It's always great to see the progression of your students. As we pushed forward through the year, this step in the process for the freshmen is to begin giving speeches, mods and comments without any notes. Some feel comfortable doing it, while others still quite do it. For those who did it without the paper, it's great to see their flow and projection improve and while they may stumble from time to time, they truly begin to see that exponential growth that creates our top delegates of the future. Of course the other obstacle we face is to help these students avoid chasing the paper (award). It's easy to get caught up in the drive to get an award, but I always try to remind them that the award is not the true measure of their success. Some of the delegates who didn't win an award today showed a lot of promise, while some of those who did, really made great strides to improve. Whether or not they get that award matters less to me than whether or not they gained knowledge and experience, whether they learned from this opportunity and how they great through the process. The grades cannot always measure if a delegate was a success and I hope that the students see this. Many of them, by career's end, will deserve a standing ovation for all the great speeches they gave in their committee. However, no matter how great they may say they were as freshmen, they too started with the same struggles my freshmen face. Today I saw many of them progress beyond that paper and they truly demonstrated how far they've come and that truly made me proud. There is still room for growth and I am waiting on a few more to truly sprout, but in the meantime, I hope that they see that the measurement of their success today relies not on any paper that they may or may not have received. Allow your progress and development be the true indicator of your success. Great job to all!
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