Break Through Speech
Since no-one wants to say it out-loud, WE will:
The very nature of competition is harsh.
Most competitors, especially in speech, end up working hard to compete at the National NSDA Tournament, hoping to reach the final stage, where our messages can be heard by multitudes and memorialized in the community. However, it rests on the shoulders of judging panels to decide whose message is worth memorializing.
Even though the nature of the NSDA National Tournament is exciting and encourages students to work hard to reach the top, it is important to not only honor the artistry of talents across the nation, while simultaneously allowing new and returning competitors to access round videos to learn more about their respective events.
While it may seem that looking for resources like these is just grasping at thin air, we often don't hear about resources that would benefit our community, such as Break Through Speech, created by speech and debate alumni Amber Justmann. Not only does her platform enable users to venture into a plethora of round videos with its digital catalog, but it also has essential features such as a coaching catalog to receive and offer guidance, a podcast discussing the world of Speech and Debate, and so much more.
We have so many resources in speech in debate, created by those who have navigated the program and want to alleviate the accessibility gap, yet the problem is dissemination and engagement. Justmann not only has created a platform based on access, but shares it with everyone, and it’s about time we do the same.
So without further ado, check out Justmann’s platform at BreakThroughSpeech.com and follow Amber on Instagram for updates about her initiative. And even better, scroll down here to listen to my conversation with Amber Justmann about BreakThroughSpeech, the gatekeeping of resources in Speech and Debate, Empty Ballots (???), and everything in between.
Check out our interview with Amber Justmann, the founder of BreakThroughSpeech!
Transcript Available Below
“I want to inspire other people to contribute, to do something. The idea is I’m letting everyone know ‘Here’s what I have’.”
Transcript:
Joshua: So hello you all, welcome back to A seat at the Table. I’m Joshua Eneji, and I’m here with-
Amber: Amber Justmann. Hi everyone!
Joshua: Thank you so much Ms. Justmann for doing this, and wow it’s been so long since I’ve seen you like, I remember like NIETOC I think I saw you, and NSDA I saw you like walking around and I don’t know if I saw you again but-
Amber: Oh sure, I don’t remember if we talked then but at NIETOC I 100% I believe ran up to you dragging Ana, Tay k, and Lou behind me, cause we had just watched you in that oratory round. And the three of us are sitting there shooting little glances in the middle of it like “Is this really happening?” “Is this all going down?” and you graciously sent it to me the other day and 100% was exactly as much as I remember.
Joshua: And you really just gave me the confidence boost I needed, like wow
Amber: Good!
Joshua: Like I hope I come through this year-- I hope you watch me again
Amber: Y-yeah please. It’s my favorite part of this whole thing, it's like getting to go sit in the audience for something great, and then I get to walk up to you afterwards and be like “I love that.” like what a great world we live in, like that’s easy. Please
Joshua: Oh my goodness like, I can’t even explain like when you came up to me afterwards, I didn’t even know who all of you were, but like after that I was like oh my gosh like, wow like I’m so ready, like, I got this.
Amber: That’s the craziest part of these tournaments, is like most of the adults you see walking around, you don’t know who they are. I didn’t know that I was talking to Josh Gad’s coach for like 10 minutes while I was in a conversation with him this summer. Like Josh Gad of popular fame olaf, his coach that did speech and debate with him, and led to the national championship was just sitting there, hanging out, like whatever. Chatting it up.
Joshua: And that’s honestly some of the best part, just have real conversations you know type beat. Alright so, after that introduction, like I just want to ask like how did you get into speech? Did you do a speech in middle school, high school?. Just let us know.
