Interactive by design, that’s how Speak to Students started. As a youth worker handling behavior contracts and working with at-risk students, I didn’t want to stand in front of large groups and preach. I wanted to have fun, and I wanted them to have fun too. My goal was to spark discussions that would continue beyond my presentations.
To create a connection and facilitate discussion, I adopted a question-and-answer format for speaking to students. If Socrates could use questions to explore ideas with his students, I figured it would work for me too.
When I began speaking about culture, customs, and diversity to students, I used an overhead projector with questions printed on transparencies. It turned out that I didn’t need the technology; the question-and-answer format worked perfectly well on its own.
To keep the presentation engaging and the students involved, I limited each cultural category to about five questions. I aimed to make the questions relevant to current events. It’s amazing how over the years many of the same questions remain relevant to current events today.