Double Dipping

The class was small, but I am not really friends with any of the people in there. In most cases, this would be fine, but I had recently had a rough homeroom where a bully got the class to call me Booger, as a result of a cold and shortage of Kleenex and this was a public speaking class. I had visions of them whispering about me while I stood before them, getting laughed at for some unknown reason. Exposed.

The only thing that made it better was I could pick any topic. I could talk about literally anything. It needed to be something the class would be interested. Something they would forget to laugh at me during. Something I could get excited about. Perhaps something with a little mystery. I choose Stonehenge.

My art class was completely different than my public speaking class. I knew nearly all of these people. Many of them had been in the same classes with me over the last couple years. It was almost relaxing to come in and play with big sheets of paper and giant sets of Berol colored pencils. We knew who was good at drawing cars, or faces. Who could make colors jump off the page or make a charcoal drawing so deep you could fall into it. It was a little like home.

Because it was that time of the year, we needed to pick a subject which was going to take us a week or so to complete. I knew right away what I was going to pick. Stonehenge. Not only was it cool looking and mysterious and I was curious what it would look lie when the sun peaked between the main arch, but it also could become my prop for my public speaking class.

The more I thought about it, the more I liked it. I could do research in my art class, which would be used for my speech and I could use the drawing in my public speaking class. It was like I had gotten away with something. Two grades for one work. It couldn't be legal. I loved it.

For all the things high school tried to teach me, one of the most valuable lesson I had just stumbled into. Reuse your own work. Anything you can use more than once, do, Save research, so you can use it again. This was a tool I used in college and even today, professionally, I often can pull old work or research and recycle it. When I think about how many times I have used this compared to say, the quadratic equation, it is clear which is the more valuable lesson.

The speech went great. There was no laughter, some good conversational questions, and it began a little bit of a turning point in my feeling about public speaking. The art also got a good grade, part of which was based on my ability to explain why the rebuilt monolith and sun's position was relevant.