Whenever course selection is being considered, students are usually faced with the choice of choosing three elective courses.
These electives are designed to give students a break from their core classes and allow them to explore personal interests or prepare for future careers.
“I really want to go into politics after high school and I felt like debate would be a really good thing just to know how to argue and research,” freshman Amita Ramcharan said, “especially considering the state of our world right now.”
Each week, the class takes into consideration which topic they’ll debate next. After the topic is decided, the class spends the next two weeks researching and debating.
When closing arguments end, the students have a reflection day to analyze how successful or respectful the debate went. Then it’s onto the next topic for the next two weeks. The topics are wide-ranging:
- Should animal testing be a thing?
- Is social media harmful or beneficial?
- What does AI contribute to the human existence?”
With debate comes many challenges. Students find it hard to stay composed under pressure, find factual information from articles, staying within the code of conduct and debate on a side they personally don’t really agree with.
“One of our debates was about soulmates and whether they are a myth or not,” Ramcharan said. “It was really hard for me because you can’t really debate that without bringing in religion especially as someone who’s non religious, it’s hard to find evidence.”
In class, students debate in the Lincoln Douglas style, which is when students are separated into two groups and debate for 45 minutes.
Students who are looking to join the debate team have the opportunity to attend weekend competitions. However the students who would like to just partake in debate as an elective can join the year long course taught by English teacher Christina Hutchinson.
Sophomore Brynn Franks, has been in debate for two years says
“It’s a really like intimate group – the class. You’re not really doing it in front of a bunch of people. It’s with the people you know.”
Skills learned in Speech and debate helps students with grammar, how to write argumentative essays, and how to speak clearly and efficiently.
Sophomore Mason Keller is new to Speech and Debate and just within this year he said that debate has helped him and his classmates with the way they view others opinions,and how much they’ve grown within their skills.
“Speech and debate can help you like gain more confidence, stand up for yourself, talk about things that you feel passionate about,” Keller said. “It’s underrated. because it seems like something that’s not used or needed, but I feel like it’s an everyday thing that people use and they just don’t really know it.”
