“The First Amendment really was designed to protect a debate at the fringes. You don’t need the courts to protect speech that everybody agrees with, because that speech will be tolerated. You need a First Amendment to protect speech that people regard as intolerable or outrageous or offensive — because that is when the majority will wield its power to censor or suppress, and we have a First Amendment to prevent the government from doing that.”- ACLU
Part of our jobs as teachers (Driving Instructors and 5 Hour Pre- Licensing Course providers) is to deliver messages of safe driving.
We want our students to develop safe habits while, before, and after they are driving. However it is easy to become preachy when you are passionate about your topic. Don’t forget that you have to develop a relationship with your audience in a very short amount of time. You must come across as personable and approachable.
Like in our natural conversations with new people it is very important to stay away form arguments that are hot button. Ideas of race, religion, sexual orientation, gender and the other religion, politics. Skate the surface with these topics when trying to present, you never know who is in your audience. It is very easy to lose track of time, space and place when trying to make a point.
Know your material, place it on cue cards, and use key words to signal the topics you wish to address. Doing this allows you to change the subject when you get off track and helps you stay focused.
I like to always assume that I will have at least one person that doesn’t agree with my ideas or the topic that I am discussing. I like to think of counter arguments to what am saying, and I try not enter into an argument to be right, but go in with the idea I can be wrong. No one ever listened themselves out of a friendship.
Keep in mind, you are being paid for a service. If you do a good job, each person who walked through your doors will send in three more. At the end of the day, keep your messages more about driving with a side of sweet conversation (Jelly).
Your comments should reflect how you can relate or not relate to this lesson. How do you feel it relates to presenting the 5 hour class?
Charley Chaplin – How you present yourself is important
Jeff Daniels – How you start with your audience is important
Daniel Beaty – Everyone in your audience is fighting a battle
When you figure it out, tell me how… basically it is hard to do all of it. However, you must be aware that it exist.
We watched the argument for education. Keep in mind in order to change any system you need to be part it. Also, every system is designed to get the results that it gets. Unfortunately there are always unintended consequences. These can be positive or negative, but are always unintended.
Kye Weaver 
Being #16 for presentation . . . quite an advantage over #’s 1,2,3 etc. Enjoying all the presentations!
Charlie Chaplin could certainly write beautifully, couldn’t he?…….cd
Lot of heavy duty emotions and attitudes in the films shown in class. Since we have to deal with passions and emotions as we teach these classes having a discussion about how to cope with and manage feelings/attitudes was a valuable lesson served up by my adopted son, the good Professor Weaver. Wish I could have had Kye when I was in elementary school…but we’re all fortunate to have him in this class.
I had a great time tonight. I’m happy to be done with my presentation. Thank you everyone for the valuable feedback. It’s a lot harder than it looks. Lol.
You did a very nice job…thank you for the effort
For you Kye…
First of all, great job to all of the presenters today. I don’t get easily offended, but I know some people do. It also depends on the topic. Some people have gone through certain experiences, which make them more sensitive to certain subjects. I try to use those experiences to make me stronger, but it’s not that easy for everyone. All this energy wasted on hating and hurting each other is ridiculous though. Do you know where our society could be if we focused that energy elsewhere? My mom used to tell me it was so silly to hate someone, just because they were different. Where does it end? We’re all similar, but different. If everyone was the same color would we segregate by nose size? If we were all the same size would we segregate by hair type? Is it going to take an attack from a technologically superior alien race to get us to band together and realize how idiotic this all is? We do need to develop some thick skin too and stop being so soft. Diamonds are formed under intense pressure. Everyone wants be transformed from coal to a diamond, but it won’t happen without pressure. Challenge yourself. Step out of your comfort zone sometimes. The results will amaze you!
Today’s class was good. Presenters were very knowledgeable. Now we have an understanding of lane over law.
I loved the Charlie Chaplin clip. The background images enhanced his words and made the speech more powerful. I appreciated the Pink Floyd clip from “The Wall” as Charlie said, “Victims of a system that makes men torture” as the children fell one-by-one off the assembly line into the vat that took away their individuality and ground them all together into one uniform pile of meat!!
