As part of my physics courses, my students are usually required to perform a powerpoint presentation about a course-related topic that they find interesting.  As harmless as it sounds, the very idea of speaking in public induces fear in many of my students.  While I do sympathize with them, these presentations remain a part of my courses because (1) oral communication is an important skill, and (2) I feel that if you cannot communicate what you have learned, you have not learned it.

Jerry Seinfeld once observed that the number one fear of most people is public speaking, while number two is death.  He went on to muse that, at a funeral, the majority of people would rather be inside the casket than giving the eulogy. 

What is it about giving a presentation that is so scary?

I suppose that a speech is like a performance, and a performance of any kind, from acting to singing to dancing, is angst-inducing.  I have performed music in front of live audiences, and have experienced the 'sinking feeling' one feels before such performances.  Strangely, one's level of nerves does not seem to correlate with one's level of ability.  Barbra Streisand, one of the most accomplished singers of all time, has openly admitted to experiencing a massive amount of stage freight.

Earlier today, I gave a presentation about the space elevator; a topic that is so familiar to me.  Nevertheless, a few minutes before the talk, I felt a momentary 'breathless' feeling commonly referred to as butterflies in one's stomach.  I suppose the feeling is the result of some combination of anxiety and excitement.

It is bizarre that speakers should feel this way.  The speaker feels nervous because of the audience, but the members of the audience would like nothing more than for the speaker to be calm and at ease.  The audience is actually rooting for the speaker to be successful, so they should not be a source of stress - and yet they are.

Overall, I enjoy giving presentations.  I suppose that is why I enjoy being a teacher.  But, I enjoy being in the audience every bit as much, though for different reasons.  While less exhilirating than presenting, there is nothing quite like being in the audience at a great talk.  Neither books nor television programs are as stimulating as a live presentation.  And, thanks to TED (www.ted.com), we can all experience an endless supply of high quality lectures from leading professionals in fields ranging from technology to film to education.  TED is probably my favourite site to peruse on the entire web.

For those who are not familiar with TED, just imagine YouTube, only that instead of 99% of it being crap, 99% of it is engaging and thought-provoking.  All of the videos on TED are simply recordings of live talks given at TED conferences, which take place all over the world.  I wish I could attend such conferences, but consuming these talks online is the next best thing.

I tend to focus my attention on the technological research talks given by the scientists and engineers whose work pushes the current boundaries of what is considered state of the art.  Over the years, I have observed that speakers have become surprisingly effective in the art of presenting.  You may be watching the world leader in cancer research, but he or she speaks like a professional public speaker.  It was not always this way.

I have been to technical conferences, and typically, the only thing dryer than the equation on the slide is the delivery of the speaker.  I was at my first space conference in 2005, and while the research being shared was downright fascinating, the presentation of it was shockingly dull.

It seems that the massive success of TED has turned the presenting of one's research into an art form.  It used to be that a good talk was one stated simply, slowly, and clearly.  These guidelines remain true today, but it seems that all of the best talks on TED have four other key ingredients: (1) they must tell a story, (2) include at least one impressive audiovisual or live demonstration, (3) include some degree of comedy, and (4) be delivered with passion.

From this list of key ingredients, the most important is probably the first: the presentation must tell a story.  If the story behind the research is told, then the research takes on a life of itself.  If the goal of the presentation is to transmit the information to the audience, then shaping it in the form of a story is the best approach, as the audience is made up of human beings, and human beings love a good story.

If you have never visited TED before, I urge you to leave my site immediately to check it out.  You can then return to my site, and thank me later. 

I have work experience in both the private and public sector, and have noticed a fair bit of commonality between the two.  This is not surprising, as no matter what kind of work you are involved in, no matter where the funding is coming from, there is a job to be done. 

I worked at a space engineering corporation in the private sector for a few years.  Like any corporation, the whole point of its existence is to make money, and thus the whole function of the worker at the end of the day is to contribute to that cause.  This is the fundamental reason why I could not stay in the private sector; the capital driven corporate culture does not propel me out of bed in the morning.  My reaction was not extreme disgust, but rather, apathy for the cause.  How much does money drive corporations?  It is illegal for a CEO of an American corporation to make a decision that could reduce its shareholder’s share value.  Illegal! 

