Dana- blog

My paper and topic seems to finally have come together, and I am more excited that ever to be presenting what I have learned. At the workshop we talked about how to give effective presentations, answer difficult questions, and participate in television interviews.

The part on effective presentations was particularly helpful for me, especially since we will only have seven minutes to present (eek!). I know that when I get nervous, I tend to speed up while speaking, which can really hurt my presentation. Al Rosen had some great tips on how to make sure we don't talk too fast. I also learned that while the powerpoint presentations we may have can be useful for us to remember where we are in our talk, we really shouldn't be relying on them - they should be pretty sparse on information and should include more visual elements, such as pictures.

Several days ago I had a fascinating conversation with a woman who works for the NC government, and her title is Abstinence Education Counselor. Both Leigh and I thought that she would be very firm on abstinence education as the best method for schools (since that is what NC laws says), but she wasn't at all. I learned that there is discordance in the departments that have to enforce the law and guide schools on how to meet NC standards; even though this woman didn't believe in the way that schools were told to be preaching abstinence, she has to uphold the law. She also lamented that no where in the curriculum does the word "consent" appear, which, in her mind, is critical for students to understand, especially as a means of educating students about what constitutes sexual assault.

Though I know I have several parts of my paper that I need to work on more, I am happy with the progress that I have made thus far, and I am excited to be able to share what I have learned!