one skill that is necessary for people to have is communication without communication there would be greater rates of mistakes made in the workplace and in life in general it is imperative for students to learn the skill as early as possible so that it can carry them through into the future it is for this reason that speech class should once again be made mandatory at peters township high school not only a speech the baseline from communication obviously but it i also something that teaches valuable lessons speech is proven to teach not only the art of communication but critical thinking interpretation and expression as well communication is such a big part of all of life especially in the workplace high school is meant to prepare us for what other path whatever path we choose to take towards our futures and for many of us it is a job or a profession that we've put a lot of thought into what will make you stand out from another contestant for the job will not be how you look on paper but rather how you can sell yourself apart from what is on paper one article that i read depicted this stating strong statements will go into math some into science some into religious based vocations whatever field and career path students choose after high school it's an imperative and universal truth that we must be articulate we must be able to convey our person in such a way that how we interact with others is powerful enough to be the difference between getting the job and losing it being a good communicator can help get you get your your point across but then conversation therefore making you more easily understood which is something that all good workers strive for not only does being a good communicator help you but it also helps your employer which is what you ultimately want as an employee one of the most crucial aspects of communication is public speaking without public speaking society as a whole would fall apart public speaking not only reaches the wide audience but it is primarily used as a tool to motivate people and promote change without this society would make no progression and walks of life this is yet another reason to bring back mandatory speech classes with n p t h s the world needs public speakers and even those who may not enjoy it or pursue it will experience it and have to use it if it is not taught and introduced at early stages of life it is harder for that skill to be developed and utilize properly as i read a great public speaker attains the power to motivate his or her audience to do something stop doing something change behavior or reach objectives but to carry an idea forward you must be able to excite and then live in your peers employees co workers customers public speakers or leaders who are able to inspire their audience to work harder to achieve their goals as a public speaker your role is to influence your listeners and create an environment where everyone walks out ready to you are not merely giving a speech in the times to get your audience to take a certain action speakers are part of the action and can convey their passion and their drive it is not enough to simply know about the issues at hand but to make your audience share your passion there are numerous situations where being simply a better public speaker than someone else will prove to be your greatest making it very important to better this go on yourself there's nothing that this impacted me as a person more thoughts far in my life than my experiences with public speaking or something along those lines before i took public speech class by my own accord i struggled a great deal more than i do now with being comfortable and confident in my own skin and front of an audience and my required courses i've given no more than five speech classes throughout my high school career and each time i gave one it was a story not because i couldn't do it but because i never had to do it it's been proven that the feeling of successfully giving a speech or presentation boosts the confidence of the speaker i can speak from experience when i say that there is a vast difference between my comfortability and front of an audience a camera an interviewer etc before taking public speaking courses versus after taking them it is a transformation that was left in my own hands due to the classes being optional public speaking may be important to me because through the courses i have taken i have found the love for it but it is also important to me because it has showed me that everyone should be pushed to challenge themselves and go outside of their comfort zones for the greater good through speech without the implementation of speaking in the classroom at the high school level students will not develop the skills necessary to continue with public speaking needed in their futures it is important that peterson high school give students the resources required to learn the skill of communication their public speaking in order to set them on a path for success for the rest of their lives i wanted to say thank you we have dr jennifer murphy here with us today can you tell me a little bit about yourself and the role you play with the courses in the selections sure i'm the assistant superintendent as you said here in peter's township this is my fifth school year here in the district so i was here when the decision to were made around graduation requirements graduation requirements are actually set by the board ok so the school board creates school board policy here it's two seventeen and in that policy it outlines the requirements that students must meet to be able to graduate ok requirements one of the reasons the requirements were changed is i know speech was a requirement here in peter's talent for some time and it morphed into a class where you completed your graduation requirement graduation project excuse me which used to be a requirement in the state of pennsylvania to graduate you had to do a graduation project that was balazs in the state ok and after that happened we started to look at the requirements and what students were doing in each of the classes and solved that perhaps stopping it as a mandatory requirement would help students that had other things that they needed to fit in ok and help them be able to schedule things that might also be a passion ok so how do you think