How? It's the same. Presenting in front of a group of people. It's probably worse
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Teens are protesting in-class presentations
- Thread starter Deleted member 15428
- Start date
Why would they purposefully go into fields that made them give speeches if they hated speeches that much? I had a friend who hated public speaking and when they found out a gen ed class had a reliance on it, they just dropped it and took a new one.
I've never seen a pitch in front of 20+ people.
I agree. There should be an option.
I've done probably 20 or so presentations in my life.
I have severe anxiety.
I never "got over it". I could do it a thousand times. Never got easier for me.
I've done probably 20 or so presentations in my life.
I have severe anxiety.
I never "got over it". I could do it a thousand times. Never got easier for me.
I have done more public presentations in 6 month of college than in my entire highschool carrer. And i was studying chemistry. If you do anything science/engineering related you will have to do a lot of presentations in college.
I imagine it's the same in humanities.
Learning math makes tons of kids 'uncomfortable', too. The solution should be that they don't have to learn math, right?
How ridiculous can this get?
How ridiculous can this get?
Alternatively, it teaches you how to successfully leach off other people without them noticing.
Does the number of people matter so much? What's the difference between a dozen people and 20+ people?
yeah, plus they never really taught us how to present something you've worked on, they just asked to come in front of the class and talk, that's not a good way of teaching imo
that's true too, that's why i said it's not the end of the world and there's more important issue
I'm not in the US but at university we had to give presentations all the time. Being used to doing so was fairly important
I've always been an anxious and introvert person, but I always loved giving presentations.
Anyway, even if you hate doing presentations, teachers/tutors will be able to tell the difference between people who have a good presentation but are uncomfortable presenting, and people who scribbled some notes on a piece of paper 10 minutes before hand, and mumble for a minute because they can't read their own handwriting.
Anyway, even if you hate doing presentations, teachers/tutors will be able to tell the difference between people who have a good presentation but are uncomfortable presenting, and people who scribbled some notes on a piece of paper 10 minutes before hand, and mumble for a minute because they can't read their own handwriting.
There are also a lot of people here assuming that their normal nervousness is the same as anxiety, and are projecting their own experiences onto everyone else.
Remember, when you're a teenager your ability to get diagnosed largely depends on what your parents/guardian's attitude is, and a lot of parents have similar dismissive attitudes.
Remember, when you're a teenager your ability to get diagnosed largely depends on what your parents/guardian's attitude is, and a lot of parents have similar dismissive attitudes.
I won't say that class presentations made me more comfortable public speaking, but they did undeniably make me better at pretending I am. I'm still fraught with general and social anxiety, and I don't imagine I'll ever not be, but I'm making things work anyway.
When kids insist that school is useless and that they're not being taught the things they truly need to know, it's exactly these sorts of skills that they're overlooking. They're much, much more important than anything in the textbook -- but they also can't be taught directly, so we get kids there however we can.
When kids insist that school is useless and that they're not being taught the things they truly need to know, it's exactly these sorts of skills that they're overlooking. They're much, much more important than anything in the textbook -- but they also can't be taught directly, so we get kids there however we can.
My job requires me to present in front of 30 people for about five or six hours a day, every day. No getting around it.
I'm a teacher.
Absolutely, to both of these. I can't stress either enough.
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I have never given a single presentation in my 5+ years of science education.
The bigger takeaway is you managed to do 20 presentations and come out the other end. Not to reflect on how you still don't like it or aren't strolling around like Jack Tretton dropping E3 bombs. Speaking of Jack, even CEO's get nervous. Feeling nervous is a normal human response. You don't stop such a response, ever. Unless you basically tranquillize yourself on meds... Teachers need to do a better job of explaining being nervous isn't wrong, isn't to be looked down on and it isn't something you ever completely stop. It's a natural human response, especially when going into situations you feel you might be judged. Fight or flight, it goes back to our evolutionary roots. We have the capability to understand it though, especially if we are well educated.
It's not just about it getting easier, it's about you accepting your progress of having actually done it, survived and overcoming something you personally find a big challenge. It is okay to give yourself credit and have some self-respect for what you achieved, without just summarizing it as "Never got easier". Be happy with the basic fact you accomplished something 20 times you feel uneasy about. To be honest, be happier about that than caring if you really "got better" at it.
Sure. Still don't see the point in me doing it though.
I'd rather just write an essay or whatever.
The notion that nobody should ever have to do things that make them uncomfortable is really dangerous, and we need to stop perpetuating things like this.
If only real-life careers could be pigeon-holed like so. I thought a career in software development would spare me the anxiety of making public presentations . . . . i was wrong. When our software lead had an emergency, my then green-a$$ self have to be the one to do the tech presentation in front of management.
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Careers where it's important do get these courses in college anyway.
My point was that there's plenty of life situations - in work and in private - where one might need to present something.
Of course, one can arrange life in way that these situations are avoided. But there's usually consequences to that. Some small, some big. I was at a wedding last month. There's no consquences to a parent not being able to do a speech for their child, but it could be nice to know a little bit how to approach it if they want to.
And professionally: if you get in even a middle managment position anywhere you need to konw how to present something. Or at the very least, it will help you a lot if you know how to.
This is how it comes to now... Afraid of presentation? lol. How long before homework is gone too?
