I’m hoping that some of the things that I’ve been finding online are helpful to you now and might continue to be helpful to you even after our time together as a class is over.
Here’s a link to a paper from Dr. Morton Orman where he discusses the fear of public speaking. Fear of public speaking is often listed statistically as the #1 fear people have. I know that speaking in front of a cohort group that you get to know over the course of a couple of years is stressful enough, but complete strangers is a completely different thing. In fact, this past winter I was debating whether to enter a proposal to present at a conference Indiana Wesleyan hosted last month. I ended up not going through with it… partly because I wanted to observe this year and see how things were done and partly because I was nervous about speaking in front of my peers and educators that teach for a living.
However, in our classroom setting, I hope everyone realizes that being afraid to speak in front of others is not something unique, and that everyone is in the same boat. I think this summary of the article is very helpful, especially to someone who is perhaps trying to get over their own fears of public speaking and needs to diagnose the problem.
