Teaching public speaking allows me to meet a wide array of students all with immensely diverse backgrounds. My students come from a wide range of majors and places. One of my favorite things about teaching public speaking is the fact that I can allow my students so much choice and range in what topics they discuss in the class. They never fail to amaze me with the multitude of topics that they choose to cover, and I am even more amazed with the varying knowledge and experiences they back themselves up with.
I can’t imagine how bored I would be if I had to sit in a class day after day and discuss the same types of topics over and over again. I love going into the classroom on any given day and knowing that I will learn about any range of topics from utilitarianism to organ donation and from computer vision to Gestalt Psychology.
This freedom does come with responsibility on my part however. Although students generally choose to talk about things like the growing use of drones or the financial collapse of 2008, at least a few times a semester I will encounter a more controversial topic, like abortion, capital punishment, religion, or gun control. I try to give my students as much space as I can to be themselves and talk about topics that interest them, but I have to keep the class as a whole in mind. There is a fine line between giving my students freedom in the course and giving them a platform to push an agenda, especially when it’s a controversial one that has the potential to offend other students, cause arguments, or harm the welcoming environment I strive to foster. I have felt it necessary to suggest that a student avoid a topic they chose to give a speech on. Although some teachers would say this stifles creativity and diversity, I believe it is important to teach my students that in a group as diverse as ours some topics either aren’t appropriate to talk about, or must be discussed extremely carefully, and that they do not have the time or expertise to give such sensitive topics the time that they deserve in order to be covered fully. I would never want a student to take on a difficult topic and end up giving a speech that would harm or suppress relationships with other students or hurt their credibility in the eyes of their classmates. Diversity of ideas and opinions is an essential part of my classroom; however, so is mutual respect.
Perspectives of a Tired Grad Student 
March 13, 2017 at 8:28 pm
Yes, yes, yes, especially to this part of your conclusion where you talk about times you limited topic choices:
“…and that they do not have the time or expertise to give such sensitive topics the time that they deserve in order to be covered fully. I would never want a student to take on a difficult topic and end up giving a speech that would harm or suppress relationships with other students or hurt their credibility in the eyes of their classmates.”
That was great, and as a former first-year composition teacher who was required to teach argumentative essays on highly-debated topics, I totally feel you on the need to re-direct students to other topics on occasion. There’s just a point with certain topics where you see a student pushing an agenda (but not making an argument) or you see them making an argument that ignores the realities of other citizens, and it’s simply not productive. In general, I suggested those “taboo” topics (e.g. abortion, capital punishment) were often topics where all the students had such strongly formed opinions that no argument would sway them. That said, my justification for that line of thinking to them was that they should choose another debatable topic they knew a lot about so that others could be more informed by the end of our class, and perhaps their arguments would be more successful in the end.
Maybe that’s a cop out; maybe it’s not. Sometimes I feel like it was, and other times I feel I was just doing the best that I could. It’s a hard line to deal with, isn’t it?
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March 15, 2017 at 1:19 am
I wonder if “public speaking” is a “platform…” (social structure) “…to push an agenda” (such as opinions, arguments, and claims) by definition. No objection to regulate, discourage or censor in the classroom due to a judgment of appropriateness. Avoiding bias and dealing with moderating creativity and diversity in discussion topics could include the class by obtaining informed consent about discussing a topic from all class members (to be present; including the instructor), thus avoiding to impose a topic on any student and the instructor.
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March 15, 2017 at 4:19 pm
Honestly, I would never have such a courage to teach public speaking (or social norms, political issues, etc.) as I know I’m unwilling to trouble myself (for example, to put myself in a tough conversation). So, I truly appreciate that we can have you (and many other educators) to provide such platform for people to, beforehand, think of those controversial arguments, opinions, claims. I recognize the importance and requirement of public speaking. And I hope it can raise people’s attention on facing and solving these issues as more as possible.
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March 15, 2017 at 6:17 pm
‘I love going into the classroom on any given day and knowing that I will learn about any range of topics from utilitarianism to organ donation and from computer vision to Gestalt Psychology.”
That’s how I feel about this class!
More to the point of your post, this is the wicked messy stuff of which inclusive pedagogy is made and we need to talk about it more — I’m wondering about the “brave vs. safe” spaces piece we read. And also, have you seen this: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds
(I’ve been pushing it on everyone I know for the last couple weeks so if I’ve already talked about it — oops.)
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March 15, 2017 at 7:15 pm
I agree. I tend to reiterate over and over again that if my students want to deviate from the requirements of the speech or have a more out-of-the-box topic all they need to do is talk to me. Then we can talk through why or why not it is a good idea.
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March 19, 2017 at 2:18 am
As much as I envy your job right now, I totally do understand how challenging it is to regulate class debates. Even more so now, topics that students might be interested in, could quickly escalate into full blown out classroom wars. Perhaps, a better approach is to let your students submit topics they might want to discuss in the next class to you, then you filter these topics and then ask students to rank the filtered topics to show what they want discussed in class. This might save you from being put in uncomfortable mediator positions.
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