I love public speaking (no, not really)

I gave one of my lovely classroom presentations today. I don't usually like doing these. I'm a terrible public speaker. I talk way too fast and I just don't think I'm that interesting. I have to admit, I admire teachers who can get and hold a classroom's attention for 90 minutes at a time. Today was ok, though, because it was a smaller group. They were all juniors, so they got the "here's what you should be doing over the summer to get ready for college" presentation. What I love about talking to small groups is that even the ones who aren't interested at first end up asking questions by the end. I think this is because it's harder to be an obnoxious distraction when most of the class is interested in what I have to say--they tend to shut the offender up pretty quickly when they interrupt me.

Anyway, this group had so many great questions! Their questions were so good and so well-thought out, that I opened up the floor for a general Q & A about college--which I don't usually do because either the group is too big, or I only get questions like, "How often did you get drunk in college?" But this group, I felt deserved some inside info (and I was praying they kep some measure of decorum when asking questions, and they did). I got the usual, "where did you go to college?", etc. Most of them just wanted to talk about class schedules. I love that topic. Every single time I describe a college class schedule, it's like I've handed my students a little piece of heaven. I grew up just knowing college played by a different set of rules, and I suffered through 6:00 a.m. wake up times in high school knowing that in college, I could potentially sleep late everyday. My students usually don't know that until I tell them. They have no idea there isn't one long day of classes, or that their first class might not be until noon, or that it's possible they might not have any classes on a Friday, and they love it. Sometimes, that's an even bigger motivator for college than the promise of more job opportuities and more money. Oh yes, the priorities of a teenager; I remember them well.

This is the time of year when I am tired and burnt out, but it's also the time of year when I start to feel a lot of hope for the upcoming senior class. I gave them my spiel about turning in applications early so I might have enough time to process them before the deadlines, and emphasized how serious college application deadlines were, and even though every single year the majority of my students wait until the very last second to turn them in (no, really, it is not unusual for me to make a trek to the post office downtown at 8:30 p.m. so that the applications I just got that afternoon and 3:30 and stayed late to process are postmarked on the day their due), I always hope that the new class will be different.

I really can't figure out how to get students to be more timely with their applications. Believe me, I've tried. I've offered prizes, food, and recognition for those who finished early, or at least early enough for me to get them mailed on time. I've threatened them with the prospect of not going to college because they're late....I've called parents, and asked older siblings to help, all to no avail. The majority of my kids just don't get it. But right now, at the end of the year, the new class has a clean slate and I will spend all summer hoping this will be the class to get it right. God, I hope so!