I have had a variety of public speaking experiences over the years.
The first goes back to the 8th and 9th grades, when my English teacher (same one, he happened to transfer from my Jr. high school to high school when I did) included in the curriculum short speeches in front of the class, about 3 or 4 minutes, and were graded. The tactics I learned from those speeches stayed with me the whole time.
The next time was when I was a day camp counselor one summer (1983). I was the computer specialist for the rookie summer of that new program. Part of what I did for the older campers was to teach them some simple programming in Basic. I put together some crude lesson plans and stood at a blackboard before a group of about 16 campers and their counselors.
I used the skills I developed in that day camp program when I eventually held more formal programming classes during my 23-year career in the actuarial field. That was in SAS, a business language. I was training mostly immediate staff and coworkers to be able to do some of the program writing and maintenance I had been doing so I could be freed up to work on tougher things. I found it rather humorous that I could use the same tactics I developed teaching 13-year-olds as I would use on 25-year-olds and 35-year-olds.
My school Scrabble volunteer work includes some public speaking when I give some informal seminars for the kids I work with, as well as for the tournaments I run. I have given these same seminars and pre-tourney remarks so many times I can do them in my sleep at this point.
But the toughest form of public speaking I have encountered in the last 10 years or so has been when I dabbled with being a square dance caller. I gave it a try for about a year ten years ago (just before I retired), but I didn't really like it (and it is a lot tougher than it looks). I could probably do it if I really put my mind to it, but it isn't something I am really interested in. And the activity is slowly dying out in my area, so why should I invest so much time and effort into being good at something fewer and fewer people are partaking in? When asked why I don't pursue it, I tell them, "Hey, I'm retired! I don't have to do anything I don't want to do!"
