The Difference Between a Speech and a Lesson [Open Thread] | The Jose Vilson

The Difference Between a Speech and a Lesson [Open Thread] | The Jose Vilson:

The Difference Between a Speech and a Lesson [Open Thread]

by Jose

I don’t know if I should reveal this, but, oh well. When I was approached months ago about becoming a speaker for TEDxNYED, I did my usual nod of approval and, “Cool.” I felt a certain surprise about being asked to speak to people I consider colleagues about my passions. Plus, I felt honored because, well, at the time, I still wondered how many people were paying attention. Slowly, I started to research what I haven’t heard in any TEDx thus far. It’s hard to sift through thousands of minutes of footage from all the edu-TEDs in the entire library. After looking at some of TED speeches I loved (and the ones I didn’t), I realized one very important thing:
This stuff is a LOT harder than teaching.

Don’t get me wrong: attending to 300 professional and attentive adults makes for a better audience at times than 30 students with different needs, attention levels, and amounts of breakfast. The consequences of not having a good lesson plan matter more than any speech I’ve written, and the difference I make with my pedagogy have bigger implications for how this small set of students approach math, something I can’t guarantee with hundreds '