Why Scripted Learning Sucks!

Scripted learning SUCKS. It totally inhibits teachers from displaying the creativity they need to best reach their students. Let me give an example. I was part of a panel on Race and Activism in the 1960's at the University of Maryland. I spent six hours working on what I thought it was a great speech. I was really proud of it. However, I was the third speaker on the panel and the two young presenters who preceded me gave talks that were so startling and original that it made sparks go off in my head-- and in the audience too. Was I going to break the momentum by reading my speech, as much as I loved it? I just couldn't do that so I decided to throw away the text and speak from the heart, incorporating insights from the first two presentations that highlighted some main points from my speech but turned it into something very different than what I had intended. The result: the crowd instantly saw the connections with the other two presentations- leading to a great question and answer period. If I just read my speech as if the other two talks had not taken place, it would have bored the audience to death! ‪#‎Evaluatethat‬.