The Most Important Minute of My Day

As a motivational performer, each day I am faced with the monumental challenge of having a life changing impact on a group of several hundred elementary, middle or high school students… in 50 minutes. Realistically, experience tells me that when I am performing one of my school assembly programs, I have exactly one minute to capture and engage their attention or else the next 49 minutes will be an eternity of wandering eyeballs, private conversations and lack of attention. Because I never get a second chance to make a first impression, it is clearly the most important minute of my day.

Finding the Perfect Blend of Entertainment and Education

The best way to get these challenging groups on your side is to engage them by making the school assembly programs educational and at the same time fun and entertaining, but this is easier said than done. Putting together a fun and entertaining age appropriate school assembly program is relatively easy. The greater challenge is to cleverly combine the fun and entertainment with important, life changing, positive messages in such a way that the students are engaged and at the same time, the administration is satisfied that the students are receiving a benefit beyond pure entertainment.

The Importance of Knowing my Audience

Over the past ten years, I have created and delivered thousands of age appropriate, meaningful, topical school assembly programs for students of every grade level from K-12. Truthfully, I shudder at the thought of presenting a program without having the assistance of some form of entertainment to include in my presentation.  However, I must choose my material very carefully because  what may be considered fun for one age group may be considered “babyish” or too advanced for another group.

Appropriate Programs for Every Age Group

It is for this reason that many motivational performers remain pigeonholed into one specific age group. For example, when I first started out, my programs were suitable for K-3 audiences. However, when I tried performing the same program for a group of 4th 5th and 6th graders, wandering eyeballs and private conversations made it obvious to me that changes were needed.  Over the years I have had similar issues with middle school and high school students but now I can proudly say that I have age appropriate school assembly programs for every group of students from K-12. The above “Magical Songwriter” school assembly program performance is suitable for a K-5 audience.

Everybody Needs to Hear Positive Messages

Watch for future blogs where I will highlight some of the performances for middle school and high school students. Not surprisingly, I also have motivational programs for adult audiences because everybody needs to hear positive messages.

Thanks for reading and watching and please comment and pass it on to others. For more information visit my web site at www.magicalsongwriter.com

Thanks, Jeff Blum