Mundane Mondays: Values

Mundane Mondays

My posts on Mondays will focus on the seemingly mundane things related to how I approach work. Today’s post will concentrate on determining VALUES.

I conducted seminars and a question and answer session in western Michigan this past Friday. My audience was to a group of public school educators. After one of the sessions, a lady approached to thank me for my presentation. She said that she wrote in the evaluation that I was “well prepared, knowledgeable, a fine educator.”

I think it ironic that the only people who see me as an “educator” are other educators. This is similar to the idea that the only people who see me as a writer are other writers.

I work hard at my job and my hobby. It’s good, every once in a while, to be recognized for those efforts.

There’s plenty of work that goes on behind the scenes. Some time ago, I engaged in an exercise to identify what were to be my priorities or values in teaching or presenting. This is what I decided:

1. Truth or Accuracy. This didn’t take much thought to put this first on the list. Although I’ve not told anyone anything wrong on purpose, I have unwittingly stumbled and made an inaccurate statement. Placing it first on the list caused me to formulate a working plan that would enable me to communicate with my audience after the session to communicate any errors or to correct misunderstandings.
2. Clarity In all of the good teachers/presenters I’ve seen or heard over the years, the ability to translate complex ideas into easy-to-understand language is what set them head and shoulders above their peers. Work on the language ahead of time for sure. But it’s also important to monitor–in real time–how your message is being received. The best way to do this is to look at the faces of the audience. If they’re confused, you should be able to tell and recalibrate on the fly.
3. Passion for the people being taught. This, again, is a no-brainer. Why do this at all if I don’t like my audience. This isn’t to say that I’ll never be placed in front of a hostile audience. Placing this on my list of values keeps me accountable and keeps me from writing them off because they don’t like me.
4. Passion for the subject matter. This is more difficult. How many times have I presented material I’d never consider teaching unless I was assigned to teach it? This happens frequently. I try to find something interesting or fascinating in any subject.
5. Interesting, entertaining or creative arrangement of the material. It’s surprising how easy this can be if I like my audience, think my subject is interesting and attempt to be as clear as possible.
6. Identifiable ways for students/attendees to find more information away from the classroom or presentation hall. In a two-hour session, chances are very good that people will not remember everything. Archiving a recording of the presentation or pointing to resources on a website makes sense to help people answer the questions they thought about while driving home.
7. Engagement between me and the other people in the room. I guess my credo here is to talk to them, not at them.
8. Transparency. Sometimes I have bad days. It’s good to be up front with the audience about little things that might be happening that they might need to know. Once I had a bad headache during my presentation. I started the session by telling my audience what was happening and that they should disregard any facial contortions I might make. This got a laugh and some sympathy. The ibuprofen kicked in about twenty minutes into the session and went well from there. If I didn’t say something right away, my behavior may have been misinterpreted.