While the presidential candidates may avoid difficult issues, the speech and debate team confronts the controversial topics head on. These students make a sport out of the analysis and interpretation of current events.
“A bunch of upperclassmen told me it’s a lot of fun and I like arguing, so I decided to go to a meeting,” freshman and novice debater Cole Edelstein said.Arguing in debate, however, is not the same as children arguing with their parents. Debate students argue in an attempt to change issues affecting large masses of people, issues even those in power don’t seem to have an answer to.
The three main kinds of debate are Lincoln-Douglas, public forum, and policy debate. In Lincoln-Douglas debate, competitors use morals or philosophy in attempts to solve real world issues. Students compete alone and are allowed long speeches.
“I like Lincoln-Douglas because you can argue alone, and because I like to look at the moral side of an issue,” Edelstein said.
In policy debate competitors use factual evidence to argue what changes should be made to certain policies in the U.S. government. Students compete in pairs and are allowed multiple speeches as well as rebuttals.
Public forum is a combination of both kinds of debate. The style is more similar to policy debate while its time limit is shorter.
“I like the four and a half minute rounds, as well as not having to do as much work as the policy students,” junior and novice debater Elaine Reichert said.
Though few events are judged solely on presentation, according to Coach Rob Proffitt, it is the biggest part of the score in any event. The first rule on his board at every meeting reads, “Presentation, Presentation, Presentation.”
“No one is going to care about what you say, if you don’t say it well,” Proffitt said.
There is much more to the debate team than the time spent competing. Students change topics monthly; in that time they collect evidence as well as perfect their presentations.
The team had its first tournament on Oct. 13 at Parkway West.
Junior Jessica DeMunbrun was tournament champion in Lincoln-Douglas and currently holds a 7-0 record.
Four groups made it to the quarterfinals in their respective categories: juniors Michael Gu and Elaine Reichert and juniors Melinda Lai and Kate Hogan in public forum, senior Mike Kolis in Lincoln-Douglas and juniors Simon Lu and PJ Doerner in policy.
On the speech side, Gu qualified for finals in extemporaneous, junior Liyang Gu qualified for semifinals in extemporaneous and senior Hannah Wiedner qualified for semifinals in prose.
DeMunbrun made little of her own success, preferring to give the limelight to the entire team.
“Iwas more proud that so many teams had made it to the quarterfinals, because it means Central is a team to watch this year,” DeMunbrun said.