Amber: So, I’m from Arizona, I went to Desert Vista High School, and I started competing back in 2006, and whatever that school year was. And um, I was going into the theater class and I just had someone in my drama class turn around and look at me and be like “If you don’t show up to the speech meeting after school, I’m gonna punch you.” I was “okay” “sure” “great” “scandal, “let’s go.” Um, and then I got really luck for the time that I went so Desert Vista High School it was like such a huge deal of a program in like the American Southwest, and so I walked into the first meeting and the head coach, Eric Dominguez was like giving one of his- it’s like watching a football coach give a speech like an inspirational speech, ah-ohhh it got me, it got me to my core. So it was so easy, I was sold from day one. And um I had like a really restricted real tight life when I was kid. It was just like doing your homework, and coming home, and then you leave again in the morning to go to school. Um and so, this was kinda like the only extracurricular that my parents and I both agreed that I could do. It was like “Speech and Debate,” very legitimate meanwhile I was doing HI. And so I was just like running around like a little 14 year old like screaming in hallways, and my parents were like, “This will look very good for your future.” So I got lucky where I just had a great community that had like 12 speech coaches between alumni and the ones on staff, so it was just like really creative, really fascinating environment, so I competed there for four years, and then when I graduated, I went to a school without speech so it was just those four years of competition in high school.
Joshua: You kind of wish you did college- I mean speech in college?
Amber: I mean I do, I do, because I-, it’s like. Okay. So I was just trying to think about earlier like how to talk about this cause I get sweet students every year that are like “Amber, why don’t you have a big girl job yet?” ‘Like why haven’t you moved on from speech?” And what’s annoying is like I do have a big girl job, and adult artists are just the worst. So like speech in high school or really I guess, speech in any competitive form is like the only time that you'll have like such a free exciting place to share whatever ideas you want for an audience that has to listen and that wants to listen and gives you feedback on it so I do wish that as I've been growing up into myself more that I would have had a platform to be able to do that so I missed that but otherwise like I went and got a theater degree I said even London for 6 months like I became a dramaturg which means nothing anywhere but like I used all that time for a lot of other like performance art Avenues so it was fine that I didn't I do wish that I just would’ve tried.
Joshua:I mean even that even even though you didn't like steal your platform we need to talk about like break through speech like when I saw it on your Instagram story that's the first time I saw like wait like I saw the the behind the scenes like okay and then when the site dropped I was like wow like you kinda ate that.
Amber: That is the nicest thing in the world because really like like I love speech the way film Bros love movies like I just it's genuinely such like a worthy art form and so exciting to me and just has so many incredible things in it so like it's kind of my hobby and so it's this, Breakthrough Speech has been such a huge huge labor that like has not even really led to anything I don't know if people really look at it I know how many people are members but like I don't know how useful it is or what's really happening but just like everyday it's kind of me searching my brain going like what else can I make publicly accessible for someone to like I don't know cuz there's this weird gatekeeping of information and knowledge in this activity which I think is the reason why we don't have a lot- let me back pedal that. Like I totally understand that this is all art right and it's all our original ideas that we're dealing in but for how little visibility there is across the country for our ideas for the fact that like I'm one of but 100 people that saw your speech last year that's like 500 whatever how many hundreds like the fact that that's not thousands the fact that that knowledge that information that story doesn't exist forever is absolutely insane to me in a time when everything else we do and say is online forever. So like for me I realize that I may be one of the few adults who's interested enough excited enough and doesn't have any like aspect to gatekeeping to me that could make this all public so I'm just trying to like ride my own energy in time that's available and just getting as much out as I can before I run out of money or time to be able to make that happen.
Joshua: Honestly, and that like wow like I wish I could like emulate you to fraction of like the passion you have for like speech and debate. Like Breakthrough Speech, like I’ve told so many people about it this about it and honestly this is why like I contact you like like providing more accessibility and there's like this underlying notion of like gatekeeping information but I don't know what that's about like all these resources should be available to everyone like
disseminated properly throughout public and rule spaces and I don't know what's going on like.
