This year, RMHS broadened its curriculum with the addition of Public Speaking, a new semester-long course designed to be both valuable and engaging.
Along with college Public Speaking’s course curriculum, RMHS aims to help students develop their communication skills by building confidence and placing students in improvised, life-like situations that enhance their speaking abilities over a single semester. Public Speaking will aid students and help prepare them for college and the workforce.
Many high school students find public speaking challenging. It is a skill used in various aspects of life, ranging from formal presentations and meetings to casual conversations and even everyday interactions. Unlike many high schools, RMHS has introduced a course dedicated to helping students refine their confidence and ability to communicate effectively.
RMHS’s Public Speaking teacher Ms. Bailey, has no doubt that efficient communication is extremely important. She said, “Public speaking is especially important because no matter what you do when you leave here, you’re gonna need to know how to talk to other people and in front of other people. And so the skills that I think we learn in public speaking are some of the most important ones out there.”
Ms. Bailey is in her twelfth year of teaching and has only taught at RMHS. She is teaching classes consisting of AP United States Government and Politics, History 10, Facing History, and now Public Speaking. Ms. Bailey introduced the course around December of last year. She asked head of the social studies department Mr. Fiore, Principal Callanan, Counseling Director Ms. Williams, if there was an interest in a public speaking class. Everyone was immediately hands on and eager to make this a reality.
Ms. Bailey was confident in adding Public Speaking to the curriculum as she has had personal experience with public speaking at her high school. “I used to be a big nerd back in high school. I was on my high school speech and debate team, and I feel like I learned more from that than pretty much anything else I’ve ever studied.”
She talked about how the class and its expectations were definitely met, but also needed some slight tweaks to make it even better. “First semester went well. Something that I would continue next year is doing more bite size, and then a few major speeches, too–to give people more opportunity to practice speaking. I think I would change the structure of it a little bit, in terms of having assignments that were smaller in scope, so we could have more opportunities for public speaking.”
It took more than just Ms. Bailey to get a Public Speaking course up and running. Mr. Fiore aided Ms. Bailey in the process and supported her claims. “I believe that if the people in the organization have an idea to improve the team, school, or department of the organization in general I think that it’s my role to support that and make that happen.” Along with support, Mr. Fiore also brought his views and ideas to the conversation. “I think at some point effective leadership comes down to effective communication, and we need to develop leadership qualities in our students and what better way to do that than a semester of public speaking.” In addition to being the head of the social studies department, Mr. Fiore is the head coach of the football team and assistant coach of the track and field team. He has always been around students and athletes who both struggle and do well speaking. With all the people who came together, RMHS’s new course Public speaking became a reality.
Quickly, many students found interest in the class as it filled up, enrolling forty-nine students between the two semesters. One of the students who took Public Speaking in the first semester is David McCann (‘25). McCann is a senior at RMHS who was convinced by his AP US History teacher Mr. Debenedictis. “Last year Mr. Debenedictis advised me to take public speaking. He said that if public speaking sounds like a course you don’t wanna take, then you probably should take it.”
McCann was aware that his speaking ability could use some work. The next step was doing something about it. The new Public Speaking course put McCann in a position to be more confident and well spoken. “I like that public speaking pushes me outside of my comfort zone, and although you may not like it, being uncomfortable is a good thing. You learn a lot from being uncomfortable,” McCann said. McCann believes that it is an essential class, and one worth keeping. “I think it should continue to be part of the curriculum. Sometimes we do presentations, sometimes we do speeches to the class, and people are really, really bad at that. And I think it’s a great skill to have just in general, for those other classes and also for the future,” McCann said.
RMHS’s very own Public Speaking class is one course underclassmen should consider in the upcoming years.
