Walter E. Scheid
Hermitage
Bravo to The Herald for your April 5 editorial “Student public speakers talk their way to success.” As a person who spent a 40-year career teaching public speaking and related communication courses as well as coaching debate and forensics, I could not agree more heartily.
Your editorial struck to the heart of the matter stating, “Every high school student should take a speech course before graduating.” I would add that every college student should do the same.
Skill in speaking is not something that comes naturally to everyone, but it is something that can be taught. A person with this ability can write a ticket for success in life. President Obama is but one of thousands of examples I could name.
I am proud to have spent my career at Grove City High School (five years) and Westminster College (35 years), schools which made public speaking a required course. I am also proud to see the accomplishments of my former students, Hugh Ringer among them, in the arena of communication. He has done so much for the speech discipline and the Mercer school district.
Mr. Ringer is proof of the fact that a person who knows what he or she is doing can accomplish outstanding results. Other schools would do well to follow his example, hire qualified teachers in this field, and stop treating public speaking as an elective or peripheral part of education.