Amber: So, what’s interesting to me and I'm no teacher like I have I have never been a head coach at a school I have always been working privately online because I always was pursuing my artistic career and I was like well I'll just coach on the side so I've just been on Zoom calls for 15 years now but like from the conversations I have with coaches I understand that like it's a lot of work and effort and all that stuff to put this together but like you're telling me there are hundreds, thousands of teachers in the country that have worksheets on like how to build a DI and yet like I can only find two on the internet that are outdated or that I have to pay for like that's insane to me. That’s insane! Like why is no one- dropped, like where’s the wikileaks of just worksheets?
Joshua: You just hit the nail on the head like everybody like- it’s so much different preparing, like hearing like what a DI or an OO actually is like, but like not being able to see a performance until the first time you compete is like kinda crazy to me.
Amber: It’s insane! Like technically we shouldn’t even have access to the nationals videos, like it’s just like everybody’s been going rouge and putting those on the internet. There is no set bit of information we’re all supposed to get about this activity and also it’s like so hard to be successful, that there’s this huge delta between like waiting to get into it, and able to be a master at it. Like that’s so much space and like, sure the wealth and knowledge is out there where any person can create, they can manifest being everything,like the amount of national champions I know in this activity, That did it by like just pedal to the metal and figuring out for themselves great but should that be the requirement of every single person in this activity to need to care so much that they're going to re-Discover the wheel why do we have to do that like you should have had the tools in whatever time period from like all of our greats to be able to make your speech even more of than what it was and it was already everything like.
Joshua: and honestly I mean I really loved last season like I really had to figure it out from my team my coach, my coach is even new and so she had to figure it out from like the ground up and just my team really helped me pedal to the metal like I'm just like does it have to be that way in the first place and so I really hope that we are doing like the amount of work you put in like people can access these resources so I also want to ask like who is like the intended audience for like Breakthrough Speech?
Amber: Fantastic, yeah love that. Straight to competitors because like the adults I love them we Kiki we hang out like great amazing but like I don't need to talk about to talk to them about what's going on they they have each other they have community. For some reason the students of this activity have been left so high and dry on a sense of like where they can gather to talk where they can gather to exchange ideas and I just literally 10 minutes before we started this, just posted my interview with Caitlin Williams about catching up with competitors, um because like we gotta hear about it. I was like why is that when you were 15 Caitlin had to be the one to make me an adult realize oh kids need community. Like oh maybe in some adults that are here for more than 4 years cuz all kids leave every 4 years that's just that’s just how it goes, maybe one of us should like give and allow some space for them to use so like I think that there's a lot out there already that the adults can have access to I think it is an alarming deficit again but it's like an alarming lack we have for kids to just go straight to them without needing an adult to translate it right? Not that like children are inept like you have to have an account on the NSDA website and like submit a PO to pay for it like that's ridiculous it's the digital age you can literally make an app from your cell phone like kids need it so long way around to say it’s for yall.
Joshua: You are an angel
Amber: I'm trying to think like it really does sound like I'm like oh yes the children; gather, but like really I mean to talk about the human part of it like I want community in this activity too and like I'm really lacking and and because I work privately and on my own a lot of my students are also those kinds of people and a lot of the teams I work with like they're horrible things happen in the world like teams are coming up they're coming back down like it's a difficult time and I'm finding myself without like a more without a place to sort of bank and get to like with the community to talk about speech with and to get to enjoy all of it with and like I feel like I'm one of the only people now that's just like holding all this exciting information and like none of the adults want to hang out and talk about it so it's like I don't know maybe you'll just facilitate all the people who want to be doing the thing into having a conversation about it. So it's really selfish I promise like no no pure motives here.
Joshua: And honestly, when I started creating A Seat at The Table, like the resource directory guide, cause I was like doing the oratory, and I’m like hm, this is kinda a good idea. I’m gonna make an initiative, and then like-
Amber: Have you already bored everyone in this platform with it? Or can you talk more about that like
Joshua: Oh sorry?
Amber: Have you already bored everyone on this, talking about it or can you tell me more about?
