The Great American Teach-a-Thon, which brings business professionals into real classrooms where they teach real lessons to real students, came to Miami High in the fall.

On October 23, Christina Boomer Vasquez, who is a Channel 10 news reporter, visited Dr. Underwood’s Advanced Television Production class. “She brought professionalism into the classroom and information about her role as a news reporter and got to talk to the class about interviewing techniques,” he said.

She taught the class about “rich sound” which is using ambient sound to tell a story. “The class is trying to incorporate this technique into videos and into an interviewing assignment with each other,” he said.

On November 6, lawyer Jennifer Stearns-Buttrick, from the prominent Miami law farm of Stearns, Weaver, Miller, gave a presentation to Dr. DeNight’s AP Capstone Seminar class about what makes a good public speaker. She decided to participate because of the love she has for teaching and any opportunity she gets to be around students.

“After college I was highly considering teaching,” she said. Yet, she decided to go to law school instead due to her whole life being around lawyers. Her father is a lawyer, and she highly believed that having an education in law was going to be very valuable even if she wasn’t intentionally going to become a lawyer. She has been practicing law for 25 years and believes it was meant for her.

Being able to help others is what excites Ms. Stearns-Buttrick most about her job. “When you realize your legal degree can be utilized to help people navigate through the legal system, it’s incredibly rewarding,” she said. After giving her presentation, she met individually with 6 top students from the Seminar class and gave them feedback on short speeches they made about their research projects.

She hopes students learn public speaking is crucial. “Being a good communicator and making your point to your audience are key in regards to whatever field students will be entering,” she said. One piece of advice she offered for succeeding in public speaking is to keep at it. “Practicing is what will master the skill,” she said.