Skip to main content

How I Ate My Dog Food at TEDx Monterey



One of the several unpopular assignments I force upon my students is the Sophomore Speech. I am capitalizing Sophomore Speech because it has become a thing at our school … a proper thing. Every single one of my 10th grade students is required to write a personal essay and convert it into a speech to be delivered in front of the entire school during our assembly period we call Break.


The word speech has fallen out of fashion these days. It’s much cooler to give a talk than a speech, but talk doesn’t alliterate with sophomore. I guess I could have called them 10th Grade Talks, but as I said, the Sophomore Speech is a thing, so I’m going with it.


Of course, I don’t win many votes for Most Popular Teacher of the Year when I announce this assignment to my students. Most members of our species tend to avoid public speaking whenever possible, and you won’t be surprised to hear that some students consider this the waterboard of English assignments.


“Mr. Brookhouser, I really need to get out of this. I am about to throw up thinking about it.” I reassure students that we work up to the speech with baby steps, and I remind them that Mrs. Rees, the incredible 9th grade English teacher at York, has done an amazing job getting them ready. While I have seen tears shed as a result of this assignment, I’ve yet to see any vomit. I’m ready, though. Our bleach supply is ample.


I tell my students that I want them to be very powerful people. I don’t mean that they should all aspire to be CEOs or senators. I’m talking about influence, not status. I’m sure there are many people doing great things and making the world a better place without ever having to speak to groups of people. I’ve just never heard of them. Few people in power get out of public speaking. After my class is over, my students will have the choice to avoid ever having to speak in front of a large group again. I just don’t want them to reject that opportunity without knowing that they’re actually capable of doing it. When they embrace the opportunity, they embrace power.

It would also be great if they used that power for good and not evil.

--

Last time I was invited to the Googleplex, an engineer introduced me to the notion of “eating your own dog food.” Maybe the phrase came from Alpo advertisers who claimed that their product was so good that they enjoyed it themselves. Regardless, tech companies started using the phrase to suggest that either the software they were developing was good enough for them to use themselves or it was not, and if not, they shouldn’t make it at all.

When I give trainings, many people ask me about the security of data in Google Drive or Gmail. I tell them what Googlers tell me. Google employees are super concerned about their internal communications getting compromised. They use Google Drive. They use Gmail. They believe in their product. They eat their own dog food.

Teachers produce products too. We create lesson plans, assessments, and grades and comments at the end of the year, but the most important products we make are experiences that lead to growth.

Hearing about dog food at Google led me to ask how much of my dog food experiences I’m consuming. If speaking in front of large groups of people is such a worthwhile experience, why don’t I do it more frequently. It’s true that I do speak in front of my students daily, and I also give tech trainings to teachers throughout the year, but I wouldn’t call them speeches.

So last winter, I came across a post on the TEDx Monterey site accepting TED Talk proposals (note the alliteration in TED Talk). So I applied to talk about the 20% Project in my class.

A few weeks later I heard back from the organizers who wanted to learn more about the project, so we had a video conference over a Hangout. Bob and Eva, I learned soon after
meeting them, are ultra organized, super smart, and wildly creative. They asked me to explain what the 20% Project is and why I do it.


I was ready for this question. I went with great depth into the studies about creativity and motivation and Google and Daniel Pink and The Candle Problem and carrots and sticks and autonomy and mastery and purpose and science! After about 10 minutes of this, Eva cut me off. “Kevin, we all know about this stuff. We want to know why you decided to take on this project and how it looks in your classroom.”

“Oh. Right.” I was not ready for this question.

She wanted me to tell a story, not lecture on pedagogy. Eva asked me to do exactly what I ask my students when writing their personal speeches. Dog food.

I guess I explained my story well enough for Eva and Bob to give me a chance at writing a proper piece that people would actually want to hear because they let me move on to the next step.

So I wrote and rewrote. I devoured honest feedback from friends and colleagues. Through the process, I kept going into theory, and Eva kept reminding me to go back to story.

Then I practiced. In front of the mirror, in front of my dogs, in front of the homeless men on the streets of Santa Cruz.