Joshua: I can tell you more about it. So basically the website is just like a resource, cause just like, I feel like the issue is not that there aren’t enough resources in the community, it’s just that
Everybody just keeps quiet about them like you’ll just obtain one thing and you won’t give it, like I don’t know like, it just seems like we’re in so much need of like to just stop gatekeeping the information, so like with this, A Seat at The Table that’s like a reference to a line in my speech, it’s all about like comparing Speech and Debate to the game of musical chairs like everybody is still in the chair, so nobody can compete in the first place. And so with that, I just wanted to make like a directory, this resource there, this resource is available, and I feel like talking about this when I am giving my speech, gives more platform to like local competitions and people who actually need it. And so I’m just like featuring organizations on here, I talked to like Equality in Forensics, other organizations, people who are making podcasts and all this sort and I was like wait I just saw something on somebody's Instagram story that eats down, and then I Dmed you on Instagram.
Amber: And I’m glad that you’re giving me all those details now too because like the data sheets I have, I just haven’t made them available website yet cuz I'm like learning how to do web development, so I can make this happen, but we've got to talk after this cuz I'm just going to give you a whole list of stuff I have. I scour the internet every day just going like okay where's some other tiny business that just popped up that's like a speech resource that no one will find unless they Google it for 20 hours, like snatch. So love this.
Joshua: Thank you so much. And also I wanna ask about your platform like I want to know like more about or like your description of like the features on it like I saw a lot of coaching. I think the videos is like excellent I want to know more from you about it.
Amber: so there's actually like a great not great but infuriating villain backstory that I have for that. There are some years where unfortunate drops happen, ugh dang it, whatever. I’ve been coaching for 15 years so like every year at Nationals someone will drop they'll just make me feel like dang it. Last year some things happened in competition that were less because of my students' performances and more because of the brutal nature of competition, and I my brain broke and I was like wait this thing that we've reliably competitively been working on for this long that we've artistically killed ourselves over. Like me and these students for for a whole year I was like all that is now technically gone forever and this work does not deserve to be immortalized because of the judging system at Nationals and that made me go this is now unacceptable and like it's unfortunate that had to be an event that like rocked me enough to make me passionate but that's how passion goes right it's like there's an origin story for it so that was when I went this is stupid the adults during the pandemic decided to withhold performances from each other because I don't know that you weren't competing at that time but all the adults in the community decided that when tournaments went online if they were asynchronous competitors couldn't watch each other compete I would have students that would compete at tournaments for 2 years in Oklahoma that's where I was working for two years none of my students saw single competitor because they would just submit their video only judges were allowed to watch all of them and then they would just get ranks. That's what two years of this activity looks like for competitors and that is so dumb and I again I get it it's because we have this copyright issue and we want to make sure that like our intellectual property isn't copied but being a coach who’s like had pieces on the national final stage that have been copied I can tell you it's better for a thousand people to love them and one person to copy them, then for no one to ever know what it is. So that was when I went I need to get more aggressive about the amount of transparency and like opportunity I give students to feel some kind of ownership into this process to have some sort of control over what speech does cuz it was turning out where like no matter what you were doing in this craft your voice was only as loud as your judges would allow you to be. Totally makes sense that's competition, but this is also art so Breakthrough Stream was the first thing I did was I wanted to make it so that people would start to feel comfortable with like “Okay it’s the end of a season, I took tenth at nationals like no one's ever going to see this well now just like put it on the streaming site and like people can see it because we all know YouTube's there but that's like an endless thing of whatever there's no cataloging into it so I just used all the nerding that I do of like pieces when I'm watching movies and I just made it public and then from there I was like well what if I make my digital library like public and then I was like well what if then like I'm a coach and I I host my coaching for my website but I get texts once a week from people looking for coaches and I was like why is it that there's no I get it everyone's out for their own bag but like doesn't mean I can't be advertised next to every single other coach in the community. I'm- maybe I'm just not threatened enough and maybe I'm going to learn a lesson but like I was like “oh yeah there should be a catalog where any kid that's ever like I want to work with a coach can like open that up and go find one without scouring the internet again or like without following sketchy websites and whatnot.” It's like no I'm I've been around I know who these people are and I'm going to tell you like who's actually coach and give you some of that information so to get back to your actual question about like what's the shape what's the end I haven't figured that out yet and this website I've been working on for 4 years and I was like if I don't make it live, I never will and so I was like okay I just have to start and that's also why membership is free eventually I want to charge like I think $20 a month for like a premium package where kids also get to do like office hours and q&a's and things like that where it's not like taking money to take money but to take money that I can like support this community kind of thing so right now I'm just in a place of I'll see what people need but everyday I just kind of put up something else to see if that's the more helpful but I don't know maybe as I find Partners in this and people that are excited that will help create real shape but you're kind of catching me on the early side of it just being like I I don't know I don't know see somebody just take something
Joshua: I feel like honestly every good resource is going to keep evolving like it's going to keep like being it's going to keep breathing like it's changes, and we need changes as well.