If a CEO wishes to pursue an environmental cause in the name of his oil company, he could be sued for his efforts, as the move could be seen as a waste of capital.  As a lemming working on the ground floor, the work environment felt rather backwards.  If the only goal is to make money, you may succeed, or you may fail.  If your goal is to do good work, make a good, useful product, have a positive impact on the world, you will likely succeed in that, and derive profits as a natural consequence.  Turning the whole work culture onto its side in this way amounts to eliminating the fear culture.  Money as a motivator is simply a fear mechanism in the workplace.

I currently work at a public institution; a college where I teach Physics to sometimes eager young minds.  My measure of success now is “Did my students absorb the intended content of the course?”  Now, I feel motivated to get out of bed; teaching is a rewarding job in this way.  As I am motivated by fear to a much lesser extent, I am excited to do good work, and success is arrived at in a natural, unforced way.  My students are not as lucky as me.

I was a student for umpteen years, and am thus qualified to comment on the culture of the education system.  It is in large part, a culture of fear.  The currency in the school system is not money, it is marks.  The vast majority of students who enter my class have a goal, but it is most certainly not to learn.  Their goal is a number.  This number, if high enough will allow them to pass the course and never take it again.  Other more ambitious students strive for an even higher number, which may allow them to pursue studies in a field that makes them lots of money later.  Do good marks lead to good money?  I suppose it is possible.  In the first class of a given course I offer the following advice to my students:

“If your goal in this course is to get a certain mark, you may succeed in doing so, or you may not.  In the process you may learn something.  If, on the other hand, your goal is to learn and to do good work, you will very likely succeed at that.  In the process, you will no doubt achieve good marks, but it will be a natural offshoot of your learning and good work.”

This mentality would probably make the classroom a much more fun place to be.  I cannot say so with assurance, as I have never seen the majority of the students in a class follow this path.  Rare is the student who puts learning first, but it is not their faults.  The fear culture of the education system is simply flowing through them; it has been painfully instilled in them since their parents reviewed their first report card.  When parents encourage kids to do well in school, they are asking them to get a good report card – kids know that.  As the students mature into young adults, they may feel that their lengthy experience of chasing good marks has been a waste of time.  This is not the case, as these kids have certainly learned a great deal as they moved through the school system.  However, I think that the experience, the journey, could be made more pleasant by turning the system on its side. 

Something deeper is going on here.  Perhaps it is the fear culture as a whole that has flowed down into the education system and the corporate world.  It may turn out that fear is a good thing, or at the very least, a necessary thing.  Fear is what often dictates to us what directions to choose in life.  Fear was without doubt the entity that allowed man to survive through its most difficult times; and survival is what life aims to do with more rigour than anything else.  Without the fear of dying due to hunger, we would not have hunted when we were hungry.  Fearlessness tends to go hand and hand with recklessness, and is not a quality one should strive for.  It could lead one to speed excessively on the highway or try to jump out of a three-story window.  Fear keeps us grounded, and, historically, has kept us alive.

Things are different in the culture of today’s developed nations.  It is just a minority of its citizens who struggle for survival.  For the vast majority, survival, in the day-to-day sense, is an expectation.  Our instinct to survive is not being tapped into on a daily basis.  As survival has become a given, man has become greedy; people in this culture wish to thrive, to succeed.  But, while the goal has changed from surviving to succeeding, the mechanism relied on to achieve that goal has not changed in the slightest; it is still fear.  I don’t know if fear is the best means to reach our current goals.  Maybe we have kept it with us like an old friend.  It serves as a reminder of our history, and is deep-rooted in our brains.

Without question, a certain amount of fear is useful to have as a motivation to accomplish a given task.  But let us not make it our only motivation.  A student is not legally bounded to strive solely for high marks the way a CEO must strive only for lots of money.  Today’s student can choose how to approach learning, just as teachers have autonomy in their approach to teaching.  We can all balance our fear with other things, like passion and integrity.  As a society, let’s loosen up a bit, relax, and take a deep breath ... we’ve survived.  We are likely to survive tomorrow and the next day.  With that in mind, let us live with a minimal, acceptable level of fear, and remember that there is a lot more to school and life than marks and money.