Safe spaces have existed for decades and been an important tool for marginalized communities to organize.
"Nobody should be forced to do something that makes them uncomfortable"...
Then how do you learn anything if you don't step out of your comfort zone once in a while?
Then how do you learn anything if you don't step out of your comfort zone once in a while?
On the other hand, many lawyers have never even appeared in court. It depends entirely on what you want to specialise in.
As somebody will a crippling speech impediment, fuck that fucking shit so fucking much. It gave me panic attacks before I knew what panic attacks were.
Ok
But the kids that do the presentation should get more credit than the kids that don't because they are doing the harder thing.
Fair is fair.
But the kids that do the presentation should get more credit than the kids that don't because they are doing the harder thing.
Fair is fair.
Grow up, kids. There are a lot of things in life you'll have to do that you don't like or are afraid of.
Agreed, I think the ideal thing to do is to educate kids properly on public speaking. My experience in school and uni was like you said, I had to figure it out on my own with better or worse results...
Now, some months back our managers at work organized a 2 day express course on improving presentations and public speaking in general. I attended since my current job has me doing training which involves hour-long presentations on a regular basis - I'm pretty confident in my public speaking skills by now, but I figured it wouldn't hurt. I learned a lot in just 16 hours - all the unconscious body language stuff, proper vocalization and intonation, how to keep your audience interested, how to structure the content you want to present optimally... our teacher was very patient and he really knew his stuff. We had some coworkers struggling with nervousness and anxiety during the course and you could really see the improvement by the end of the 2nd day, this guy taught them how to look at their audience in the eye and how to properly project their voice.
It would have been great to have a course like that during school years.
I used to be pretty anxious about public speaking. Presentations definitely are a useful method of combating anxiety. When my band first started playing gigs in downtown Atlanta, I was a wreck. Now 26 years later, I can and have played in front of thousands. I know some anxiety is going to be different than mine (though I had it pretty bad), but it CAN be faced. I think it should be faced.
I fucked up my grade on two occasions because I was unable to do presentations due to severe anxiety. I never had the opportunity to practice or do it enough for it to become character building.
Side note Twitter has to be a journalists dream
Need content? Just find a Twitter trend and pretend it's the same level as an organized political campaign.
Need content? Just find a Twitter trend and pretend it's the same level as an organized political campaign.
Yeah but you can't still request uni's to have public speaking/presentations on only a specific number of courses. It's a real life situation that props up way too often professionally and when you least expect it to just be pigeonholed to specific courses. Its still best to train ALL students to face-up to it.
Ridiculous. Presenting and speaking in front of an audience is an important skill that most students will need later in life. Giving in-class presentations helps students prepare for similar situations at university or the work place.
You didn't present your dissertation? Not even to a panel?
I envy you. Had at least one presentation per year
It is important to learn but some of the presentation topics are terrible, at least that was my experience. Something like "pretend to be a historical figure" were just embarrassing.
Good support for mental health and confidence is needed anyway for teens so extra public speaking classes would be more useful.
Good support for mental health and confidence is needed anyway for teens so extra public speaking classes would be more useful.
I'm having a hard time thinking of these 'plenty of life situations'. You can go your entire life without it, without even trying to avoid it. You make reference to a wedding. That's one. Of course, if you really want to ace a wedding speech (an event where your speech does not get graded and where it will not affect your livelihood) lessons for this exists. It's not as if your school's sporadic public speaking assessments will prepare you for this.
This is quite the 'if', isn't it?
Why force 100% of students to take a course that would only benefit a small portion of them?
I can't wait this happening in music shools. "Making me play in public makes me uncomfortable".
And this. It's already too late unfortunately. Our school system already makes them think they can succeed without doing any effort.
The ability to orally present ideas in front of groups of people is a very useful skill in many areas of society. The experts on pedagogical methods should think deeply and carefully about whether public speaking ability is a teachable skill, and if it is, should formulate the best possible methods for how to teach it. Intuitively, and from my personal experience, it seems like practical exercises is a better method to teach public speaking than metatheorizing about the subject.
Damn it Gen Z, you're supposed to be not as internet-addled as millenials. Don't let me down champs.
Nope, although I always dreaded those when I first learned about them.
Maybe I'm just really fortunate with my academic/career choices but it sounds like some of y'all live in a different world.
I was nervous as shit when I had to do a school assembly in front of 250 other students
Looking back I shouldn't have given a shit
But at the time
Arrrrg
Looking back I shouldn't have given a shit
But at the time
Arrrrg
Teachers should be willing to make exceptions, especially for students diagnosed with anxiety, but other than that this is ridiculous. School is, in part, about challenging you. Everyone hates public speaking but it's an extremely valuable talent and one that you are almost certainly going to need at some point in your life.
I'm diagnosed with social anxiety/phobia and I don't fully agree. Exposure therapy is the best thing for anxiety related issues. Cognitive behavioral therapy is really the only thing that works. I'd say make them do it in smaller groups, not a full class of 35+ kids. Ease them into it.
I hated it growing up but was glad I got better at it when it came to panel interviews. Not to mention having to give updates monthly on our IT/technology changes once I got hired.
Depending on your career it's going to be something you're glad you have experience doing.
Depending on your career it's going to be something you're glad you have experience doing.
