Today, I felt like an "old hand." Cynical and well-informed. We had the annual summer speech contest today. It's my third speech contest for LBridge, so I knew the routine. Last-minute disorganization, great kids, but a bit scaled down from previous events. I got to be the finalist speeches' MC again. It's weird how I just kind of shrugged and went with it, when the boss came to me five minutes before and said, oh, by the way, can you be MC? There was a time, I remember, when such cavalier deployment of my limited talents would have pissed me of f and made me uncomfortable, but I just went with the flow, and it was fine.
I was please to see several of my students place in the finals, including Willy (6th overall), Tracey (5th overall) and tiny Dana (4th overall). I'll try to post a few pictures later, although I don't have as many as I'd have liked, since my camera ran out of batteries.
Willy gave a speech about how parents shouldn't try to make their children into slaves. "I can think for myself, so please let me think for myself," he explained. Another boy, David (not my student) gave a really serious, excellent and compelling speech about "one thing about Korean culture I would like to change": his choice? Korean men's drinking culture. That's a pretty heavy-duty topic for a 5th grader. And he did a really good job with it.