Writing Sample: Speech
Written for the Director of Education and was delivered to parents, teachers and students at an awards dinner in June, 2021.
The Director of Education at the time required speeches that were personal, yet professional. As he was not comfortable with speech delivery, the red annotations are to support the speaker as he delivers his speech.
Excellence in Education Speech
(Smile) Hello everyone:
It’s been a pleasure to be with you to celebrate your secondary school achievements at the DSBN.
(Upbeat tone) Now, I want you to know that carrying a heavy academic load during secondary school is impressive enough. But you’ve all done so much more.
You balanced your studies with other important activities such as volunteering to help people in the community, doing online mentoring and tutoring, and many of you worked at jobs as well. All of this during a global pandemic!
With the vaccine, hopefully the start of your next chapter in your lives will be much more normal than the one you’re finishing this year.
The race to create the COVID vaccine is a great metaphor for the challenges and thinking that will support your continued success. (Smile)
(Pause)
(Take your time here) Most people think that it was Pfizer, or Moderna who cracked the code to pave the way for the development of the vaccine.
But we owe our gratitude to Turkish scientist Katalin Karikó (Kurr – ah – Koh) whose life research was focused on synthesizing mRNA or “Messenger RNA”.
mRNA in the COVID vaccine protects the body by showing it how to create a special protein.
This protein triggers an immune response that helps us fight the COVID-19 virus. Pretty amazing right?
Without Katalin Kariko (Kurr – ah – Koh), we would not have a COVID vaccine. With such important work, you’d think she’d be known all over the world.
But, that’s not the case at all.
In fact, she lost her job because her university wasn’t happy with her results. They didn’t feel they were seeing enough progress with her work. They demoted her and eventually let her go. (pause)
(Upbeat) But Kariko knew she was on to something. She believed she would find the key in mRNA to unlock the body’s potential to fight disease.
So, rather than giving up, she worked every evening late into the night to find funding to support her research.
She once said: “Every night I was working: it was grant, grant, grant. And it came back always no, no, no.”
At the time, her research was considered too radical. Too risky.
But she continued working. She refined her experiments, collected more data, and kept pushing.
What kept Kariko going? Scientists like Kariko don’t consider a lack or results to be an error or a mistake. Instead, they look at what they learned and how that informs their next steps.
Was Kariko making large discoveries and huge gains? No - she was making small steps to help her to get closer and closer to her goal of unlocking the secrets of mRNA.
The message is never give up. Ever.
As you already know, success doesn’t come from the grand gestures and the huge leaps that you take in life. It comes from consistency – making small gains one tiny step at a time.
It comes from believing you can accomplish what you’ve set out to do and it comes from being able to motivate yourself to keep going when it seems like you are the only one on that path.
You will all have your own mRNA that will challenge you, and your commitment, motivation, and consistency – your resilience and perseverance – will be key to your success.
I congratulate you for all you’ve accomplished so far, and the successes you are sure to achieve in the future.
I hope everyone enjoyed tonight’s event, and I wish you all the very best.
Good night.
(Smile, wait for applause)
Writing Sample: Response to Civil Unrest in the United States 2020
Following the death of George Floyd in the United States, written to demonstrate the support of the organization for diversity, inclusion, and safe spaces in our schools amidst the backdrop of this tragic event.
A Statement from Director of Education, Warren Hoshizaki
We proudly launched our DSBN Wellbeing flag in November 2019 as the embodiment of student voice, inclusivity, bias-free environments, upstandership, kindness, acceptance, diversity, respect, leadership, and positive engagement. When viewing the flag, DSBN students, staff, and community members told us that the artistic representation of the multiple symbols enabled them to see themselves within it, and gave them the feeling that DSBN students, staff, and community members are accepted, safe, and have a voice that will be heard.
In stark contrast to this is the deep sadness and compassion we feel when witnessing the brutality, oppression, and violence that is occurring in the United States.
Although this is happening in another country, it is important that we look within our own communities with the painful understanding that racism, bias, and discrimination exist here and are experienced by individuals and groups daily. This is a time when our compassion alone is not enough; it is time to act.
As an educational organization, it is essential that we go beyond teaching the curriculum to fostering a culture and community where students are safe, have a voice, and can learn and grow up to be leaders who eliminate biases and challenge societal stereotypes for everyone in our community. We do this work in part, through our strategic plan, our policies, the work of our equity and diversity team, our staff and our students.
An important part of this work is to actively listen and create opportunities to speak with racialized individuals and communities in Niagara. Our work is not effective if it is not informed by the experiences, beliefs, and needs of racialized people and groups in Niagara. Through our DSBN Equity and Inclusivity Lead K-12, we will create more opportunities to listen with the intent of learning and incorporating these important voices into our organization.
Our work is just beginning, and it is imperative that we continue to look within our organization to learn about how to create and model the bias-free and inclusive culture we want our students to experience. We do not, and will not tolerate racism, discrimination, or violence in our schools or in our communities. We will continue to provide a high-quality education to our students, while working with them and our staff, to support equity, inclusivity, and eradicate racism.