Dahle Communication

The Benefits of Debate - Learning about Space Travel!

One of the greatest things about being a debate coach is that I have to learn a great deal about a new topic each and every year. This year I get to learn about Space! It's like I'm a kid again. Space is amazing and I've forgotten how inspiring it is and how it can trigger our imagination.

For an example, I have embedded an info-graphic about the International Space Station that I wanted to share with you. I don't think most people know how big and complex the Space Station is.

If you have kids, get them involved in competitive debate - they will learn more about a topic than they will in any other class! If your school doesn't have competitive debate, work on them to add it! If you ever want any help, please let me know and I will get you the information you need!

Enjoy the info on the International Space Station.

 

Source Space.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration

Does our Educational System Need Changing?

It's that time of year again - millions of students are either starting or getting ready to start the school year, which is why this post is going to be more about education than communication.

Here in Sioux Falls, students begin today and will finish around mid-May with their year. Some things have changed quite a bit: pretty much everyone has a cell phone, there are computers everywhere and the access to the internet has changed the way in which kids read, write and do research. Other things are still the same: students go all day to set class times, most have textbooks for each class and teachers still make bad presentations using an outdated version of PowerPoint (Sioux Falls currently uses 2003).

Being an educator, I strongly believe in the power of education. Education can take someone who comes from a disadvantaged background and it can propel them to greatness. I've seen kids go from being shy and unsure of themselves academically to being some of the best students I've ever had.

However, being the realist that I am, I also see the problems with education. The drive to the middle that leaves the best and brightest bored and woefully behind their peers in other nations. I've seen numerous students get lost in the mix of the routine. I've seen kids slide through their classes and not really learn anything.

So there in lies the question: does our educational system need changing?

I think that it does. Sara Mosle of the New York Times wrote a book review recently of Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America's Schools by Steven Brill. She states:

Steven Brill is a graduate of Yale Law School and the founder of Court TV, and in his new book, “Class Warfare,” he brings a sharp legal mind to the world of education reform. Like a dogged prosecutor, he mounts a zealous case against America’s teachers’ unions. From more than 200 interviews, he collects the testimony of idealistic educators, charter school founders, policy gurus, crusading school superintendents and billionaire philanthropists. Through their vivid vignettes, which he pieces together in short chapters with titles like “ ‘Colorado Says Half of You Won’t Graduate’ ” and “A Shriek on Park Avenue,” Brill conveys the epiphanies, setbacks and triumphs of a national reform movement.

Read the entire review here.

The review does take Brill to task a bit. She points out that while Brill wants to blame the Unions, they are actually not to blame. Some areas with the strongest unions also have the best results and a lot of Charter schools, which are suppose to be the next best thing since sliced bread, are actually doing worse than the public schools that they intended to replace.

So if unions are not the problem, what is?

There are a lot of things I feel at work that needs to happen and I want to get your thoughts on it.

1. Year-Round School. This is something I think needs to happen. Does it mean 365 days a year - no. What it means is taking a short break after each quarter. If you look at the countries that are taking the lead around the world, they are not taking 3 months off in the summer, and for good reason - it hurts the education of kids.

2. Professionalism of teachers. I don't mean that teachers are not professional. What I mean is that how teachers are trained needs to be ratched up if teachers want to be considered as 'Professionals.' That means going to graduate school for your education certification, doing a year-long residency with a master teacher and doing other placements to truly learn what happens in a classroom.

3. We have to pay them more. However, if we go to a year-round school and make teachers go to graduate school and do a lot more work to get their license, we absolutely have to pay them more. Investing in education pays off. Finland treats educators with respect and truly values education - which is why they rank near the top in educational results.

Those are just some of my thoughts. This is a long discussion. Let me know your thoughts. Do you have some ideas on fixing education? Does it even need to be fixed? Is it more of a parental issue?

I'll be interested in seeing what you have to say.

Educators need some new branding

I'm in a bit of a dilemma. I love teaching and coaching speech and debate. While I am only a half-time teacher (working on Dahle Communication Group the other half) I do really enjoy my time at school working with those kids.

Here is the dilemma: my daughter says she wants to be a teacher. I say dilemma because I am not sure that I even want her to be a teacher. I know she would be an amazing elementary teacher (which is what I think she wants to do). She has a huge heart, is very caring, helps other students now while in school and is nothing short of brilliant. I know she's only ten and will might change her mind, but she's been saying she wants to be a teacher for about 3 years now (I wanted to be a fireman when I was 7, but that's because we got to go to the fire-station in second grade).

Now why don't I want her to be a teacher? I know it sounds terrible, but I think she is too smart and too talented to be a teacher - and that is the problem! As a society we have a belief that if you are a talented smart person, you should do something besides teaching. While I don't claim to be a brilliant person, I've had several people ask me why I'm not in politics or a lawyer or something else. It is a stigma that I have heard several times: 'If you can't do, teach.' That is the problem.

Educators and education as a whole needs some new branding. We need to change the mindset of people that if you are the most talented and smartest kid in class, that you absolutely should go into teaching! Teach for America has started to do this to some degree of success. They focus on getting graduates from schools like Duke or Harvard and get graduates who usually would never think about going into education and sending them to impoverished schools or reservations and working with kids who are not exposed to highly intelligent successful kids to try and inspire them.

