C'est le ton qui fait la musique

I, and half of the students at Bishop Lynch, heard the most awful speech on Friday given by an equally awful speaker.

She outdid the Pure Fashion former lingerie model, the anti-alcopops police officer, even the freshman retreat speaker (stickers are only good one time, guys!)
And, unfortunately, she was speaking on a subject which I consider to be extremely important -- the sanctity of marriage and how to form appropriate relationships in high school.

But five minutes into her powerpoint, I was completely turned off, along with most of the other audience members. That's coming from me, a chronic rebel against popular high school opinion.

Now, I know that the Catholic Pro-Life committee is very dedicated to all of its projects. I have had many wonderful experiences at its events, including a week long pro-life boot camp, the Hike for Life, Strike for Life, etc. My parents are involved as well, so I know that there are PLENTY of amazing speakers who are able to relate (and respect) teenagers. That's why I felt offended by this speaker, who talked to us like children. The 100 or so students in the session I was in started becoming rowdy and audibly insulting the speaker. I don't blame them. How can you respect someone who refuses to respect you?

I will take a moment to apologize to that speaker if she had to assemble the powerpoint at the last minute, or if it was her first time speaking, but otherwise, there is no excuse. But please, don't judge the entire pro-life movement because of this one speaker. Doing so would only group you in the same category as this lady, an unremitting generalist.

Although I'm sure my speaker had good intentions, to open teenage eyes infiltrated by a biased and inaccurate media to the reality of forming good relationships, she approached it in a way which demeaned women to shallow suckers, men to "hunter-gatherers", and society to -- quite frankly-- a machine intent on corrupting minds and instigating sexual relationships.

For example, she used a ladder to show how men should raise women onto a pedestal. A male volunteer from the audience approached a girl and gave her chocolate and roses. These material gifts raised her ego and caused her to climb the ladder of happiness. Shallow enough for you? Then, the boy commented on the appearance of two other girls walking by (you have nice...heads -- the whole thing was strictly G-rated) and the girl walked down the ladder. I was insulted, to say the least. First of all, material goods DO NOT create happiness and that girl should have dumped that loser as soon as he insulted the value of their relationship. Bespeaks to me as a cheesy Disney movie, cute onscreen, but completely unviable in real life. Communication is important in relationships, and that is the point which the speaker completely failed to...hey!...communicate.

Then, speaker-lady, checking her notes AND reading straight off of the powerpoint, quoted some Biblical passages from Genesis relating to the role of women in the world -- helpers to men. Now at this point (the audience was starting to become rather rambunctious) the speaker refuted her powerpoint and said that she preferred the word 'companion'. Better. But why use a different word on the powerpoint than you mean? PROOFREAD.

Which brings me to my next point: we're not stupid enough to glance over grammatical mistakes, repeated word usage, and spelling mistakes. A person is not "in friendship" with another, they are simply "friends". And, please, lady, don't refer to certain areas of the body as "no-no squares" with any of your future audiences. That was a JOKE.

Finally, don't use your fifth-grade son's friendship as an example for teenagers to follow. We don't play Legos very often. And don't threaten to call the mothers of teenage boys who gave inappropriate examples of pick-up lines. You asked for it.

Unfortunately, I heard from students who had heard the speaker (a different one) from the day before and she supposedly was even worse (however, I did not personally hear her speak, and so I will not pass any judgment). Two crummy speakers in two days? Time to screen speeches, Bishop Lynch.

Please don't come back, speaker-lady. The only thing you accomplished was further distancing teenagers from your values. That is the sad part.

C'est le ton qui fait la musique.