THORNTON, Colo.—Public speaking is tough enough when the audience is just your eighth-grade class. Try doing it as cameras flash, reporters scribble in their notebooks and one of the nation’s best orators, Barack Obama, judges you.
The Democratic presidential candidate played critic Wednesday at a Denver-area school as two students made brief classroom presentations on what they’d learned over the last year at the Mapleton Expeditionary School of the Arts.
Obama praised their brief performances but made sure to offer a little constructive criticism.
Theodore Rodriguez, 13, got high marks for his warm personality but was advised to look at his audience more and make sure to finish his thought before moving on to the next point.
“You got a little nervous. It’s understandable. It’s not every day you have to speak in front of the national press,” Obama said.
Anthony Ho, 13, did a great job of using humor to win over his audience by admitting he’s a procrastinator, Obama said. He also grabbed people’s attention by displaying a small poster he’d made.
But Obama told him the presentation would have been better if it had a strong finish instead of ending abruptly.
“This is really hard to do, by the way,” Obama added. “Not only could I not have done it in eighth grade, I probably couldn’t have done it just before I ran for president.”