Amber: That’s really reassuring really I mean I cannot say enough like Joshua you’re maybe like the fifth person I've had a vocal conversation with about this like it's just it's just me in a house going like this on a computer so that's really good to hear and really reassuring yeah you're totally right.
Joshua:And honestly if you had like describe the Legacy you want breakthrough speech to like have in the speech and debate community like one word what would it be and why?
Amber: Inspirational. I want to inspire other people to to contribute to do something the idea is it's like really I'm letting everyone know here’s everything I have to see if anyone eventually is like oh yeah I also have some like random stuff that we can make available and start to stimulate Community like Caitlin Williams and Adriana Rodriguez and their work that they’re doing, Adriana Rodriguez doing Unveiled Voices, like they are what motivated me to do something. So if I can yet be another force in all of this that motivates someone else to do it and I can use my reach to do that, awesome. I want it to inspire but in the way of like “I’m so inspiring.”
Joshua: Oh my gosh and really That's all the questions I had like you really just answered everything and put like all my thoughts and even the speech I'm making into like a nutshell and I'm like so appreciative like wow.
Amber: I’m really glad. I think we are unusually gaslighty in this community towards the kids like there is an unusual aspect where like like I don't know I never hear anyone talk about how lonely it is to write an oratory for instance or like how difficult it is to change your piece throughout a year like I don't ever hear people have really practical human conversations about what all this is and like I get why the adults wouldn't it's a lot of like posturing and we gotta lead these strings of kids through this. Like sure I get it look like a team. I really think it's so important for us to start stimulating conversation among teens and like between teens and adults like like oh God it's nice to hear about what this is like for anyone cause there's just no human side to the activity online and in resources which is so interesting it's like such a sterile kind of thing on paper and it really only comes alive in a competition room when then again it's like the humanity of it is killed As we judge it with numbers and like do ranks but don't get me wrong I love to competitive aspect tonight I could talk for hours about the value but like there is nothing more valuable to me than this and like it makes my whole heart all sorts of colors like the fact that you reached out to me and that what I'm doing is infecting you but because it's like scratching something that you already knew you needed so like, I hope moments like these can again inspire people to realize like we just need to talk to each other a little more about it we just need to like enjoy this part of it and not just go bear our souls at each other and then go six great job and go home.
Joshua: Not six great job and then no comment
Amber: Like “Six, love your speech.” I got dropped. The year that I finaled at nationals, I got dropped at Harvard With a six is called “Family secrets" and I got a six with “This wasn't about secrets.”
Joshua: Wait, why did that kinda gag me?
Amber: There are some ballots that truly just send you to a new planet
Joshua: No because you just reminded of me of this ballot I got from this past competition and it was like it cuz my speech about like gatekeeping information right and I got sixth and it was like oh I really liked your speech about gaslighting. Can we be?-
Amber: No
Joshua: No
Amber: No. Incorrect
Joshua: And the thing is that once they've already gave you the ballot you just have to accept it at that point like okay next competition.
