If you want to feel inspired about Australia’s future, there is one guaranteed way to get that feeling, at least for a few hours. Listen to the speeches given by school-aged kids in the annual Rostrum Voice of Youth Competition. Around 1,000 students participate each year in the competition which has four stages – school selection, regional heats, a state-wide final, and a national final.
Rostrum is a non-profit organisation with clubs in each state, including eleven in NSW, with four in the Sydney CBD. It originated in the United Kingdom and came to Australia in 1930. Its original goal was to improve the oratorical skills of engineers, smart people with typically less than impressive communication skills.
This history contrasts with a competitor organisation from the US, Toastmasters International, which came out of the sales and marketing industries. There is also a contrast in styles. Rostrum speakers tend to stay stationary, preferring a lectern on which to rest speaking notes, whereas Toastmasters tend to pace like evangelical preachers. Rostrum speakers are encouraged to use only their hands, eyes, voice, and words to communicate, whereas Toastmasters tend to rely on props to make points.
I once witnessed a Toastmaster speak passionately about how he turned his life around by running marathons which he illustrated by dramatically upending the contents of a cardboard box. What clanked onto the floor was a mass of ribbons, medals, and mini trophies. As the audience gasped, he discarded the box as if disgusted with it. If you did that kind of grandstanding in a Rostrum speech, the adjudicator would mark you down because the speeches are evaluated on content and delivery.
In Australia, Rostrum clubs are often used by young professionals to improve their public speaking, overcome fear and hone their presentation style. Many young lawyers have joined, in part because criminal barrister Chester Porter recommended Rostrum in his book The Gentle Art of Persuasion. It has often also attracted those interested in politics. Former PM (and Speccie contributor) Tony Abbott is an alumnus.
Like many non-profit organisations, Rostrum has suffered from lower participation rates in recent years but continues to deliver a fantastic public service developing the skills of school-aged kids. The annual competition supplements other programs, such as debating.
Preparing a speech and delivering it to an audience can be a transforming event for a student, particularly if it goes well, entertaining the audience and prompting positive feedback. For some kids, the moment they sit down having performed their speech, they get a great sense of being unshackled from a terrible fear-based burden. They now know they can speak in public and entertain an audience with their ideas.
The NSW Voice of Youth competition final was held in North Sydney last month. The speeches were impressive as always, but two features stood out. Usually, the topics fall into a narrow band. For many years, every second speaker spoke on the perils of climate change. Body image and social media were other hot topics. These are major issues that affect their lives, so it’s relatively easy to generate a speech.
But this year, the topics were more varied and original. One speaker delved into the research on how birth order, ‘middle child syndrome’, affected the development and the implications for parenting.
Another took on the cost-of-living crisis and how some corporations were contributing to inflation, not through a higher price for goods, but by reducing the volume of content. They used a near-empty bag of chips to illustrate the scam. A third scrutinised the benefits and dangers of Chat GPT. A fourth described an elaborate Internet scam that pulled on the heartstrings by declaring a cute puppy had cancer and the owner couldn’t afford surgery. A fifth offered a fascinating perspective on stem cell research, cloning, and the purpose of life. One speaker even used their mother’s passion for crime shows to comment on human nature.
It was all very impressive, particularly, the articulate delivery of every contestant. There was just one disappointment for me at least. In the final of the Senior competition, there was a distinct lack of diversity. Of the six finalists, not one was male.
The competition wasn’t my only exposure to school-aged kids that weekend. I watched around four club rugby games. Three boys were sent off, the swearing was unbelievable. I heard one kid commit to taking someone out in a very aggressive tone.
The weekend seemed to reinforce the statistics we are seeing about boys falling behind girls in reading, writing, and university entry. Medicine and law are increasingly dominated by women. The unemployment rate for women is much lower, yet it is men who are still lampooned in the media for benefiting from the ‘patriarchy’. I read that in the US, every year since the mid-1980s, women have earned more bachelor’s degrees than men.
It is time for education departments to put aside their ideological blinkers and acknowledge that the focus on advancing women, such as efforts to get them into STEM subjects, is a long way from the real gender problem we are seeing unfold.
Nick Hossack is a public policy consultant, former policy director at the Australian Bankers’ Association and a former adviser to Prime Minister John Howard.
