{"id":745,"date":"2025-05-04T13:46:07","date_gmt":"2025-05-04T18:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/?p=745"},"modified":"2025-05-04T13:46:07","modified_gmt":"2025-05-04T18:46:07","slug":"learning-to-speak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/?p=745","title":{"rendered":"Learning to Speak"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I have done a lot of public speaking in my life.  I taught at UT for 25 years, so I\u2019ve got much experience with the \u201csage on a stage\u201d model of speaking.  I\u2019ve also given over 100 talks at conferences, sometimes to a room with 10 people, and sometimes to a room of 1,000.  I like public speaking.  Is it bad to admit that I like all of the attention focused on me?  But it wasn\u2019t always like this.  In fact, my first public speaking experience was a complete, unmitigated disaster.  I was in the 5th<\/sup> grade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between the ages of about 10 to 13 my dad moved our family many times for his work \u2013 he was a construction supervisor.  We moved enough that I developed a clear theory of the best time of year to move.  Parents generally believe that summers are the best time to move, so as not to disrupt the school year.  Parents believe this because they never talk to their kids.  Any kid who has moved enough knows that this is the worst time of year to move.  Moving in the summer means you have no friends in your new town and are unlikely to meet kids your own age until school starts.  So you spend the summer bored.  But if you move in the middle of the school year, its gives instant opportunities for making friends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the middle of my 5th<\/sup> grade, we moved from Michigan to Carrolton, Georgia, just a few miles from the Alabama border.  School in Georgia was quite different from Michigan, with the biggest difference that you could wear shorts to school.  I liked that.  Despite the culture shock, I made friends quickly and even started to integrate into the social fabric of the school.  I joined the math club.  I even became the president of the 5th<\/sup> grade math club.  I don\u2019t remember there being many members, and our faculty advisor liked me.  I was doing great \u2013 this move had been a successful one.  At the end of the school year, the math advisor asked me to deliver a speech at the all-school assembly on the last day of classes.  I had never done anything like that before, but I was proud to have been asked; proud and nervous.  I worked hard on my two-minute speech, with the goal to recruit more kids to the math club next year.  I had my note cards written out, and on the last day of school I came wearing my Sunday best, something that would have been social suicide on any other day of the year.  When the assembly started, I was too nervous to even review my note cards; I just sat in my folding chair with those cards on my lap and my fists stuffed in my pockets, waiting.  And then my name was called.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started climbing the steps to the stage, and I heard a few titters.  As I walked across the stage there were giggles.  When I reached the microphone there was laughter.  As I started to read my speech, flipping through my notecards and extolling the virtues of the math club, the laughter became so loud no one could hear me talk.  I was stunned and confused as I walked off the stage and back to my seat.  I sat down in shock.  After a few moments, I leaned over to the kid sitting next to me and asked why everyone was laughing.  He grinned and pointed \u2013 \u201cYour fly is down.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so it was.  My nervous fists in my pockets had worked that zipper all the way down.  I was the laughing stock of the school, and I don\u2019t think I was very helpful in recruiting new members to the math club.  I knew what was in store for me \u2013 no self-respecting 11 year old would give up such an obvious opportunity for teasing, and I would be teased mercilessly. The only saving grace was that it was the last day of school.  There was a whole summer for everyone to forget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then, we moved that summer to a different town on the other side of the state.  This was the exception that proved the rule \u2013 for once I was glad to have moved during the middle of the summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have done a lot of public speaking in my life.  I taught at UT for 25 years, so I\u2019ve got much experience with the \u201csage on a stage\u201d model of speaking.  I\u2019ve also given over 100 talks at conferences, sometimes to a room with 10 people, and sometimes to a room of 1,000.  I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=745"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":746,"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745\/revisions\/746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lithoguru.com\/life\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}