Keynotes and how rhetoric ruined my life

In grad school, this was the common saying: "Rhetoric will ruin your life." Well, it does. I never attended a conference pre-rhetoric classes, so I don't know of anything else. Keynote speakers always interest me. At LS2010, we had three different keynotes, and honestly, before the conference, I hadn't heard much about of any of them. I just knew they each had written/published a book, a fact, in and of itself, doesn't provide any substantial credibility to me. They're not in the learning industry, at least not directly. Sir Ken Robinson, the first keynote speaker, kicked off the conference, and his was the only session that didn't set off any major alarms in my internal "Oh, really?" system. I had just come from a Breakfast Byte session where I listened (sadly, much too fuzzy sleepy to participate) to a discussion of schemas and how we use them to deterime how we accept new information: it fits in with our current schema and we accept it; it challenges our schema and we adapt or change our schema to account for this new info; or, it goes so far against our schema that we reject it outright. Maybe Ken's speech seemed to fit my schema, so I wasn't as analytical. I'd be interested to read a critique of the session.

I never have much confidence that I'll get much from a keynote session. It seems like the speakers talk in absolutes--lots of Big T statements. I guess we don't want to listen to a bunch of qualifiers (in which case, I would stink as a keynote speaker), so speakers tend to take a strong stand and speak with authority as though we should agree with everything. It's scary when I see ideas or models taken as wholesale truth and blindly absorbed and followed--whether it be keynote speaking or ADDIE. Who is conveying this information? Are their statements supported or just opinions? What emotions are they trying to invoke to move you toward action? Do you really agree, or are they just a charasmatic smooth talker? It's easy to get wrapped up in charisma--I do it too. At some point, during or after, just think please.