Keith Ballard was the speaker at the Metro Tulsa Chamber of Commerce's annual State of Education luncheon Tuesday.
Ballard is a good speaker. He remembers to be humble, informed and willing to share credit while taking responsibility.
He also has one of the best qualities any speaker can possess – he's a good storyteller.
When I talk to Tulsa's teacher of the year candidates, I always tell them that when they're being interviewed by the state Teacher of the Year Selection Committee, the most important thing they can do is tell a good story. They can spout educanto and lots of statistics if they want to sound educated, but if you want to get to your audience's heart, tell a tale about little Johnny and how your managed to reach him and leave him a better person.
Ballard peppered his speech with several good tales, a favorite being the one he told about a talk he had with his 3-year-old granddaughter Kiser this morning.
She was crying, and he asked her what the problem was.
She said she was tired because her mother got her us early that morning.
Ballard said he told her he was tired too because he had had a long school board meeting Monday morning and then got called to make appearances on several morning talk radio shows.
He and Kiser listened to some of his interview on one of the radio stations.
Kiser told him that if he was still tired, he should stay home with her and they could nap and pretend to be on the beach.
"Ladies and gentlement, that was tempting," he said.
Ballard could have told us at length about the high stress nature of Tulsa Public Schools these days – facing a budget crisis for this and next year, the potential for a teacher layoff, dealing with the promises made during the recent bond issue campaign and sorting through all the daily challenges of an urban school district – and he got to all of that in his speech.
But in one two-minute anecdote he managed to get at the heart of the matter simply and effectively.
He ended his speech with another great story, which was told by the students of Booker T. Washington High School.
It was in the form of a two-minute video that supposedly President Barack Obama is going to judge from the top high schools in the nation. I've heard first price is having President Obama speak at the winning school's graduation ceremony. Wouldn't that be something.
I defy you to watch this video and not have a marvelous feeling about the kids at Washington and the future of TPS.
