CFUW public speaking contest
26 years of students speaking their minds
This year 15 students from local secondary schools met at Amédéebeaudoin Community Centre in Lennoxville to participate in the 26th annual Canadian Federation of University Women (CFUW) public speaking competition, held Wednesday afternoon.
The participating schools included Stanstead College (SC), Bishop’s College School (BCS), Richmond Regional (RRHS), Massey-vanier (MVHS) and Alexander Galt Regional High School (AGRHS).
This year’s winners in the junior division (Sec. 1, 2 and 3) were Aidan Feddema (BCS) in first place with his speech “Is Social Media Worth It?” David Kolten Crack (RRHS) in second place with his speech “Why We Should Eat Whole dairy Products”, and honourable mention went to MVHS student Solomon Jung for his speech “The Future of Learning.”
In the senior category (Sec.4 and 5), top honours went to Cala Tesolin (BCS) for her speech, “Beauty is Not Beautiful”. Second place went to Alexis Bernier (SC) with his speech “What is Success?” Honourable mention went to Kelly Frendo (BCS) for her speech “History Should be in Our Future.”
The winners in each category were awarded a $100 donation for their school’s library.
In line with the CFUW’S mandate promoting literacy and education, the event was an illuminating experience for audience members as well as the young orators.
The subjects chosen by the students serve as a barometer for the concerns of local teens today, and in many cases, are directly in line with issues debated in national, and even international political arenas.
Among the subjects were two speeches about social, or as one student put it, ‘Unsocial’ media.
“Being famous on Instagram is like being rich in Monopoly,” explained one student.
“Why do I feel compelled to send out (Snapchat) streaks every day,” another said, explaining that digital platforms use tactics similar to casinos and lotteries to develop addictions.
“We can be hyper-connected and extremely lonely at the same time,” he said, adding “It has us by a string, and it’s up to us to cut it.”
On student made a compelling argument for whole dairy products.
“Would you seriously want to put edible plastic on your toast?” he asked, referring to the flavour and health benefits of butter compared to margarine. Consuming whole dairy, according to the young speaker, is not only healthier, but helps support Canadian jobs, one eighth of which are in agriculture.
“If you put butter and margarine on a table, not even the flies will go to the margarine,” he said.
One of the speeches laid out the pros and cons related to the legalization of marijuana. The points raised dealt not only with the economic aspects, but also the societal impacts and the potential for medical research.
“Stereotypes stink,” was the opening of one student’s speech. “It’s a bad habit that we help keep alive,” she went on, challenging the audience to suspend judgment and get to know people rather than rely on a pre-conceived notion of what a person is like.
One student spoke about the lack of attention and funding paid to women in sports.
“They are sidelined, underfunded and ignored,” she said.
“When Marie-philip Poulin goes to get the puck in the corner, she’s going hard,” the student said, explaining that women work just as hard as men in sports, and deserve to be funded to the same degree.
“Young girls need better role models,” she added, pointing out that 88 per cent of young girls do not get the recommended amount of daily physical activity.
“Everyone should work on themselves constantly,” another student said. In that context, she suggested that if students had the opportunity to grade teachers, it would attract the best of the best to the profession.
“Who better to judge; we spend the most time with them,” she said, explaining that testing teachers regularly the way students are tested would create lifelong learners.
While there were many hard-hitting topics addressed during the competition, there were also a few students thinking outside the box.
One student came up with a unique way to revolutionize learning. Capitalizing on the thousands of nerve receptors on the tongue, the student came up with the idea of having Braille pressed onto food, so that everything eaten could be a new source of knowledge, eaten and remembered. The inventive concept provided a guilt-free loophole for junk food addicts. “I’m not eating junk, I’m eating knowledge,” he suggested.
Racial inequality was the subject of one speech. The student shared a personal account of being followed around a store while shopping for a coat with her mother.
“I have to make sure that you don’t steal anything; you people do that a lot,” the clerk told her and her mother.
“Never let the limits that society places on you hold you down,” she said. “No legend ever had an easy journey, but they kept going.”
One student drew attention to the 119 per cent increase in health issues related to eating disorders in young people in the last decade, undoubtedly the result of society’s outrageous beauty standards. “If that’s beauty, then beauty hurts,” she said.
Wondering whether ideas of beauty were a societal issue reflected in the media, or if media was presenting impossible standards, she said people should stop listening. “Beauty is everything but beautiful,” she said.
Distracted driving was on the mind of one student, who reminded the audience that the penalty comes with a fine of up to $100 and four demerit points.
“It’s a heavy fine for a heavy crime,” she said.
With the average smart phone check taking 4 to 6 seconds, the student said that travelling at 90km/h in a car, that would mean driving the equivalent of a football field blindfolded.
She further illustrated her point about distracted driving by sharing the stories of people who have been involved in accidents because of distracted drivers.
“Life is like a maze. The right path can be blurred by many obstacles,” one student said, offering some tools to be in successful in life.
He pointed out that most people are their own worst enemies.
His three tips to be successful in life were to not compare oneself to others, to not fear failure, and to always be confident. Quoting Elon Musk, he said “When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.”
On student offered a critique of the Quebec public school system, specifically the history curriculum.
Rather than repeating the same Quebec-centric lessons year after year, she suggested a wider world view be added to the lesson plan.
She shared some pivotal moments in history that happened outside of Quebec, including the interesting story of the seemingly un-killable Russian mystic Grigory Rasputin.
“If that had happened to a Quebec premier instead of a Russian ruler, we would have heard about it,” she said.
One student talked about her reliance on a ‘magic eraser’ to make decisions in her life.
With a yes written on one side and no on the other, she most recently let the eraser decide whether or not she should go to Cegep next year.
“I think that fear is a lot better than boredom,” she said, explaining that relying on the impulsive decisions of the eraser moves her out of her comfort zone.
“I’m not insane,” she said, adding that she is in no way obliged to do as the eraser says. Her point was that forcing a decision was a good tool to help her realize how she really feels about something.
One student broke down the psychology behind magical thinking. She used the example of dreaming about a friend, and then receiving a text from the next day, as though the dream made the text happen.
The notion of powerful thoughts extends to tangible objects, the student pointed out. “No one would be willing to wear a coat that belonged to a serial killer,” she said, explaining the notion of magical contagion.
“Bad vibes are stronger than washing machines,” she said.