Speeches by Erin

Speeches by Erin - August 2014 Scholarship Essay

By this point in my life, I have become rather good at avoiding failure, not by avoiding strenuous situations or receiving only wonderful results, but by taking unfavorable situations and learning from them. Whether learning from unfortunate circumstances or my active failures, I can always bounce back, though some failures take me longer to bounce back and learn from than others. One failure in particular took me five years to truly understand its lesson.

My high school required every student to take Speech for one quarter—a requirement resented by many a student, including me. For a painfully shy individual, Speech Class posed a terrifying and overwhelming threat to my peace of mind. The class was nearly the worst thing I could imagine happening in my first year at a new school, and I am afraid this outlook doomed me to failure, or at least incompetence in that particular class. Although my first speech went alright despite my overwrought nerves—I received a mediocre but acceptable grade—my second speech was a disaster. The assignment started out well: I was feeling hopeful in the days leading up to my assigned date, comfortable in the belief that I would do alright but not great, as I had on my previous speech. Full of hubris, I put off preparing my speech until it was dangerously close to the event, thinking that everything would be alright despite the assignment’s unpleasantness. I had all the information I needed to give the speech, but I did not rehears anything, trusting in my previous performance. When the day of the speech arrived, my usual apprehension ate at me as I sat in class and waited for my turn, leaving my mind completely blank, erasing even the little preparation I had made. As unprepared as I was, I could not speak slowly or elaborate capably during my speech, rushing over explanations and stumbling over words. When the teacher handed out the class’ grades a week later, I received my first failing grade—ever.

I was crushed. This experience shaped my outlook on all subsequent speeches in this class and others, and I never put as much work into presentations as I did on all my other schoolwork. I went on like this for years, dreading presentations and only putting in minimal effort in fear of failure. It wasn’t until much later that I learned a valuable lesson from this academic setback. It wasn’t until later that I realized that public speaking wasn’t to blame for this failure, I was.

Looking back on this experience and others, I realize that I did not work hard enough on tasks difficult tasks like public speaking; I focused too much on the things that came easily to me like independent schoolwork. I had no reason to feel so devastated with the outcome of that second speech, what I did have reason to do, what I should have done at the time, was work harder the next time. My failure in this case was not failing the speech, but failing to draw out a meaningful lesson from the experience until years later. I do not beat myself up because of this failure, though. Of course high school students are not known for their extreme wisdom and objectivity in the face of, well, anything, and of course there is no point in regretting the past which can not be changed. I can take my lessons in hindsight and move on, working harder on future projects that involve public speaking now that I know my mistake. Since my discovery of the lesson behind my first-year-of-high-school speech class, I have taken that lesson to heart, putting more effort into preparation, planning, and practice into public speaking and succeeding in gaining better results. My public speaking skills are not perfect, and I still get nervous, but I have decided to challenge myself to resolve this issue by making public speaking a part of my profession. I am going to take that failure and use what I have learned from it to challenge myself and benefit others as a teacher.