Mostly though, as educators, we need to show that education is so important that it should be pursued by the best and brightest. It is an issue that I am struggling with. We all want our kids to do better than we did, and I'm not sure if education is going to provide that for my daughter - especially if she teaches in South Dakota (we are 51st in the nation in teacher-pay).

How do we do this? Do educators need to have a more rigid educational background? Do we just need to start talking about it? I obviously have a clouded perspective being in education so I am curious as to your thoughts: what do you think?

Out of Town and Out of Contact

I just wanted to put a quick post up today. I am at the National Debate Tournament in Birmingham, AL coaching students from Washington High School all week. Needless to say it's been a busy week and internet connections are a little sketchy at times in our hotel and the schools have cut off wireless at the schools where students are competing.

Basically what I am saying is - sorry for not getting a post up and running this week - hope to be back at it early next week with some thoughts from this past week at the national tournament. There are a lot of great things that go on at the national debate tournament and I'll share them with you soon.

Thanks for reading, I appreciate all the comments (both on-line and off) that I've gotten over the months.

Travis

High School Debate -- Tomorrows Leaders

In a couple of hours, I am going to be judging a High School Debate Tournament.  However, this is not just any tournament, it is the tournament of the year for Northern South Dakota -- the National Qualifying Tournament (schools south of Interstate 90 have their tournament next week).  The top two to three students in each division will advance to the National Debate Tournament held in June of each year.  Needless to say, it is an intense tournament that will last well into the night on Saturday (South Dakota has a rule that says students can't compete on Sundays...we're old school).  There are 9 events at this tournament: Policy Debate, Public Forum Debate, Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Original Oratory, Domestic Extemporaneous Speaking, International Extemporaneous Speaking, Dramatic Interpretation, Humorous Interpretation and Duo Interpretation.

If you don't know what high school debate is, I would recommend two movies for you to watch.  The Great Debaters and Resolved.  The Great Debaters shows debate how it used to be and Resolved shows what Policy Debate has become.  I will say this about Policy Debate, which is what is portrayed in Resolved: it does not help your speaking skills.  The other types of events that students participate in however are great ways for students to learn public speaking skills, much like the Great Debaters movie (which is a lot how Public Forum works).

The students that I will be judging this weekend are the leaders of tomorrow.  They have learned the skills necessary to be confident when they speak in front of an audience, the ability to research and prepare themselves as needed and the confidence to comprehend anything that is thrown at them in the workforce.

If you ever get a chance, I would recommend that you find a local tournament in your area and watch some rounds or even offer to judge a Public Forum round (we actually encourage people who do not have a background in debate to judge Public Forum).  You will be amazed at the level of intelligence and professionalism that high school teenagers can have.

Travis

How To Get Ahead In Your Career -- Speak Well

According to a new survey, people who are speaking up in meetings are more likely to be viewed as better leaders and move up in their careers faster.  Speaking About Presenting, a great blog that I have mentioned before, has an excellent summary of what the research is saying and some tips on how to use the information to help you move up in the world.

What I found most interesting about the research is that people who spoke up were looked at as more knowledgeable -- regardless if they were or not!  Great, so people who are louder than the rest appear to be smarter than the quiet genius sitting in the corner.  Sad but true.  If you are quiet and feel like some of the best ideas are just not being addressed, you need to check out the survey and start practicing some of the tips that Olivia Mitchell points out in her blog.

Travis

Educational Inservice Presentations -- The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!

Being involved in education, I have had to sit through my share of in-services.  Ask any teacher out there about in-service, and you will probably get a moaning sound as they expound about how most of them are not very well done.

This morning I had an opportunity to sit in on two different sessions as part of an in-service and saw two distinctly different presentations -- one done with the typical flaws that go with using PowerPoint and one that was the best presentation that I have seen at any in-service that I have been to.

The first speaker did an okay job: he was informative and is generally a good speaker.  Unfortunately, he made a lot of key mistakes that a lot of people make with their presentations.  First off, his slides had far too many words and bullet points in them and his handout, which he had given to everyone to read while they were suppose to be listening to his speech, was just a printout of the slides with the lines opposite them to write some notes.  He also focused on the slides almost the entire time while speaking.  Again, the speech was very informative and I got a lot out of it.  Unfortunately, this was despite the poor use of PowerPoint.

The second speaker did a fantastic job with his presentation.  His slides had a consistent theme when it came to his images.  He was using a bridge to represent what he was talking about and it was the perfect metaphor for his speech.  He didn't have handouts that people were reading while he was talking and he generally did not look at the screen and have his back to the audience during his speech.  It was by far the best presentation given at an in-service that I have been to.  Unfortunately, he did not have any handouts after the speech, which I would have really liked to have.

The lesson here is simple: you can give a great presentation regardless of your profession.  You only have to take a few tips that a lot of us have been preaching and put them into practice: don't put too much info on your slides; don't talk to the screen; don't print off the outlines of your presentation to hand out because people will read ahead of your speech.  Just doing those three things alone will improve your presentations.  Hopefully, school districts will realize that their in-services can be a much bigger success if the presenters are given some tips on how to present their ideas and can make the in-services much more agreeable to their teachers.

Travis