A follow-up post to ‘Speaking in front of colleagues: the art of talking slowly’

Earlier this year, I set myself a personal-professional target of pushing my perceived limits around public speaking. I first openly discussed this on LinkedIn (I have now migrated the post to this site for your reading pleasure) and feared the response I would get. It was during this period that I really began to feel that what I had to say wasn’t relevant or was in some way inadequate, given the vast sea of skilled, experienced educators out there, especially on Twitter.

Considering the fact that, as my Mam would say, I love the sound of my own voice, I was shocked to feel panicked at the thought of speaking in front of colleagues. But I knew that there was only one way to overcome this and it was to challenge public speaking to a straightener (as my husband would put it – he’s not as hard as he’d like to make out) and resolve this feud once and for all.

In the spirit of being #10percentbraver

It’s important to note that prior to this little epiphany, I had in fact been getting up and delivering CPD, but as Aimee Hanson well knows, it had been a running joke for some time that if I was due to deliver a session you could bet that only a handful (we are talking only just into double digits, if I was lucky) of staff would turn up. But, Aimee would reassure me it was all just coincidence, especially when I would ‘jokingly’ suggest it was because no one could understand me.

So, in spite of myself, I opted to stand up in front of the whole staff body, every Monday morning, and deliver a five-in-five ‘Getting to Know You’ session for staff where I would provide an Inception-style five things to know about and five strategies to use for key students in five minutes. I took the jokes about my accent and the speed at which I spoke and turned them in to something useful for people.

So it was here where I hit a bit of a crossroads, I could easily stop in a clinch and catch my breathe or I could continue push my limits and complete the full twelve rounds.

I chose the full twelve rounds and in the space of two weeks I delivered sessions at two conferences and one regional CPD event.

The Luminate Education Group Conference

Monday 1st July 2019

The first of the three big pushes came in the form of the inaugural #LuminateTLConf19 at the start of July. This was one of those opportunities that Aimee Hanson ‘volunteered’ me for – as you read the rest of this post, you’ll soon see a trend appear as she has a tendency to do this – and to be honest I am massively in debt to her for it because it was a fantastic opportunity!

Typical of me, on the run up to the event, I talked about it profusely and performed it to anyone and everyone who would listen. Now, it’s key here to realise that when I say ‘perform’ I really mean that in every essence of the word. We are talking clicker in hand, the slow calculated pronunciation of professionals’ names and the obvious avoidance of the ‘any questions’ section.

The arrival of the big day meant the nervous clicking on my heels as I ran from my stand to my group of friends for reassurance, the ‘red rash of rage’ that spreads across my skin and the adrenaline-fuelled babble that emits from my mouth like Alphabet Aerobics. But, when it came down to it and I was stood in front of a lecture hall filled with professionals I realised that non of that mattered because I couldn’t back out now. I managed to get through it without a clicker, mic or bottle of water and I walked away feeling proud of my accomplishments.

It would be interesting to mention here, that whilst doing this I also had a stall at the event where I shared the work I have done this year as part of the White Rose Academies CPD Aspiring Leaders strand. So to say I was pretty anxious would be an understatement.

At my stall, I unashamedly used my knowledge of people’s love of sweets to increase the engagement with my work and provide me with the opportunity to kindly force people to take one of the many resources I made my husband print over the weekend. Without shadow of a doubt I spent a disproportionately longer amount of time preparing for this than I did my talk, and on reflection it was because this was easier to control and it was something I felt comfortable doing – something I couldn’t hide behind at the next talk I was due to do a week later.

Before I move on to the next section, I thought it would be fun to share a little candid clip of me realising I was ruining someone’s video and quickly running away just before I was due to deliver my session. For a laugh just follow the hyperlink on the image below. Sorry Gemma!

The West Yorkshire Regional @LitDrive CPD

Monday 8th July 2019

The second of the three big pushes was perhaps the first moment when I really felt the ‘imposter syndrome’ take its hold. I was now in a position where yet again, Aimee came to my rescue and made me agree to running a workshop on explicit links between Macbeth and key players from Genesis. But, what did I, a standard English teacher who likes to discuss the links to religious imagery, have to offer that every other English didn’t already know?

I was genuinely under the impression that my insight into this area was something everyone already knew because I’m certainly not the brightest spark in the box by any means, so how could I possibly bring anything new to the table?

It was this self-deprecating behaviour that was stopping me when it came to standing up to and addressing my perception of my own limits. I’m not going to sit here and suggest that in the space of seven days I overcame this, but this session was the realisation that my feelings were unfounded and I did have something of worth to share. So yes, I was nervous and I attacked it in a pair of my best heels and another white shirt, helping me channel my inner Wonder Woman.

Team English National Conference

Saturday 13th July 2019

The last and final push in my 2018-2019 journey in tackling my perception of public speaking was at the #TENC19 conference. A phenomenal conference organised by and for English teachers across the country. This was the conference where I would need to throw the big punches as I was amongst some the greatest speakers from EduTwitter.

I spent weeks with Aimee going over and over all of the possible things I could talk about, over complicating every point I wanted to make and worrying about the questions I might get asked. After all, I was graduating from 30 minute per session max. to a 50 minute talk about an area that I have researched to death and I am passionate about. No sweat, right?

So here’s how it played out… I worried about it so much that I didn’t leave myself time to put my slides together until the Friday before and only had time to rehearse it once with my unassuming, and probably extremely bored, husband. I saved a copy of it to every possible format I could think of and then pulled out several potential outfits trying to find the right mix between casual and professional to help me feel in control. I eventually settled on this…

The morning of the event dawned and I made my two hour journey down to Peterborough, babbling on to my husband (again… bless him) about all the things that could possibly go wrong. I had notes and everything – something I’m usually pretty poor at, as I usually just print the slides just to make me feel better.

And then, the worst possible thing happened… there was a mix up with the laptops and I ended up without one which meant no presentation. How could I possibly survive without my trusty animations and baby pictures? It was this moment that forced me to rely on my expertise and knowledge of the topic – something I had previously undervalued.

Spoiler Alert – I survived. I know, shocker isn’t it. But I did. The presentation was up in about five minutes and I even made an educational joke about discussions.

So where does this leave me after going the full twelve rounds with public speaking? Tired, a little bruised, but ready for the rematch next year.

I’m not perfect. Nowhere near. But, I am getting there and I am determined to keep putting myself out there because maybe something I say will be that moment for someone that changes their perspective on what they can achieve.