--

With my microphone scotch taped to my ear and cheek, I was two eternal minutes away from taking the stage. My wife sat in the audience with students, parents of students, fellow teachers, and I was pretty sure I would stand up there and forget how to get my mouth and tongue to make so many different sounds. I wondered how much I would owe TEDx if vomit ruined the mic.

I paced the “green room” while Ailis Dooner, the 10th grader who has pretty much single-handedly discovered that algae can cure cancer, eyed me. She was scheduled to follow me and asked me how I was doing. “I’m a little nervous, but I think I’ll be ok,” I lied. She knew it. Then Ailis looked me in the eye, and with the fierce commitment of a prized gladiator owner, she said, “Adrenaline focuses the mind.”

I didn’t forget everything. My mouth worked. I showed my slides. People clapped.

I’m pretty sure I now have a little better understanding of what it’s like to be one of my students. I’m reminded about how scary this assignment can be, but I still don’t fully understand it. I’m a grown-up who has lots of experience talking in front of large groups of people, I don’t consider myself someone who is particularly afraid of the job, and I’ve never been told that some grade depended on my willingness to go through with it. But I feel more empathy for them, and I hope that will allow me to support them more next year.

It may not be the exact same vintage my students eat, but I ate my dog food this past weekend, and I’m proud to announce, it stayed down.

Comments

  1. You rocked it, Kevin. I could tell - from talking to you one-on-one - that you were nervous. But, from the audience, there was not a glimmer. Thanks for sharing your 20% project. Riley keeps talking about what he is going to do for his 20% project when he's in your class!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, Cam. It helped to know that such a good friend was out there in the darkness. I can't wait to see what Riley builds.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm so ready to watch your talk, Kevin! I was able to watch the first presenter at 1pm, but then I had to leave (and still don't have a smart phone). And you know what? I wasn't thinking about what type of speaker you'd be... I was wondering what you were going to speak ABOUT... Knowing that, however, I am happy you ate your own dog food, and happier you didn't vomit! Congratulations! Now you also know what the kids feel like when they accomplish a speech/talk as well!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Proud to say I was there/their/they're to witness your tremendous preso. It was wonderfully well received from the perspective of the audience and my group could not stop talking about it on the ride home.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks, Joy and John. I'll post the video when it goes live. John, it was great to meet you, and yes, let's plan a meetup in Pinacles for some climbing!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Congratulations Kevin and looking forward to that video!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Assignment #1: Introduce Yourself

As I mentioned in my previous post, the first thing I do in class is have my students write and deliver two minute introductions. Obviously it gives me a sense of their writing and presentation skills, but more importantly it allows me to know who they are. Here's the prompt I give them: Your first formal assignment is to compose and present a short introduction so I may better get to know you. I'm only looking for a two minute introduction. I would like you to type it out and then read it to the class. Make sure you save your work somewhere because I'm going to ask you to post it in your portfolio (more on that later). I'd like to get a sense of who you are and what your voice is. Not sure what to write? No problem ... here are some ideas to help get you started: What are you passionate about? What are some of your goals for the year? For your life? What is the most important physical object in your life? (take a photo of it and bring it to class) What is y...

Anyone can make an Android App

Android App Inventor android.kevinbrookhouser.com 1. Go to and bookmark       ai2.appinventor.mit.edu 2. Start a new project     "grumpyapp" (no spaces or symbols) 3. Drag a button into your screen 4. Make the button this image. 5. Download these MP3 files.   meow  and  hiss . upload it as a new sound in App Inventor. 6. If you have an Android device, get the  A12 Companion App for Android  and c onnect your Android to the computer. 7. If you don't have an Android device, get this  chrome app  and install  this apk .  8. Go to "Blocks" and create this. MITs Android App Inventor Get the App! Connect Android Device to Computer over WIFI Get the Moto E Animal Dashboard Video bit.ly/ARC_Welder_Chrome You need this cat. Right click [save image as]. And you need the meow at the bottom of this page. Hello Purr Instructions Magic 8 Ball Instr...