Education Exchange
- PDF / 788,231 Bytes
- 2 Pages / 576 x 777.6 pts Page_size
- 15 Downloads / 189 Views
Get Off the Hot Seat by Getting Out of the Spotlight I was a new author but even with years of teaching experience, I was a rookie at public speaking. I felt safe and confident in my own classroom with children whose behavior I could predict—most of the time. But being invited to a book fair where noted authors would be giving speeches was just too thrilling to let a little stage fright keep me away. I would be giving a presentation, guiding a few children at a time in hands-on science activities. Nothing fearful about that.. .in fact, it was perfect. I packed my supplies of balloons, string, rubber bands, paper clips, and all the other around-the-house stuff needed for the experiments I had chosen to use from my book. I arrived early, anxious to organize my materials and start my afternoon session. "What do you mean I am to perform on stage? An audience of how many?" OOPS! I was not prepared to be on stage "in the spotlight." Maybe it was a mistake.... No such luck. An audience of over 100 people would be expecting what I had promised—Fun! Exciting! Workable! Hands-On Science Experiments. How could I accomplish this on stage? Of course...bring children on stage to perform the experiments! It would be risky asking children I did not know to come on stage. What if I chose the child who spends most school hours in the principal's office? I had to take my chances. I cannot say that it was the most polished presentation, but it worked. I asked adults in the audience to pick different groups of children by handing out paper clips before the "show" began. After a brief introduction of how much fun the children would have during the next hour and after children in the audience had been selected to assist me with different experiments, I got started. For my first act, I defined "center of gravity" as the balancing point of material, and I balanced a paper bee on my finger. That didn't bring any smiles to the faces of my audience, but interest picked up when I instructed the children holding the paper clips to come on to the stage. My helpers were each given a paper bee, a pile of paper clips, and the challenge of using the paper clips to change the bee's center of gravity so that it balanced on the tip of its nose on the ends of their fingers. Audience interest definitely increased. The "spotlight" was now off me and on the children. I was able to talk more casu-
Pattern (actual size) for the paper bee Janice VanCieave designed to demonstrate the center of gravity. Without paper clips the bee balances on a point near the center of its body. The bee balances on the tip of its head when paper clips are added to the tips of the wings. The bee can be made of construction paper and balanced on your finger or a pencil. Illustrations from Janice VanCleave's Gravity, by Janice VanCieave. Copyright 1993 by John Wiley & Sons Inc. Reprinted with permission.
ally with the audience, referring to the group's progress and even giving the group clues to speed things along. The children on stage were intensely involved in what they were
Data Loading...
