Life skills
by Tommy
There have been so many posts bitching about the Irish education system – this isn’t one of them.
According to a new survey conducted by Newspoll for training website reasontospeak.com, the fear of public speaking ranks number one in the minds of 23% of people. Think about that for a moment. To some (23%) people, the fear of public speaking is more frightening than death.
“People’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if they go to a funeral, they’d prefer to be in the casket than doing the eulogy.” – Comedian Jerry Seinfeld.
In my opinion, public speaking is one of the most important things you can learn. Certainly, if you were to rank the most important life skills in a list, the ability to get up and speak in public is a hugely important one that would be near the top. Because of that, I think it’s hugely important to make it a mandatory subject in school. I personally don’t know where you’d fit it in, but I think it’s of vital importance that it should get taught alongside biology, geography, english or any other subject.
Chances are, somewhere in your career, you will have to talk in front of other people, and this shouldn’t be a problem for anyone. It’s a common issue that really shouldn’t be so common. In fact, I don’t even think it can afford to be a common issue.