The Techno Scholars and Public Speaking

The NSU Techno Scholars again, continued with their Public Speaking Sessions with Ms. Jessica. The purpose of the Public Speaking, is to teach the mentees, the necessary and essential tools that will be needed for not only public speaking, but also for effective oral communication in every aspect of life; personal or professional.

CJ and Deonte gave oral presentations about themselves and while both had very different approaches of their oratory abilities, they also displayed similarities as they were both genuine and authentic with their presentation material. While their feedback from their peers was positive the consensus of the group as a whole was for the presenters to improve on their body language as body language is pivotal when giving speeches.

For example, if they presenter has their hands folded, and slouching, that may reflect an interpretation and/or perception as boredom, or not comfortable speaking to the audience, etc. We also continued the session discussing impromptu, or instant topics where the group spoke on their viewpoints on the respected topics.

One of the topics was "Should Homework be Banned." Keon expressed his thoughts on the aforementioned topic and felt that: "Homework should not be banned, but his key point is that it should only be maybe a couple of days a week" I also shared my thought on homework in that homework should not just reflect the preparation of the SOL's (The required testing for schools to maintain their accreditation.) but that it should also reflect a students reflection on learning both mentally and socially.

Overall these sessions in Public Speaking, I feel have the youth thinking, and over the next few weeks would like to have the Public Speaking and Blogging come together in one session as both, as previously stated represent effective communication: The Public Speaking representing the Oral Communication, and the Blogging representing the Written Communication. Both of these essential communication skills are used throughout life.

Hopefully, over the next couple of weeks, the youth will catch up on their blogging so that we can start reviewing blogs and help improve essential writing skills, especially the fact that school will be starting in a few weeks.