (through comedy sketches, music, and parodies of reality and game shows). I learned that these comedic performances by the kids can in fact be considered a form of public speaking. Their issues are addressed in a manner that would undoubtedly strike intrigue into an audience, yet these issues were clear and explicit. This is what a public speaker would want the listener to receive: intrigue and insight. There is no doubting that the kids achieved this. Not only does this mean that this project demonstrated that public speaking can operate as a tool for social change, but it also empowered the fifth graders to apply this to their lives. It was a stepping stone for the speaking out against challenges that inevitably occur in their future. Since they are exposed to speaking up for change, they can more readily use their voices in order to bring about what they feel needs to be changed.

Finally Got It

Although I recognized prior to this service learning project that public speaking can be a tool for change, I’m certain that working with the kids of Lafayette reaffirmed this belief for me. This is mainly because, through working with the students, I became attentive to the fact that the younger generation is actually aware of man of the social, economic, and even environmental issues that plague society. Even more gratifying is that fact that these kids have opinions about which of these issues they want to see changed. Basically there are a lot more things the average fifth grader considers, and wants changed than you’d think. The problem is, however, that they aren’t asked or challenged to present their opinions on a daily basis if ever. As a result, since it’s not exactly their first priority, it goes unstated. During my time at the school, I saw the importance of instilling and encouraging the youth to actively engage in a public expression of their opinions (one way of which is through public speaking) in order to articulate and promote the change they want to see. I now feel that I have concrete evidence that speaking up for something can make a difference, no matter the size of the change. This is because I benefit from knowing, I personally felt inclined to do everything in my power to stop the environmental onslaught in our nation just because a few twelve year-olds to told me they cared about that—that they wanted it changed.

Many people might have had a harder time seeing the correlation between public speaking and catalyzing change as demonstrated in our project. I think this is just because our audience was so marginalized, restricted to just us (Xavier student), parents, faculty, and students. I think, however, if a larger group of people were able to see the video, and the Xavier students could see the positive reactions of an group of people outside of those who interact with the kids every day, they would better appreciate the weight that words carry.

the change of little monsters.

                I am sure I am not the only student that wondered what creating a television show starring little fifth-graders speaking up for change had to do with a speech class. I still had these sentiments even during the residency at Lafayette. However, when I attended the screening for “Speak Change Live” and was able to see the final product, it was then that I realized why this service-learning project was incorporated into our class. When we first gave the kids their 2-cent dollars and challenged them to speak up for the changes they wanted to see in their lives, they did not really understand how doing this would help them in anyway. After they saw themselves projected on the screen, they realized that no matter how small and insignificant they thought their voices were, all kinds of reforms could be made by just using it to speak out.  The reason I thought that the project had no prevalence to our class was because I just assumed that public speaking dealt with speeches and things of that nature. I later realized that public speaking encompasses many different aspects of life. Media is a great tool for speaking out to the masses and that is what we (along with 2-cent and the students) did to convey the message of change. Our project definitely demonstrated the fact that public speaking does operate as a tool for change because it allowed the kids to speak up on issues that were important to them and not be afraid to let their voices be heard. It taught them that their voices can and will be heard…no matter how big or small it may be and I am so glad that we had a major part in teaching them that.

Bittersweet Change

Based on the service learning project I realized just how important speaking up for something is.  I learned that public speaking is the best, in my opinion, way to speak up for change.  As I think back to the service learning project and I think about the kids, I feel this heartwarming feeling.  The kids at Lafeyette wanted to change real life issues.  Sure, they wanted to change school, teachers and lunch but they also wanted to change the economy, television and gloabal issues.  In the beginning the kids knew what they wanted to change and they knew the just of the service learning project but at that time they did not think that they could actually change these things.  When we saw the final project that Brandan sucessfully put together it was at that moment when I believed, Jasmine, Mia and Brianna believed and most importnatly, the kids believed that they could actually accomplish the change they wanted.  The kids believed as 2-Cent would say that ,” they had to become the change they wanted to see.”  The kids vowed to “pick up the trash”, not to wear “short shorts”, they pretty much “changed for them” because they wanted to. 

 I am so glad that I was a part of the service learning project for many reasons.  The first being that I got to work  with 2-Cent, mainly Brandan, Brittney and Steve.  All of them are so down to earth and hilarious and really good at what they do.  The second reason being those kids at Lafeyette.  I can honestly say I will never forget cute little Laz and his brother Tye, the cute sisters Brianne and Dianne, the oh so outspoken Alexia, the smart Devon, and the original gangsta Jashad.  We impacted their lives just as much as they imapacted ours. The last and final reason would have to be seeing the music video that I was so proud to be a part of.  I did not really understand my purpose in this project until the last 2 minutes of the production when Alexia, who was a host and in the music video group gave a shout out and thanks to all us that worked with her and the other kids. 

I can not believe that this blog is so long haha.  This just proves that the service learning project touched me and will always have a place in my heart.

Speak Change Live! Re-cap

Now that the project at Lafayette Academy is over, i have time to actually sit back and think about what we did and what impact we actually had on the children. In the introductions of the class i wondered how working with fifth graders to produce a tv show would connect to a public speaking class. In this project we worked with a group of fifth graders and each smaller group produced their own part of the tv show. The show came out great! I had my doubts toward the end because i didn’t think we had enough time to film and the kids weren’t always cooperating anymore. This project related to public speaking because i learned that you have to adapt the topic of what you are talking about to fit the audience. We had to talk about the things we had heard about in class and the things we learned from two cent, but we had to do it in a way that the fifth graders could understand. Public speaking was used as a tool for change throughout this project. Our theme was “speak up for change”. We taught the kids that there are many forms of speaking up for change, and thats how we related the project to them. Overall i think the kids had fun and got the message we were trying to portray to them. I think they also enjoyed seeing themselves on a tv show and i know that my group will definitely miss us xavier students.