Thursday marked the beginning of the club, organized by Jacinda Townsend, a creative writing professor at IU. Townsend said her daughter inspired her to start the club — she said she wanted Rhianna, who is in seventh grade, to develop the same skills and confidence that speech-making gave her.
“When I was a kid I did a lot of public speaking, like speech contests,” Townsend said. “I really think it helped me tremendously for the rest of my life because you always have to do public speaking.”
Podium Club’s first meeting had a small turnout — just Townsend and her daughter. That didn’t stop them from discussing aspects of successful public speaking, such as maintaining eye contact, projecting and being relatable. Townsend also talked about writing the introduction to a speech and showed an example from the Lowell Speeches Project, an organization at Harvard University that allows students to give TEDx-style speeches.
The speech she showed came from Hannah Lam, a Harvard student who spoke about getting over hating her own voice by getting used to hearing herself speak.
Afterward, Townsend helped her daughter write the introduction to a speech about feeling trapped in the walls of an ancient Greek city, a subject Rhianna said she was learning about in school.
Townsend said her goal with Podium Club was to accommodate equally kids who will drop in once or twice and those who will come consistently.
“I’m trying to ... get kids to have a whole speech they feel comfortable giving to people,” she said. The professor said she encouraged her daughter to engage in public speaking.
Rhianna said her mother sent her to a speech camp last summer, where she learned about modern-day slavery in Mauritania and wrote and delivered a speech about the topic.
“I thought it was interesting, how there’s still slavery to this day,” she said.
Besides the benefit of learning more about off-beat topics, Townsend said she thought writing and giving speeches is important in everyday communication. She said she could tell a student who has practiced public speaking from one who has not.
“It gives you more confidence, and I think, even when you’re interacting with people on a one-to-one basis, it helps you so much to know, for instance, how to make eye contact, how to march to a point when speaking to someone,” she said.
Townsend said she planned to continue Podium Club in the back room of the Ground Floor, a space in the library exclusively for kids ages 12 through 19.
Becky Fyolek, the teen librarian, said the Ground Floor was created to give kids their own space within the library.
They can play video games or board games, work on group projects and homework, read or simply spend time with each other. Programs are also offered regularly, such as zine-making, game nights, a calligraphy class and crafts. Some are even presented by the teens who frequent the Ground Floor, Fyolek said.
“The kids seem to love it,” she said, adding that the Ground Floor tries to involve the kids it serves as much as possible. A Teen Advisory Board meets regularly to give feedback about programming and make suggestions.
