In my 11th grade class, we are currently working on developing effective rhetorical skills through writing and delivering speeches. Students are encouraged develop a speech on any topic of their choosing, but they must keep a keen focus on their audience; an argument (regardless of format) is only effective if the needs of the audience are met. This means that it is fundamental that the existing biases, experience, and values are considered with each argument made. If a speaker fails to consider specific needs of an audience, the argument is a failure.
With this in mind, I wrote a speech whose audience my students can relate to: high school students. I explained the steps I took in my How I Would Do It blog post on the subject, but I thought I would share the final product here as well. I'm proud of this speech, and it is as honest as I have ever been on the subject of my students. Please check the original post for a full breakdown of how it was written.
I would like to make one note, however. The title of this speech is "Call and Response," which in no time appears in the content of the speech. This is a reference to the musical pattern in which a musician plays a phrase and a second musician plays "response" phrase directly after, either identical or very similar to the original. This is a conversation between musicians and instruments, and the result is not just sound, but music.
The speech follows:
Call and Response
I graduated from Woodcreek High School in Roseville, California in August of 2003. It was a beautiful campus, and still is today. A massive, grassy "quad" was surrounded by classrooms, a theater, a cafeteria, two gyms, a library, and a media center (used for producing televised talk-show style morning announcements), all framed in red brick. Beyond is a large nature preserve, a swim complex, and a stadium used for track and football. This campus hosts more than twenty athletic teams, a variety of other competitive outlets and clubs, and a diverse body of more than 2,000 students.
My high school was a place where I could be and do anything, a place of limitless opportunity, and yet I felt trapped. A bell would ring, I would go to class, a bell would ring, and I would leave. I wasn't unhappy per se (not all the time anyway), but I couldn't find it in me to care about school. In that period between bells I would do what was expected of me, but homework didn't happen. My friends, my computer, my bike were more interesting. When I picked up a pencil to attempt my homework, before I even wrote my name, I thought "why?"
In particular, I had a math teacher whose instructional method just didn't work for me; I remember thinking he didn't actually teach, and that he was only effective at telling me when I was wrong. Having been strong in math in every year since I learned to count, I was producing mediocre grades in his class, and I didn't really want mediocre grades. When it didn't seem like I was going to improve, I stopped doing homework almost entirely. It was better to risk failing on my own terms than mediocrity with a full effort.
I graduated with an impressive two point something something GPA and road my lack of caring - my apathy - all the way to a diploma. Not everyone experiences this the same way. The apathy that I felt could affect someone else for a month, a semester, or a year, and this is common. In their 2015 Student Poll, Gallup asked more than 850,000 students about their enthusiasm for school and only 50 percent reported being engaged. The other half of the students surveyed - more than 400,000 - were either apathetic (described as "not engaged" in the survey) or actively spreading negativity about school.
And the reasons for apathy are many. Asking questions could make me look weak, and it can be embarrassing to show others work that I am not proud of. It is easy to give ourselves labels like "I'm not just bad at math," or "I'm a D student," or "I've never been a good reader." And in the moment, it can be easy to underestimate the importance of a given piece of work: who hasn't said "I don't think this is a very big assignment, I'll skip it"? or the opposite: "my grades are already bad; this one isn't going to help." More than anything, it can be hard to see the value of doing an assignment or writing a second (or third) draft, when we could be doing something we actually enjoy, like spending time with friends.
Now, if my goal were to convince you to "get your act together," I could tell you that by the time you graduate high school fully 65% of available jobs in the United States will require college experience, and success in high school prepares a student for success in college. I could explain that according to researchers from the University of Miami, every .5 improvement in GPA translates to more than $3,000 in average adult annual earnings. I could even point to my own experiences, where a limited number of scholarships resulted in tens of thousands of dollars in debt and a degree that took far much longer than 4 years to acquire.
But my goal isn't to convince you to "get over" your apathy problem. What I want is that you do two things, and the first is simple: own the fact that you do not care as much as you probably should. I remember sitting at the grassy edge of the Woodcreek quad and blaming myself for my apathy. I assumed there was something wrong with me. But there is nothing wrong with having a problem. And fixing the problem is easier when you realize that having a problem isn't the problem.
I can tell you that I found success in college not because college was different; if anything, college is staggeringly similar to high school in many ways. What changed is that when my dollar was on the line, I started caring. But you don't have to wait that long. Every moment you spend feeling sorry for yourself is a moment you will need to make up years later, and you don't need to wait. You are good enough right now. You are smart enough right now. You are everything you need, and if you can't see that, do the second thing I want from you:
Ask. Ask why you were wrong. Ask how to start. Ask if this should be as hard as it feels. Ask if you are the only one struggling. Ask for extra time to complete the assignment.Ask for more directions. Ask.
I hold you in the highest regard, as do all of your teachers. We are here. Your friends are here. Your parents are here.
Just ask.