this is affected students whenever they're taking other courses do you think that how making speech class not mandatory has definitely opened students options yes this ific lee for students to go to western area or involved in other programs students to go to western area just speaking about that group of students they with all the other requirements that are required around english math science social studies and physics and health to add another requirement into their day makes it very challenging for them to fit everything they need to be able to fit ok so that's part of the decision making process and also students that have passion for band or for music or for art adding that extra layer of a half of a semester makes it really challenging for people to again to be able to fit everything in that they want to fit in ok how is the possible for some school districts to have that as a mandatory class and for some to not because that again each board sets their own requirements as a state we're given standards and you have to meet the standards that's why you have to take physics ed health social studies ok in speaking standards can be embedded across multiple curriculum ok in english in math and science there  standards so you have to beat the meet the bare minimum of the standard and here in peters we exceed state standards to actually for our courses absolutely how do you think that we can make changes and our other courses to come to overcompensate for not having speech cost and sure i think it's just that here it's an option it's something that you feel you want to focus on for eighteen weeks in a semester you absolutely can but to be able to get the minimum of of the standards that happens throughout most of our other courses maybe even happens here way before high school where students are exposed to things in third grade and fifth grade and across with multiple projects ok do you think that making speech cost mandatory was something that affected students in their mo mental health i mean i understand that some say that it's not fair first has to be forced into public speaking that wasn't really part of the decision making sometimes you have to push people out of their comfort zone to be able to because i do believe public speaking and learning the skills behind what you need to communicate well are important i was it was teacher so i completely understand the importance of that but at the same time i think we can meet those requirements with different things across classes like in social studies i know you all debate and other classes you'll do a socratic seminar while that might not be standing in one place or in front of a room giving a speech it still helps you build the confidence and sharing your ideas and what you want to say to people ok a different way so i think that's one way we can do it still keeping it optional in every way we round our classes here are based on what students want to do ok our classes run if everybody wants to take media we do everything we can to fit that into our teacher schedule here as much as we can if students want to take art that helps drives our class drives our art selections so we kind of trying go with what students are passionate about and go from there ok so  class one of the things we really tried to do here in peter's is to stop the barriers of it having to be one specific class ok like with technology it used to be you had to take one class and that was the only way you could get the t credit or the teachers came up with a really great plan to expand that to expose kids to other things again so that you're not handcuffed by that one class and being able to perhaps double up on a science go to western area or take to math or take something that you really feel that you excel at ok if we wanted to make a course like me the tour again so how it switched from being a choir class to not being required anymore how would people go about doing one of the things you could do is ask the board to look at the policy ok that's really the one the biggest step because it is a policy absolutely you would speak to one of the policy chairs and or send them an email and say this is something you feel passionate about and you'd like them to revisit it ok do you think that the public speaking course is not being mandatory has affected communication with students or do you think that they get that through so their english classes or their social studies i think it could i mean you don't have the eighteen week focus but i do think students here again it starts all the way back in bio time at our hill or at the economic fair at p v so i feel strongly here students are getting the skills they need and are able to focus on what they want to i just worry that every time we add one more requirement and it hurts kids from b being able to do other things that they might need or want to do ok do you think that it could impact students in a different way so if i if i was another requirement like i understand i remember i had to take information technology i believe that it was a only requirement yeah so do you think the this would be something that would be maybe a good impact if we had made it mandatory once again if we looked at the curriculum and really looked at what students were doing for eighteen eighteen weeks is a long time to focus on one thing yeah so we would have to make sure we had in its a course now that is a robust course and the teachers that teach it love it and the students taking it  taking it because they want to yes so i think that's important to note i do think when we think it standards level students here are above and beyond meeting the standards for speaking or for speech or sound show do you understand i don't know if students would like to take a public speaking course i understand we have just i think it's just beach club yes what is the actual course description would watch what is part of the course that would help students with their communications skills in the speech class itself they focus on writing and giving and working through different speeches i know they analyze other people's speeches ok historical speeches yeah and that happens a lot even in our history in english so that's  the standard just understanding how someone gives a speech in the importance of repetition or