By Alexis LeMieux

Bellbrook offers two unique classes to prepare students for post-secondary life: Leadership Development and Public Speaking.

“The purpose of the Leadership Development class is to identify the traits, habits, routines, rituals, practices, and commonalities of highly effective leaders and influential people,” teacher Jeff Jenkins said. “We take this knowledge and apply it to our own lives.”

Leadership Development gives students a different perspective on what important people and other leaders value, and the way they act while doing it. “We specifically focus on traits and habits of known leaders and then we try to take those traits and make them our own,” junior Reese McBride said.

Public Speaking, however, takes a more performance-focused route. “We are having dialogue in a conversation, and I think that this is very important,” teacher Aimee Klepacz said. 

“In Public Speaking, we learn the essential skills necessary to navigate society around us; in other words, we learn how to speak in public,” senior Lincoln Bailey said. “Being well versed in public speaking opens up so many opportunities and avenues in life that you very well may not have if you do not have these skills.”

To prepare students for life’s expectations, both Jenkins and Klepacz do projects in class to support their course goals.

‘“One of the main projects we do is the students pick out a leadership book, and at the end of the quarter they do an eight minute presentation on the book,” Jenkins said. “We are getting a lot of knowledge from a lot of different sources, but we are finding commonalities in those books they present.”

In Public Speaking, students do multiple types of projects to work on their skills. “In the very beginning, students do a Bio Box presentation, where they bring different objects that represent who they are, and students have to vividly describe those: how that object came to be, and what its significance in their life is,” Klepacz said. “We also do conversations, group discussions and feedback sessions. They will sometimes do skits, improvs, or on spot scenarios or questions, and they are practicing improv skills too.”

“We do about six speeches throughout the class, plus a few improv skits. This covers everything from giving informational speeches to debate,” Bailey said. “These help us develop our main goal of public speaking, but also help us develop other skills, like gathering and compiling useful information for a speech and learning how to have a respectful debate.”

Both classes help students practice their communication and presenting skills.

“Public speaking will prepare you for everything in your life in which you’ll need to speak in front of people,” Bailey said. “Taking this class allowed me to learn my strengths and weaknesses within public speaking, and I have been able to spend a semester basically learning how to correct them.”

“I think I’ve benefited from [Leadership] because speaking in front of people has become easier, and I think I can also present information in a more clear and concise way,” McBride said.

Public Speaking and Leadership are semester-long elective courses students can take at any grade level. “My hope is that every student in Bellbrook High school takes this class,” Jenkins said. “I think that the amount they learn and the topics that we cover could be useful for the rest of their high school career and beyond.”

“I would HIGHLY recommend anyone of any grade level take Public Speaking,” Bailey said. “It is only a one semester class and is a very fun and informative class, helping you prepare for your future in the real world.”