This past Wednesday, I was privileged to
listen to the Wissahickon guest speaker, Alex.
His speech was entitled Story,
which he gave to the audience, a group of 11th and 12th
grade students. Very attentive 11th
grades, might I add. And we were so
attentive, because Alex was hands down the best speaker that Wissahickon had
ever seen. Well, that’s my opinion, but
everyone should agree with me. Let’s
start with the basics. Alex’s speech was
on the hard-to-find-a-consistent-definition topic hate. And instead of lecturing us about how bad of
people, Alex connected with us, telling us through his words and through the
visual aspects. The speech was a
compilation of narratives, both from Alex’s life and from the lives of people
close to him. But, even with the
effective used of narratives, it wasn’t that which kept my attention. It was the visual aspects of the speech.
As I walked into the auditorium, ready
for a good 45 minute session of eye-clawing-out boredom, I was greeted to a young,
blond man with a simple PowerPoint entitled Story. It took me aback, because usually guest
speakers make two mistakes: thinking that teens need to be thoroughly
distracted with a slideshow crammed with pictures or the idea that a 40 year
old can ever actually tell teenagers what to do. So, already standing there with the correct
PowerPoint, Alex had my friends and mine’s attention. Ok, now that he had our attention, how was he
going to keep it? During his presentation,
Alex moved a lot. Now, that may not seem
significant, but the constant walking around made the audience move to see
him. Those brief moments of movement
helped, especially for me, kept me from nodding off. Finally, he kept most of the attention off of
the PowerPoint. Most presenters using
PowerPoint tend to bullet point the things they wish to mention. Well, I can read, so I read their bullet
points, know what they are saying, and stop paying attention. Alex’s slideshow had a title, a picture, and
maybe a short blurb. He used it less of
a notecard and more of a visual. My
favorite part of the presentation was when he showed us the picture The Weeping Woman by Pablo Picasso.
 |
| Weeping Woman, By Pablo Picasso She really does not look like a real human, therefore is dehumanized |
He
used the point that the painting does not show a human as we know them. He made a very effective point about
dehumanization and what it can do to people, while using the visual to relate
an abstract idea to a concrete visual aid.
I left that auditorium thinking, which I rarely do after guest speaker,
but not just because of what he said. It
was the use of positive visual manipulation that he kept my attention and
hopefully the attention of everyone else.
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