My students pay for a service that I intend to cleanly deliver. I have strong convictions about certain subjects that my own adult children have had earfuls of hearing. I can get preachy with them because they are my children. I have learned that God loves me and God loves my children and God loves my students no matter where any of us are at in our lives. I know to just let my life be an example of my convictions! My students deserve to get their moneys worth and I intend to give it without them having to hear me get preachy.
P.S. I do have a very tiny picture of Jesus in my car!
I found the videos shown on Thursday’s class to be very enlightening. The Charlie Chaplin video really captured my attention and his viewpoints were clearly addressed. Although this video in particular did not offend me, I can see how it could offend others. It’s unfortunate that some people were offended by the video just because he resembled an infamous dictator, Hitler.
Kye made an important point about how you deliver your message. It can make you or break you. I, myself had an experience when going back 21 years ago I was going to classes to learn Pest Control. The teacher constantly kept interjecting his disapproval of the O.J. Simpson verdict. I became so turned off that I never went back. This decision was not because he didn’t care for the verdict, but because he kept talking more about the verdict instead of the subject that we were supposed to be learning. Let Let’s lesson be a lesson to us all.
Mike Tyson said, “everybody has a plan till they get punched in the face.”
Sometimes offense or the infliction of pain through pointed words is what’s needed to get A message across. From the right mouth a wrong message is passable and maybe even acceptable. Imagine the right message coming out of the wrong mouth…seems like you have some work to do.
I myself don’t get offended easily. Growing up I was taught sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me . In light of these thoughts, as teachers were sort of public figures and should act as such , and try our best not to offend our students. Our students are our gateway to the community we work in.
Watching the other presentations adds dimension and a tremendous amount of professional and experienced perspective. I felt like thursday night’s lesson/ presentations just propelled us into hyperspace.
Class7 , Is About being careful what you say how you say it and how you look, and not offending anyone.These things will deterrmine if you keep your audience or lose them. You don’t want them angry and possibly walking out on the 5hr class.
Being offensive will definitely affect the customers and it will result in less customers coming, we learned how we have to be careful and how we present ourselves is crucial. The videos were interesTing, shows how we could approach our discussions in class.
The class and videos are pointing towards the bigger picture.Everything we have done so far is adding up. Kye teaching technique is amazing and i feel very confident and now i have so much material which is helping me do my driving lesson better.
Growing up we have different education system so we have to obey, in America it is a different system, maybe combine different system and it will be better.
This video have a lot of information, back to my time we respect our teacher because we are under different education.
The Jeff Daniels commentary started off in a negative tone with resentment and profanity so offensive in public speaking I thought a riot in the theater would soon erupt. But his message was undeniably on the mark. He held his audience on the edge and kept them in a controlled sort of trance. I was fascinated by how he delivered his speech. very powerful in subject matter and then after soothing his audience in retrospect. Amazing.
Safety is the goal. Everyone needs to understand the entire key to a successful driver is being safe, arrive the same way you leave, use the (SMITH’s) system every time we’re behind the wheel.
Offensive material every where, one must stir clear of topics or assumption that will put us in a predicament. I was raised to never talk politics or religion outside my home, according to my mom those were dangerous conversations. Now as an adult still carry myself in such a way, and I will use those skills to teach.
I just sued the school system is an amazing video, although one could argue with his points and reasosn, this video really brought me to a new place and to learn to look at things in a different perspective
I agree with James’ comment on the video, I too did like the video it was very powerful and moving, but quite on point with what he was saying about the school system. He made great comparsions with pictures of the automobile industry of business how they have evolved over the years and then show how the school system is still the same way since the 1940’s never changing their way of teaching practices by showing pictures the old system to compare to the school system of now.
i put the school system sued video upon on bookface and shared it with my two grandaughters and daughter… i am always sensitive to what i am feeling in the field of any particular student, and will know with a question or two what their orientation could be in any given direction… i would never offend or presume, but invite when felt to be appropriate, to explore wider, deeper, higher and more subtle horizons. things are not at they appear. we have been inculcated with realm upon realm of disinformation, which we can choose to accept of dare to question. Big Brother is watching you…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5dfkeZXa8s
the video was very interesting and i agree with it for the most part. i can relate this back to teaching driving because as an instructor, you should be flexible and be able to change your lessons around depending on how the student is able to absorb the information.
Driving instructor is a job ,also a educator . Your teaching Method and attitude will affect students in their futer driving behavior. Safety is the top and most priority subject we are teaching our students .