Be a Guest Speaker

“This past Friday, I drove up to the Harmony Science Academy of North Austin to be a guest speaker in an eighth grade poetry class, and it was a blast. I’d never been a guest speaker before. I’d hosted guest speakers in my own classroom and been to see plenty of them at bookstores and libraries, but actually being a guest speaker was new to me, and I enjoyed it immensely. It was fun being back in the classroom but not in the role of the teacher. I had the freedom to talk about whatever I wanted (within reason) and behavior problems (of which there were none) were not my responsibility. The students were polite as I introduced myself, read some of my poems, talked about my writing process, and led them in a short activity on found poetry, but they were also sleepy. It was eight o’clock in the morning, after all, a time when kids needs more than a few lines of verse to wake them up. I knew this going in, so I brought along something to help: my Magic 8 Ball.”

“I was asked to be a guest speaker at 3 networking events last month, and they all fell in the same week! When it rains, it pours! Without hesitation, I said yes, despite the old familiar feeling of anxiety creeping in! [...] Having the title of “Guest Speaker” set a higher expectation in my mind, especially because all 3 of the event leaders hadn’t seen me speak before and only met me very briefly at events. The fact that they were fully promoting me and my talk all over social media was completely surreal to me, and I felt much more pressure than usual.”

“I work for a nonprofit and was asked to speak about my job in a zoom meeting for another organization. I didn't know I was the only guest speaker of the night so I freaked out when they announced me. But I'm glad I did it and I'm SO glad it's over lol I hate public speaking so muchhh”