I wonder if doing speeches in school makes people fear public speaking?

(I just noticed that the noun is speech but the verb is speak. No wonder it took me forever to learn how to spell!)

When I was a kid, we had to do speeches in school. It was like three or five minutes of talking in front of the class on a prepared topic. And this was so scary! You had to think of something, and research it, and make a speech out of it, and hold your peers' attention, and talk in front of EVERYONE! And your appearance and topic and eloquence and interestingness and who knows what else are all up for the very worst of elementary school scrutiny!

I'm wondering if this made us more afraid of public speaking than if we hadn't had to do it until we were older. No adult audience is as judgemental as a classroom full of 12-year-olds. Plus, (as I've blogged about before but can't find now) when you're in school your presentations are all about stuff you don't have any particular knowledge of - you have to do the research and become an "expert" specifically for the presentation - whereas in real life we're only ever asked to speak publically about stuff we are already experts in. I'm a very shy person, but I find that speaking in front of other adults about something that I know enough about that other people might ask me to speak about it isn't even in the same order of magnitude as doing a speech in front of my Grade 3 class. And actually, now that I think about it, doing Show and Tell in front of my Grade 3 class (about something I'm knowledgeable about and interested in, and on a completely voluntary basis) was something I could do without a moment's though, but doing The Speech for the same amount of time was the Worst Thing Ever!

I wonder if by making speeches such a big deal, they inadvertently taught us that public speaking is Big And Scary?