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Feature Friday - Art of Eloquence

Take Up Your Words and Follow Him!

By JoJo Tabares

 

 

I look back now and I have to laugh.  How did a painfully shy public schooled child from an Atheistic family grow up to teach Christian homeschoolers effective communication skills? 

 

I thought shy people were born that way destined to remain shy the rest of their lives. To some extent that might be true, but more often than not, I find that shy people are just exuberant children who grew up without the confidence in their communication skills to express the ideas the Lord gave them.  You see, I believe that the Lord gives everyone something to say…something someone else really needs to hear.  However, sometimes it is caught between our will to speak and our fears.

 

In college, I found the Speech Communication Department and that’s when my life started to turn around.  As I studied communication skills, I found that shyness wasn’t my personality, it was what my personality hid behind because it was afraid.  The more confidence I gained, the more I found of life and it left me with a compassion for shy children.  It was a long and lonely journey for me and I knew now that it didn’t have to be. 

 

People ask me how I went from growing up in an Atheist’s home to becoming a Christian and it really is a long and involved story.  I was never an Atheist.  As a kid, I asked everyone about their faith.  Ever searching, I found what just made sense to me after years of research.  Here’s the Reader’s Digest version:  I am the daughter of two Atheists of Jewish heritage who married a non-practicing Catholic and became a non-denominational Christian due, in large part, to some Amway meetings and a Jehovah’s Witness who came to study with me!  Any more explanation than that would require about a week and a half! 

 

After homeschooling about two years, another homeschool mom asked me to teach a communication class that her daughter would feel comfortable enough to attend.  I wanted this class to be fun.  Even if it only got her toe in the water, she would be more likely to wade further in later on.  So I ventured out into “Curriculum World” in search of a book.  There were precious few studies out that were Christian-based, creatively fun that taught more than just speech making.  I had a degree in Speech Communication and I had been writing since I was about 9 years old so I decided to write my own study. 

 

Getting over shyness is a little like learning to swim.  The common remedy is to throw the child into the lake and make them swim to shore. Once safely across, they understand how silly it was to be afraid and look forward to swimming again.  Unfortunately, that method only works about half the time.  The other half scramble desperately to the other side and vow NEVER to go near the water again!  (This explains the emails I get from parents who express that they got through a speech class in college but vowed never to speak in public again.)  The idea of learning effective communication skills isn’t to get through a class, but to take each baby step into “Lake Communication” and gain more experience.  Experience builds confidence and expertise, not classes. 

 

Being actually a goofball by nature, I felt that using humor and hands on activities to teach these intimidating skills would be a great way to break down the barriers that shy children felt and engage the wiggly ones who had a hard time focusing on things they deemed “boring”.  Humor breaks down barriers, deflates anger, engages the listener and even helps with retention.  It’s just plain fun too! 

 

Before Say What You Mean for Teens was back from the printer, my class was full and I had parents waiting at my doorstep to purchase a copy for home use!  For the first time, I actually prayed over a business issue.  I had prayed for many things in my walk with Christ Jesus, but never something like this.  I felt very strongly that the Lord was leading me down this path and so, with wide eyes, Art of Eloquence was born. 

 

Each year brought new opportunities-some of which were so foreign to me that I had to pray for guidance.  I began to feel as if I was merely an employee in a board meeting with the owner and right there I decided that this was how Art of Eloquence would be run.  The Lord Almighty is the real owner of Art of Eloquence.  I am merely an employee with the authority to sign the paperwork! 

 

And so we began with one study called Say What You Mean for Teens, but God had even more planned for Art of Eloquence and we were in for a wild ride!  With each passing year, the Lord began to speak to me with ideas.  There were so many ideas that I was given to waking up in the middle of the night searching for a paper on which to write them all down! 

 

We received ideas from our customers and business associates as well.  One mother wanted a preschool book so Say What You Mean for Preschoolers was soon written.  Another mom wanted a more advanced course so inside of a few years we added Say What You Mean: An Advanced Speech Course.  A small business owner asked me to write an eBook just for small business owners and Say What You Mean When You’re in Business rolled off the ePresses.  We currently have five hard copy titles for children ranging from PreK-Senior High, a few eBooks, a board game and other various communication inspired gift items.   

 

Along the way the Lord inspired us to start other communication projects:

 

Homeschooling with Humor began last September on Yahoo groups as a place for Christian parents homeschooling shy, gifted or learning disabled children to fellowship, learn and share creative teaching methods. 

 

Our First Annual Say What You Mean Online Communication Convention was held in February and received some wonderful feedback.  Adults and children alike had a blast with our audio seminars, live chat workshops , games and contests. 

 

Finally, several months ago I was lead into the blogging world with Homeschool Blogger.com.  Communication FUNdamentals brings every day communication issues and fun to the homeschool community.  We recently created a recurring character called Foot in Mouth Man.  FIMM has developed quite a following as a bumbling sweetheart just trying to get along in life without any communication skills to speak of.  Each Wednesday he puts his foot directly in his mouth in a new episode of the Misadventures of Foot in Mouth Man.  I hear from FIMM fans who “tune in” each week to see what trouble he gets into.  Some homeschoolers are reading FIMM to their children each week as a communication lesson! 

 

In November, we will celebrate our fourth year in business with two new studies:  Say What You Mean: Defending the Faith and Say What You Mean: Debating the Issues. 

 

It has been an incredible four years and I am thankful for the opportunities the Lord has provided for me to serve Him.  There are so many reasons to learn effective communication skills.  Studies show that effective communicators are happier, have better relationships, do better in school, are more successful and make more money.  However, I have a much more important reason.  With the secular world telling Christians to sit down and be quiet, I am passionate about helping the Christian community to stand up and speak out in grace and truth. 

 

My prayer for each one of you is that you pick up your words and follow Him!

 

JoJo Tabares

www.ArtofEloquence.com

www.SayWhatYouMeanConvention.com

www.homeschoolblogger.com/CommunicationFUNdamentals

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HSwithHumor/

 

 

JoJo Tabares is passionate about enabling the Christian community to feel comfortable enough to stand up for their beliefs.  She holds a degree in Speech Communication and has over 20 years of experience in the field.  JoJo is the author of various published articles, eBooks and the Say What You Mean series of homeschool communication curricula.  She and her husband, Rich, live in Southern California and have been homeschooling their two children for the last six years. 

 

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