the importance of word choice and then being able to get up there and just giving a speech organically or naturally yourself is important of course ok we're going to take a welcome back to this segment of the edge ok so i want to just how has communication actually to go back how is communication been affected by this change and the requirement courses all across the school board i think if you don't have the eighteen weeks to focus just on giving speeches in some ways i would say that it's embedded in what you're doing in that course and sometimes that's even better because it allows you to be able to do it again a little more naturally if it's in social studies in that alliance to what you're working on it has a really good fit instead of just being a one off project or something and another course how can we make sure that this is implemented in courses across the curriculum sure in our curriculum program there is a way that teachers track their standards and look at did we meet all the required standards from the state did we because they're also reading writing and speaking standards when you think about a standard english language arts i mean that's what the teachers do to ensure that least in english it was two summers ago we went through an entire english curriculum rewrite ok and the teachers there were able to pull in new resources no new projects they were trained by the national math science institute you know a lot of you were familiar with and they were able to pull things in for example i know a new project was about i have the i have a dream speech that was a project that and influence speech and it yes absolutely how the students say i wanted to be involved in something if i wanted to pursue a speaking career how could i get this without making speech class mandatory because i mean there's only just just the one speech we still offer the one speech class as a semester course ok but i think you're in the right place coming to down to the media's apartment and taking media courses is a great place to start a lot of the social studies classes in english classes of course also have an opportunity work those are two very driven classes around covering the speaking standards suring that you're doing things again in a content area math and science i know at least in those curriculum they cover content a little differently yeah but i've been in a p classes that after the test that they're debating about issues or they're doing projects that require where you get up and present an idea so it just depends on the course and that's definitely something you could talk over with your counselor ok for my understanding communication has been said to have been decreasing with this generation and cetera how can we improve this if the class is not mandatory i think that's just a challenge for society in general with the way we are reliant on technology and sometimes our devices and communicating through social media just as a society not just your generation myself i'm guilty of it too asleep here to attack sometimes than call yeah so i think there are things we could do just as a society that wouldn't necessarily be a requirement of a class joke we put down your device and talk to each other and engage with one another instead of doing it always through a phone i do see value in the speech class that's why we still offer it and students want to take it again what students  ct here peter's often drives our master schedule if you want to as we can you know if fourteen hundred kids wanted to take a certain elective it would be challenging to do that but we try and push our electives in what teachers are teaching based on what students want  specifically there's a new up of the applied engineering class ok students in that class actually are presented with a real world problem ok and they have to try and solve how can they help the library how could an app to order breakfast be helpful for students and that is a class where students actually present i think it's next week actually visitors at allen's class they present their the problem they were presented with and how they fixed it and sometimes it comes with an  invention there are that's where i think it's really cool that kids have the flexibility to be able to do that now and not have to replace by so many requirements ok that's kind of my philosophy i like kids to be able to take what they're passionate about and what they want to be able to do and not be handcuffed by too many requirements yeah what is something that students could do that's not a requirement that could bring in the speech in the communication skills and i know in a personal skills can be wrapped up in that as well i think just follow some of the projects that go on in class i know teachers circle you all up often to talk about a book or talk about and do cool things with throwing the ball across the room turn to talk just  that that helps you become more and more comfortable speaking what's something that teachers could do so not just students something the teachers could maybe do to try to bring in the communication in the public speaking they can focus on how they want to address projects it doesn't always have to be a written paper ok be a speech speech is take a long time yeah it's just so it's it's challenging it's just paper in and of itself yeah you might have some time in class to peer at it ok but it doesn't take for a class of twenty some kids to everybody do a speech it takes a while so just a lot in that time in a schedule and making sure it's meaningful and that it's evaluated i think teachers do that now and i think they should continue to do  think in some ways we've put more projects in to cover not having the speech class anymore it just depends on the course i was most involved since i've been here and rewriting english world language science ok for kissing on math this summer there will probably not i mean not be a ton of public speaking and not to say that there isn't a place yeah if you have a project where it fits it absolutely is appropriate ok i just don't want to create you know try and shove round peg into a square hole yeah i want to do something because there again we go back to the standards how are they being met and what courses are the natural fit for to be able to meet them absolutely