Debate Outreach: Bantering At Bonner

19 March 2013Sarah T, Mackenzie ‘15

Over the past few weeks, students in Brentwood’s Debate and Model United Nations classes have held a series of three debate workshops for Grade 7 and 8 students at Mill Bay’s George Bonner Middle School. In the days leading up to the first session, a small group of debate students was hard at work planning games and activities, creating scripts and worksheets, and preparing sample debates and speeches to present to the students.

Initially, there was some trepidation over whether the program would be a success – various concerns voiced by students included, among others, “Will the kids take us seriously?” “Will they have fun?” “What if I get beaten up by a 7th Grader?” and, for the more, shall we say, sheltered, among us, “What does a public school look like?” In the end our concerns were (mostly) unfounded – the kids were enthusiastic, responsive and eager to learn.

We kicked off the first day with a debate on the topic of whether boys and girls should be divided into separate classes. Sarah M and Natalie L engaged in a heated exchange over the potentially questionable hygiene practices of adolescent males (much to the younger students’ amusement!) We then split off into smaller groups to go over the basics, and by the end of the first day the students had all participated in their first debate.

On the second day, the students were taught more about the components of debate and then prepared for a second round. This time, students got to select resolutions close to their own hearts, and the atmosphere in the classroom quickly intensified as the young debaters began to address such contentious topics as the relative superiority of skiing and snowboarding.

On the third day, we rounded out the lineup with a series of games aimed at improving public speaking skills. After a quick demonstration by Calvin S, the students played a game in which they had to go up to the front of the classroom, two at a time, and convince one another to relinquish a certain well-worn blue hat. Initially, some of the shyer students were reluctant to speak in front of their peers, but a bit of gentle prodding from a few of the more “intimidating” members of the debate team soon changed their minds! The tactics employed by students covered the entire range of rhetorical devices, from logical reasoning (“Give me the hat and I’ll pay you a thousand dollars”) to reliance on human sympathy (“It belonged to my dead grandfather!”) One 8th Grader particularly versed in the subtleties of logic insisted that the question of whether or not one deserved to wear the hat depended, above all, on one’s inherent quantity of swag juice.

Overall, the outreach program was a great success. It provided a very rewarding, albeit unconventional, way to get involved in our local community, and students from Brentwood and Bonner alike enjoyed learning more about debate and public speaking. The debate coaches hope to make the program an annual occurrence in coming years.

That sounds like a great resolution.

Sarah T, Mackenzie ‘15

Where Students Choose To Be