Bored Reflection

Wow I had a personally humbling experience last night.

I spoke on behalf of our community to let the board know that we really do qualify for charter renewal and I watched myself deliver one of the bumpiest 3 minutes of my speaking career.

I spent some serious reflection in which I was fumingly angry with myself looking at why I didn't prepare differently to meet this challenge. I did prepare--spent time as a board coming up with a message that my community wanted me to deliver. Had Steve take a look and help me tighten up my thesis (he is wicked good at that writing business) and even sent a video preview to Katie as my news mogul expert.

So before I make it sound like I didn't even get the words out, first let me say that I delivered the message the board crafted for me. I stood up in front of the board and a large number of our school community and spoke aloud what was on my paper.

So I had this whole message prepared for the board about the data and then the Superintendent acknowledged us early on and told the board that he would be giving them some information and he figured that is why everyone in the room was in attendance. I appreciated what he said but it also made what I had to say seem less important to them. I was highlighting information that they thought they were going to get in another form. I hope someone heard something I said.

I stumbled a bit--you know, nerves and all--but the crowd was significantly smaller than groups that I have presented to before. If I can orchestrate a balloon drop in front of a crowd three times that size you would think I could speak for 3 minutes to a smaller crowd but I still was nervous. Only instead of getting over that first 15 seconds it just got worse and worse.

So what went awry? Well after serious introspection I feel like I should have crafted a 30-second message even though they allot for 3 minutes. Why? Because rather than listen to what I came to say, a few of the board members were staring at the clock above my head and pointing at the time and whispering to each other. I almost wondered if there was a scene happening behind me and partially turned around at one point but I just drilled on through.

I wish I would have said something about being distracted or just stopped speaking like I would have in a classroom. Teaching has ruined me from speaking to disengaged people.

So all in all I am sure it was fine but I just was so disconcerted at my public speaking failure and my lack of ability to control the situation.

I guess we will find out whether or not it made a difference. Ugh.

I feel like I let my community down but at least I told them that I was not a good public speaker before they sent me up there.

:EDIT:
Local newspaper picked it up the story if you want to read about it here