Working with the school principal at a local Colorado High School who’s school as a whole was in the bottom 20% in the state for student scores. He felt strong that he had a great teaching staff, but could not figure out why student moral and connection to students was so low.
Watching Teachers for a few days revealed that many of the students (like many high schoolers) were not interested in the subjects being taught, thus were not active participants in the classes. We also noticed that the teachers were struggling with their own issues from the lack of confidence in the classroom.
The teachers needed support.
We decided to work with the teachers to help them be more engaged classroom leaders, teaching them how to read their students body language, and tips on engaging them to be more active in the classroom. We showed them the simple visual cues the students would have as well as showing the teachers how to redesign their rooms and proper subtile psychological posturing for themselves to portrait leadership qualities to students.
The following few years the school was able to see major changes in testing and grew to be in the top 30% of the state. We then created an introduction program for new teachers to also learn these important skills.
*Note: Yes, teaching is hard. Many times in certain demographics, your teaching technique has to cater to the audience you are teaching to. Engaging in youth can be tricky, especially if you have trouble relating to them. This can be discouraging. There are many ways to fix it, but one way is to learn how to be a good speaker and observer of those around you.
Many people in front of the public can learn new and effective ways of how to stand, posture, move their hands, and even blink their eyes in ways in order to engage others better. Here are some tips to start your journey in public speaking:
- Keep your hands visible at all times.
- Smile naturally.
- Never cross your arms and avoid touching your head.
- Avoid biding your lips.
- Don’t look like you are stepping away from the audience, and try to make it look like you are stepping towards them. Every move on stage should have a definite purpose.
- Movement from the waist up enhances your authority and credibility.
- When telling a story, utilize different parts of the stage in different parts of the story. It will give each part a different importance, with the main part of the story and the moral from the center of the stage as an anchor.
- One of the most important thing to do, mostly to keep nerves down, is to breath in through the nose and out through the mouth. This also helps with avoiding hisses in the microphone.
- People in your audience that do not believe what you have to say, or don’t agree with you, will often itch their ear or cover their mouth. If too many people in your audience are doing this, it is a good sign you need to both elaborate on your current topic, or switch gears to explain things better.