TED Talks have been around since 1984. The Montauk School’s annual eighth-grade Speech Day has been around almost as long. Coincidence? Probably, but the two long-running programs share a common thread.
TED speakers are known for their articulate, research-driven, passionate, and moving presentations on topics that connect people’s lives. On Friday, Montauk students rose to the challenge of giving their own such speeches, addressing big-picture subjects like veteran suicide awareness, how divorce affects children, problems in the immigration system, and whether college should be the goal for all students.
As Chelsea Roman dived into her speech, “How Overdosing Affects Mental Health,” an audible murmur of “whoa” ran through the audience of her peers. Leah McCarron often used her hands to emphasize her points in a speech titled “The Power of Body Language,” and Riley Welsch tapped into personal experiences with “How Much Homework Is Too Much?”
Some speakers elicited laughter, and everyone got a round of applause afterward.
Perhaps Pema Edwards said it best in his speech, “The Importance of Travel.” Traveling is a great way to “get out of your comfort zone” and “be adventurous,” he said. Can’t the same be said for public speaking?
Lauren Walsh, the Montauk School reading teacher who facilitated Speech Day, said the project tapped into skills like researching, writing, understanding valid sources of information, articulation, organization, making eye contact, and using visual aids. (It was also a chance for the kids to practice choosing professional attire.)
Students started the project right after Thanksgiving, first brainstorming meaningful topics and watching past TED Talks as examples, then learning about sources, editing and honing their speeches, and practicing in small groups until the big day.
“I would definitely say it was successful,” Ms. Walsh said. “When I first said, ‘This is part of the curriculum, this is what we are going to do,’ they said, ‘We are not doing that.’ . . . When they finally got up there on Friday, there were a few kids that were nervous, but they didn’t realize they were nervous until after they finished speaking. I said to them on Monday that I was impressed. Even if you were nervous, I didn’t know it, and no one else knew it, either.”
Afterward, several students reflected on the experience in writing, detailing hours and hours spent preparing for the big day.
Friday was “the first time I have ever given a public speech to a large audience,” wrote Griffin Beckmann, who spoke out against elephant poaching. “Because of this, I felt the need to memorize and perfect my speech.”
Daisy Pitches, who also spoke about elephant poaching, said she “mostly got over” one of her fears, “and had a good time doing it.”
“You can give people a lot of knowledge and awareness of an important topic,” she wrote.
Christian Duryea-Kelly, whose piece was about the effects of deforestation on everyday life, compared public speaking to participating in theater. “I had a great time and felt very confident while speaking. . . . During and after, I honestly felt great.”
Sebastian Cuenca Sepulveda offered a step-by-step guide to “The Seven Algorithms to Solve the Rubik’s Cube.” Sebastian is in his first year at the Montauk School, having arrived here not knowing how to speak English. He later said that he was nervous beforehand, but that it was a positive experience over all. “It is very interesting,” he wrote. “You have to choose good words that attract people’s attention.”
Zachary Nagle talked about “The Nazis of Today,” calling them “a stain on today’s society.” He acknowledged feeling intimidated by the prospect of public speaking but learned a lot. “During it, I was nervous and worried I was going to mess up. After it, I was confident that I did well.”
For the school’s eighth graders — including this year’s class of 40, one of the largest in recent memory — Speech Day is a rite of passage.
“I’m so proud. I’m always so amazed,” said Jack Perna, the school’s superintendent and principal, who is in his 25th year there. He recalled that when he was in high school, he was photographed while giving a speech, and the picture wound up in the school yearbook.
“Underneath, the caption said, ‘Misery is an oral report,’ “Mr. Perna said.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
“It was a very fulfilling experience that provided me a way to share, teach, and hopefully inspire people to act upon things,” Maya Taveras, who spoke about social-emotional development and well-being, wrote this week. “I realized that everything will end up all right if you know what you need to say.”