you said you focused on english and social studies though how has what has changed with that that you think has maybe affected and maybe helped with the speech class not being managed sure the english classes have become a little more rigorous there's a lot more writing yeah and there's a lot i mean there's a lot more offer to need where you're engaging with each other i hope in the overhead talking to each other we've been focusing a lot around student to student talk is important because teachers obviously help guide your learning but it also is really important for students to be able to help each other  i hope you've seen that shift we are done with names now as you know you know that train right now we're starting to work with the college board ok and one of the recent trainings is around close writing so it doesn't fit the speaking aspect that you're looking for but i think communication in general writing is another area where we need to get better as a school and as a society to ensure that we can communicate in that venue as well how are the changes going to occur whenever you said we switched over to working with college board how do you think that's going to make a difference we have a training next week so i'll know much more after that ok what else do you think teachers and students are of the school as a whole  work on interpersonal skills i kind of want to focus on so just between students between students and teachers between people in the workplace i mentioned earlier how do you think that this could be that's a hard question i think kind of like we've talked before really focused just on talking ok and not just electronically i think a lot of what we've been doing with rachel's challenge and just being kind to each other and gauge it with people as people was really important and just recognizing that everybody has a strength and a place in i think one of the biggest things just don't be average and yeah does that what does that mean for you it doesn't mean you have to be you know a four point captain of  this how can you not be average for for you absolutely how can students get more involved and stuff like that so something that is going to increase communication like you mentioned rachel's challenge how else can students get involved in stuff like that so the forensics club here is great that is an opportunity where you definitely do a lot of speaking and debate around a girl as an amazing coach for our forensics team i would recommend that the f b i club is another club where there's a lot of presenting academically i think any time you just get an opportunity to engage with people in our service learning course medical mentoring and that's where i think it's great that students can see don't focus on their yashin and get the skills around public speaking around writing just general communication through audible venue how would be able to go about maybe if i were if i wanted to create a club or if i wanted to start something that would make a difference like that how could we go about doing that so it's easy to create a student club if you find a sponsor ok so you if you find an adult sponsor that wants to help you out and i know there are a lot of teachers here there to go above and beyond every single day through just have to find an adult sponsor and ok there's your club it doesn't have to be board approved it doesn't have i mean something you definitely would want to meet with the principals about and and have that level of approval but it's not a long arduous process you can if it's something you're passionate about and you have a plan to do it and you can present happen if you make it happen ok how have the principles are the principles involved and the decisions with the course to with the course load cetera yes when we looked at the speech course going away again in line with the grad project going away we talked as an administrative team about that and looked at the curriculum and saw it was grad project focused at that point and thought this is a way that we can help students be able to fit more things in ok public speaking affected the students with their courses with their greed that cetera i understand it's being implemented more in the classroom so do you think that this is making an impact on their grades or if it's i haven't seen a huge difference in grades here ok students here tend to perform very well we have seen an uptick in our a p scores and our s a t s scores whether that has anything to do with the speech class or not i think it has more to do with the focus on what teachers are doing in their classroom around the skills required ok be successful on those tests ok so what was the when did the switch actually happen from being a required course to high bill it would have been probably three school years ago four school years ago ok and then what was the actual thought process behind why ben because i know it was the required course for years before and then yes dr wright it went away when the grad project kids that still wanted to present it ok most of the majority were pretty happy it was ok have you seen the difference or how is there a difference in students with their graduation requirements whenever they don't know but they don't have to take this course and they don't have to do those projects it has helped the western area kids be able to fit in everything that they have to take because it's what they have to take ok and then also not be able to not take band if they want to take because to go to western it takes a period to travel there and then they have to take three classes there so that they're filled up most of their day and they still have to take english math science social studies and then they may not have room to take a foreign language that they really enjoy or a music class acapella so that not having that extra period allows them to be able to fit something else in instead of just the academics and just western area it's more about what you want to focus on yes awesome ok i think that's actually all we have time for you so much this is amazing i just wanted to say thank you to for being here today dr murphy and this topic is especially important to address because of the decrease in communication with every generation of speech is important downplayed without the