My Debating Experience... scary.

I was going through my YouTube downloads and I saw a couple of videos that I used to prepare for a school debate in 2022; so I decided to do a blog on my experience at the debate. Here it is ✨

My first experience debating was in JS1. I joined the debate, poetry, and writing club of my school mainly because I thought it was cool. 

The debate topics we had were rather peripheral, for example: “doctors vs farmers: who contributes more to the society?”. 

In those debates, there was pretty much no style as to who spoke first or next, it was all rather randomized. So whenever it was my turn to speak, all points would have been taken by the previous speakers and I would be left blank 😅. I left the club in JS2 to join another ‘interesting’ club.

Last year, I saw an email inviting students to participate in a school debate competition. 

I was a little bored at that time and I needed something exciting to lay my hands on, so I said ‘why not try out?’

I signed up, and, little did I know how much trouble I had put myself into. As the date drew near, I realized that if ‘experience’ was anything to go by, I deserved to be eliminated in the first round. That was a very scary thought. 2 days before d-day, I suspended my regular school work to focus on the debate prep. I watched a couple of YouTube videos and studied a couple of materials that the organizers had sent to help us prepare. I definitely didn’t want to fail.

Debate format

The competition followed the British Parliamentary Style of debate, so there were 4 teams in each round: the opening government, the opening opposition, the closing government, and the closing opposition.

Each team had 2 speakers. (I had a very wonderful, brilliant teammate.)

The competition was to last for 3 days. 

There were 3 preliminary rounds, where the teams would be ranked based on the number of points accumulated. 

The top 16 teams from the prelims would advance to the quarter-finals, and from there, the top 8 teams would proceed to the semifinals. The final 4 teams would then advance to compete in the finals. 

The D-day: 

The first day was scary, but I felt motivated. Plus the topic made it fun since it was something we could relate to. It was something along these lines: “the sugar daddy and sugar mummy culture, the society should not discourage it!”

My teammate and I were opening opposition, which meant we were against the proposition.

I took lots of water because I felt a little anxious. (Research has it that water could reduces anxiety)

It was our first debate, and we raised a reasonable number of points. I spoke for over 5 minutes. 

We ended up second of the four teams in our room. A good start.

In the second debate of the day, my teammate and I came first in our room. It was a wonderful debate, and I was starting to feel good about the tourney.

Day 2

We had 2 debates this day: the last preliminary debate, and the quarterfinal (yeah we made it to the quarterfinals!). 

I can’t quite remember the topic for the last preliminary round debate, but I recall that we came third in our room. 

We accumulated 6 points in total from the prelims and advanced to the quarterfinals.

The quarter-finals were pretty fun. The topic was something along the lines of, “18+ rated movies and forms of media are not good for the general public.” 

We were given the opening government and we did pretty well. We came first in our room.

Day 3

We had the semi-finals on this day. 

Here, we were made the opening government, and the topic was, ‘if given the chance, I would choose to be born in a place where there was no religion.’ 

I remember this debate well because the atmosphere was lively. There was a good attendance, and all teams made very solid points and gave good rebuttals. We argued as the opening government in this debate, which means we supported the proposition. That was scary, to be honest, but it was super fun.

The wait for the result was slightly tense, though I was kinda sure I and my teammate did well.

The judges came with their verdicts, and…we made it to the finals!!

The finals were held that same day, and it was well attended by the university community. The vice-chancellor, a couple of deans, and several students were present.

The topic was something along the lines of, “We should prioritize behaviour, e.g smoking, drinking, health choices in general, in the distribution and allocation of scarce medical resources.”

I think this was my most difficult debate, mainly because we were given opening opposition, which means we were against the proposition. 

This was not my first time encountering the topic. The show, “The Good Doctor”, had this case on an episode, however, their argument only resonated with the government side of the motion. 

In that episode, there was a dad who needed to get a liver transplant. However, they found that he drank alcohol, and according to the rules, they had to take his name down the list.

The ever-sympathetic Claire who never wanted to lose any of her patients looked for ways to make it possible. I can’t remember if she found it, but it was tough.

That was all I could think of for my part of the argument: that everyone regardless of health choices deserved sympathy, empathy, and hope.

That wasn’t quite logical, but it was all I could come up with at the time lol.

Because of the lack of a logical backbone, I suspect, it didn’t go down well with the judges. We came fourth in that debate. 

During the awards ceremony, my teammate got the 3rd best speaker in the competition, and I came 5th. 

It was a beautiful tourney overall, and I’m so glad that I got to participate. I met so many wonderful people. 

And that’s a wrap to my debate experience.

One thing that I guess I have learnt from debating is that there are always two side to a story. Make sure to seek it before making a judgement!

Also, from my initial hesitance about doing the debate, I  have learnt that the road to success is a very tangled rope, and we don’t have to have all the tangles straightened out before stepping out. 

Sometimes, I guess we have to trust that things would turn out fine in the end. 

Thank you for reading!

Have a lovely week! ☺️

Bye!