My daughter is running for student council today at her school. I don't know if she will win the election as the politics in the 5th grade are just brutal! She asked me to help her prepare her speech and I thought I would share it here to illustrate how I can even apply the principles I teach to a 10 year old's speech to her classmates.
Maddie was a little nervous while she was practicing her speech so I did what I have done for countless other people--I gave her some stage directions. I put them in all capital letters and inside brackets so she would know not to read that out loud! As she practiced her biggest challenge was to not read too fast
(DON’T READ TOO FAST! SLOW) Did you know that a survey I read said people are more scared of giving a speech than of death? Seriously? but I want to run for student council and that means giving a speech.... so here I go.
Maddie had three ideas on why people should vote for her. We used this one as the first because it has the smallest impact. I tried to inject a little humor but who knows with ten year olds if they will laugh at my little attempt at humor. Yeah--I could have told her to just burp really loud--kids love that stuff--but I don't believe in pandering.
(REMEMBER TO MAKE EYE CONTACT)
First of all I think I will do a GREAT job on the maverick morning news. i love watching the news and I think it would be fun to be the newscaster. Have you seen Katie Couric on the TV news? Well I want to be the 5th grade Katie Couric!
(BREATHE, SMILE)
I also like helping other people and I think student council is a great way to serve our school by helping students and people in our community too.
I thought this was the best of Maddie's ideas so we put it last. The idea is a direct connection to the posters she made to hand up around the school. Maddie Spears is Mint and she put packages of spearmint gum all over the poster. It was pretty cute and apparently a hit because all the kids wanted to know if they could have a piece if they vote for her.
The last thing is something I think is a really good idea. Ever wish you could chew gum at school? Well I think we should change twin day to “Double Mint Twin Day”. You would still dress like your friend and be twins but the best part? You get to chew gum in school....ALL DAY LONG! I think that would be really cool.
This was Maddie's idea--I didn't inject a transparent appeal to the audience, she did it herself. You probably have some great ideas too for things we could do at our school. If you vote for me I hope you will tell me your great ideas and I will try and make them happen!
We really struggled here. I had some clever ideas but Maddie vetoed all of them because they were lame and stupid. Her words. So we settled on something pretty simple.
Well I didn’t die huh? My mom said I need a conclusion so here is what I can up with: “If you like a girl with great ideas and want just one day to chew gum at school then vote for Maddie!” (SMILE)
To compliment the speech I made her a T Shirt that says "Vote for Maddie" on the front and "I want to be your DoubleMint Twin" on the back and did black and green to match her gum packets.
Will she win? Who knows. I am more proud that she can get up in front of a crowd and articulate her ideas. She is a pretty great kid and if mom and dad could vote she would be a shoe in. 5th graders are a pretty fickle bunch. But in the end, we had fun working on the posters and speech and win or lose, she is still a great kid.
No comments:
Post a Comment