Parents will no doubt remember at some point in their educational careers asking this question of their teacher “When am I ever going to use this in my life?”. For me, I remember asking this when I couldn’t find the septa of my dissected earthworm during Grade 10 science, a class in which I found little motivation to learn. My decidedly uninspirational teacher did not appreciate the question, nor my witty remark that the only person who needs to find a septa was Queen Elizabeth. Like now, I had to explain to her that Queen Elizabeth has a sceptre and that she is British and her accent would make the word sceptre sound like septa (and now that I read this, it might not have been that funny back then, either).

What I do know is that the skills learned during the upcoming Speech Nights, the HS DECA competition and the Grade 7/8 Science Fairs cannot be questioned. Persons who cannot communicate effectively in both written and oral form will be restricted in their ability to become leaders in their chosen careers whether that be politics, business, law, engineering or even stay-at-home-parent. Even those who find making public presentations daunting will appreciate the experience in the long run. The movie “The King’s Speech” showed this; the King was terrified at the prospect of public speaking. He was a leader by birthright, of course, and did not achieve greatness because of his presentation skills but only after he gave his famous “we are at war” speech did he truly inspire a nation.

I doubt that Tiffany’s “All About Me” Grade 1 speech, Sachin and Steven’s Q and A about “Creating Voltage Using Fruits” with the Grade 7/8 science fair judges or Josephine and Aliya’s DECA presentation on “Buying and Merchandising” will ever inspire a nation, but I do know that they will leave our school with an ability to communicate that their peers will envy.

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College/TEAM School