All around Washington state right now, a select few high school students are ending their speech and debate seasons. With Districts coming to a close, they're starting to gear up for State. As a former speech nerd, this makes me a little jealous. I didn't think it was possible, considering my severe love-hate relationship with public speaking, but I actually miss preparing speeches and standing in front of people while they judge how good I looked and how well I spoke.
If you've ever had a conversation with me, you know that I'm probably the last person you would think would enjoy competitive public speaking. However, through some weird circumstances, and I'm sure some minor bribery, I ended up as one of the inaugural members of my high school's speech and debate team.
When I think back on my time on the speech and debate team, I mostly think of tournaments. Sitting in a pantsuit and heels for hours at some random high school or college, sipping Starbucks and not eating because you don't eat at tournaments unless someone loves you enough to leave and get you food. We paced around, practiced speaking to walls and each other. Honestly, it was so much more than that, though. Speech made me not only a better public speaker, but it made me a better student, a better person, and a better citizen of the world.
Those may sound like broad statements, maybe they sound like a little bit of an exaggeration, but they are all true. For starters, I don't think it's possible to not become a better public speaker by being on a speech and debate team. The more you talk, the better you get at it. The less foreign it feels and the more natural and comfortable it becomes. Yes, you can be comfortable public speaking. I will be the first to tell you that I'm not the best conversationalist. Thanks to speech and debate, I have a pretty nice, semi-conditioned, public speaking voice.
I stuck to the speeches that were long for some unknown reason. I started with expository (informative) and moved to oratory (call to action). Both of these required some serious research skills and some serious writing skills.They also take some serious perseverance skills. Writing them taught me what constituted as a credible source and what qualified as interesting and relevant information. Not all information is created equal. It taught me how to ask for help. By the time I got to college and started writing five-page papers, I didn't think they were all that long -- most of my speeches were longer than that.
Speech made me a better person, too. I learned to invest in other people's success even if it meant I wasn't being successful. I learned to believe in myself. I learned to appreciate the people that made tournaments possible for me and my team. The volunteer coaches, parents and other students that would listen to me practice and would give me feedback, and who would come listen to me because they wanted to.
This one might seem the craziest, but I think it's the most important thing I took from speech and debate: I learned how to care about the world I live in. I learned to view other people's opinions as valid even if they were different than my own. It sparked an interest in global politics. I learned how to read the news, and how to be informed. I'm so thankful for that.
While my weekends of sipping Starbucks, being nicely dressed and giving speeches for fun is over, I took more than I ever thought I would. It taught me more than I ever thought possible and for that, I am truly grateful.