Amber: Since we're just sitting here that's that's part of my like diatribe is I do love that this activity puts you in front of someone who like is going to write that ballot is going to be paying attention so little that they're going to say that he still gave a one to someone right like so how do you check that person enough that misses your point so completely that I don't even know what you're talking about like what that's that's a whole puzzle that I love to walk away from tournaments with going, this makes no sense. How do we change to get this person to know what’s going on?
Joshua: It adds to the humanness of speech and debate
Amber: We love the human nature of it all. How inspiring
Joshua: I just wanna thank you so much again for doing this interview like honestly the whole motive like when I was writing this speech my coach had said something to me and she was like like the speech is so important because it's time to make a program based on access accessible and I like that is like the sentence that might oratory just surrounded around like why is this not done already like.
Amber:My real answer for that is that the company that runs speech and debate is a company so like it's not on them and I think we defaulted a lot of our energy to being like the NSDA needs to take care of it and like they're just the one company that's like saying Starbucks makes all the coffee so like that's that's what gives us coffee, like no let’s engage ourselves. And another part of it and so I think it's like it's us it's us taking ownership and showing people that like the culture of the community can change to be more vocal towards one another cuz it's just the culture that's been set and no one's doing anything wrong they're just really passive about it and it's people Like Us who are saying that passive isn't enough but that'll change it so something good is coming.
Joshua:Something good is coming. That’s what is driving me past these website errors that I
keep making like oh my goodness
Amber: you ever need a hand on- what are you using? Sqaurespace?
Joshua: Yes
Amber: yeah see I'm a Wix girl so I send you love and faith on Squarespace but yeah no I got tired of the windows and also I don't know if you do this let you know what PSA don't don't turn this off kids need to use chat gpt. You have to use- you have to use chat gpt. I’m gonna do a whole episode of podcasts about this. I do every single POI with it, I do every single intro with it, cause here’s the thing, it’s not writing anything for me, it’s brainstorming with me. I Work with adults right like I I work in real corporate buildings. I get to do cool stuff like I work with the people who created video games like Atari Pong I work with and Chuck E cheese I'm in there I work in theme parks you want to know what those people do all day long if they ask chat gpt questions going what is a licensing agreement and then they have chatgpt spit up a format and they go okay and they Google to cross reference it. Chat gpt is the person that you go to say, can you help me with my homework? And whenever I get stuck, and I’m like, I have no idea what joke to do for…Shrek, let’s say we’re doing Shrek, and I don;t know what joke to tell, I’m gonna go to chat gpt and say “Gimme 20 jokes you would tell about Shrek.” and then I’m gonna look at it, and it’s me who goes ‘That’s stupid, that’s stupid, that’s interesting.” and then I might write something about stink or whatever, and I’ll have an idea. But notice how different that process is. Instead of you going, “Write me an intro and I’ll perform it.” If you're like brainstorming and if you're like how is it that I get to another idea or something to help you and bounce you into it y'all need to learn how to use chat gpt because everyone in the business force is doing it so if you don't learn you're going to be behind and the whole reason I said that is tell chat gpt help you to design a website. It codes for me it literally codes for me I'll tell it I'm like I need this to happen on the website and it will just do it. Don't be sleeping! your teachers are ruining- education America ruining your future.
Joshua: I’M AWAKE!
Amber: Oh my God. I pay for the subscription, Like it is up on my computer constantly
Joshua: Okay, so let me write that down. This is taking a turn, okay.
Amber: Now I’m yelling, a lot of hands, can you tell I’m Italian?
Joshua: Alright, I think I'm just going to end it here. I'll end the recording here we can talk about this so thank you so much Ms. Justmann for doing this for us, and honestly, visit at Breakthroughspeech.com and Ms. Justmann on Instagram to see some updates, and more about her work. Thank you so much again. That’s all!
