COMEDIAN IN SUMMER SCHOOL

If you’ve never taken a public speaking class , I highly recommend doing so. One summer during college, I attended some courses at my local state college.

I was doing so to raise my gpa which was good but wouldn’t be hurt by a an infusion of some grades I got during summer school.

One of the courses , and my favorite , was Public Speaking 101. I really loved this class. On day one The teacher told us that at the end of the semester we would get to make a case in written form about what our grades should be.

He said don’t worry, I want you to learn. He explained he’d not give failing students A’s and asking for such a disproportionately generous grade would result in no consideration. The rest, was to be handled like a persuasive essay.

HE was also a very laid back chill guy. He explained to us Maslow heirachy of needs, and described himself as a self actualized person. I believe him.

He discussed his love of woodwork and the way he’d designed his house. He said he has a girlfriend who he saw once every two weeks.

This drew gasps from the crowd who , myself included, thought that was shockingly infrequent. But I am an all or nothing type character. I’m working on it!

I basically fuse with my romantic partner which is probably unhealthy to a degree.

Anyhow this guy really opened up to us from the begging and it was cool, set the tone for a fun, learning focused environment.

What was cool is how confident he was in his atypical choices. He was kinda alpha male carpenter lumberjack looking, but was unconcerned about seeming hard or soft. There was little performance to him.

This really started off the semester with a bang. Class was so fun and I really thrived in these type of environments. I don’t know what it was but during this class, I absolutely h. I was dating this really great lady who is largely responsible for helping me come into and feel comfortable in my own skin , and my this teachers encouragement and her years of infielder were meeting at powerful point.

I went to some pretty bizarre snd radical type schools. A crunchy granola hippie ish boarding school in the mountains that had an emphasis on community snd the value of doing the chores that maintained our community together and with pride. My college was also pretty radical.

this class was a moment where j was back in a more mainstream style education for the first time.

My ridiculousness and desensitization of what I’d been exposed to, taken in, and absorbed was on display, to myself. And I liked what I saw. My speeches were intriguing and fun. I just had a good time with it . this is the point at which I really realized the value of being oneself.

a lot of the laughs I was getting were related to immaturity. When I made a speech about love and started off talking about sex immediately to differentiate, the mere mention garnered laughs . I had some quality jokes in there!

For the final speech we were to give a persuasive speech. During the instruction he said he didn’t want anybody to debate legalizing marijuana. This was literally on my mind when he said it. I let out some sort of remark along the lines of “what, how come”. I had written my junior thesis in high school about the process by which marijuana became legal in America. I thought I’d be able to deliver an angle he’d never seen.

Let him do it! We wanna hear! He agreed almost instantly , it was very cool.

So the speech had some pressure, but also none at all. I gave it, it wasn’t funny, it was interesting but really a kinda a meh speech. I sold it and pulled it off. People enjoyed it but I had useful feedback about flag raising portions of my speech. They were fair snd good critiques.

I got an A in this class and it was really fun. I knew it would be but it exceeded by expectations. Aside from the class itself. Meeting a teacher who lived his life in this fashion was powerful.

I am also quite sure that students who were terrified off this course got more out of it than they’d ever imagined. The fear was heavy for some people. Here is a Jerry Seinfeld joke that both remarks on this phenomena and in my opinion says something about the potentially inaccurate nature of polls.

these students came away with a solid command for how to address an audience snd their fears. One thing that’s interesting to note is the surface level observation and correlation between confidence and volume. People who were very shy or scared were usually extremely quiet. I’d like to look into this later.

Two unnecessary on paper but highly useful classes I’ve taken in my life are public speaking and improv 101 at upright citizens brigade, I’d recommend them both to people with no intention to give speeches or do improv, because of the powerful tools of connection, conversational skills, and creative brainpower you will develop.

Thanks for reading. I really appreciate it . Quality and crafting are coming your way soon.