Power of Debate
One of the things I admire most about Browning students is their disposition to participate in activities beyond the classroom. Even as pandemic conditions have curtailed our athletic program and canceled so many in-person events, our guys and their mentors have found creative ways to maintain engagement with their projects; indeed, musical recitals, teams like Mock Trial and Model UN and Robotics, and student conferences, government, and affinity work have proceeded apace, which testifies to the passion, agency, and resilience of all involved.
A recent addition to this menu of student opportunities is our Debate Team, which was created by interested and entrepreneurial Upper School students during the 2018-19 school year. Two years later, not only has this team performed admirably—under their coach, Dr. Melodie Ting, the boys concluded their season by finishing second in the state debate competition—but our Zoom environment has also allowed more of us to watch and appreciate not only our debaters’ skills, but also their commitment to the principles and values that make team debate so worthwhile in the first place.
The notion of “high school debaters” may conjure up images of contentious students whose obsession with rhetorical dominance prompts them to argue about anything and everything. And if that were true, who would really want a debate team? Such stereotypical stuff, however, misses what dispositions and qualities the enterprise actually promotes and protects.
“Our Debate Team has become a place where boys genuinely use feedback from judges and each other to learn from mistakes and where our coach promotes a spirit of teamwork and mutual support.”
When you watch a debate competition—or, better still, when you are asked to judge one—several things become immediately apparent. First, these things aren’t free-for-alls; rather, they’re carefully structured exchanges that rely on the application of significant rules, rules which the debaters most generally observe and enforce themselves. Put another way, there is a respect for integrity and fair play that is fundamental to each encounter. Second, participants are called upon not only to construct logical arguments in defense of their own position, but to really listen to the positions of their competitor, the better to adapt one’s own argument and rebut that of another. At a time when our media and political environments diminish the importance of attending to an opposing viewpoint, this seems a skill worth of both a good student and a good citizen, as well as a good debater. Finally, and perhaps most obviously, debaters have developed (or are developing) the skills to speak confidently and respectfully, in public, on matters that are intellectually sophisticated and sometimes emotionally freighted. When popular surveys consistently rank public speaking as folks’ greatest social fear, there is something to be said for both the command and the courage of students who embrace the opportunity.
It is a credit to our boys imagination that this team developed, a credit to their skills that this team has performed so ably, a credit to their commitment that this team has become a linchpin in Browning’s co-curricular program. Far from promoting contentiousness, debate competitions foster a spirit of fair play, a capacity for really hearing another point of view, and the skill and composure necessary to make an argument in a public forum. Add in the fact that our Debate Team has become a place where boys genuinely use feedback from judges and each other to learn from mistakes, and where our coach promotes a spirit of teamwork and mutual support, we understand that this is not just a way of giving future lawyers and orators a chance to blow off steam—this is a way of cultivating the vital qualities of the student, the neighbor, and the citizen. Why wouldn’t we have a debate team?