Hey Y’all, Ma here.
I am A great debater. I know that. But am I The Great Debater? That is where I draw the line.
The Great Debaters
Debate is an acquired and mostly environment skill for me. I will debate nonsensical and trivial matter with my friends ( such as whether monkeys in a zoo could create and culture a currency system- Monkey Business Debate ) but when it is time to defend a belief in front of strangers or critics, it’s a different story.
To preface and begin the Great Debaters project, Ms. Madsen had us watch, uh, the Great Debaters. The film is about a debate team from an all-black college in Texas, who under the tutelage of their debate teacher, played by Denzel Washington, rise to success, and challenge racism in the south. It’s a true story, with some minor changes. I thought it was good but I didn’t really understand the importance of the film in relation to the project, short of sharing the same name.
There wasn’t a whole lot of development for this project. It was a very simple matter: choose an opponent, choose a topic, and get to work. There was the added pressure of presenting this during the winter exhibition so I’m sure everyone was focused on that, I know I was.
Choosing a debate opponent was not a difficult matter, it was pretty much guaranteed Sepaus would want to debate me. However, the topic of debate was really quite difficult to decide. while others took less serious topics, we wanted to find something we could equally be opinionated for. It was decided then we would debate ‘ Should we upload our consciousness to a computer? ‘ It might seem like a strange topic but to me it was not. Even without understanding how this would work, I took an interest in this topic a long time ago and just kept it in the back of my mind until now. Mind-Uploading is a process that involves the transfer of a human mind and consciousness from the physical body to a computer or alternative system. It doesn’t exist yet. There are a lot of sources in my research and development folder if you are interested in learning more. Anyways, I would argue the affirmative in this debate, and Sepaus would argue the negative.
Building my case was difficult and long. Especially so when I was debating a mostly theoretical argument. It was not easy to find credible sources and even more difficult to convince an audience of these not-so-credible sources. Writing my opening line, I had to write to be digestible, but also make mind-uploading sound appealing. I made a whole research and development folder in craft.
( Research and Development folder )
The Winter Exhibition
I, and everyone else, had about 2 weeks to prepare for the debate by creating our cases but there was still the hurdle of presentation that stood between me and world domination. It wasn’t as simple as going up on the podium ( yes there was a podium ) and reading an argument that on paper would be very convincing. A debate is not just a demonstration of research and preparation, it is also a test of confidence. A speaker needs to project confidence, convey a tangible message, think quick and all the while not piss their pants from nervousness. I struggled and still struggle with public speaking and I do not believe this debate presentation was my finest hour.
The build up to the debate wasn’t as bad as I had anticipated. It was going to be a long day, and I knew that as soon as I woke up that morning. The after school prep wasn’t bad, I actually had a chance to go through my speech and rebuttals plenty of times. When guests started to arrive I had the chance to see a couple debates from my classmates before mine ( my debate was at 6:30 ). It was good to see how other people formed their opening lines and rebuttals.
As the clock struck 6:30 and it was my debate time, I was ready. I went to the podium and gave a pretty OK opening speech, albeit with some stuttering and minor improvisations. Then it was Sepaus’s speech and he had a similar speech to mine on paper ( arguing the negative, of course ) but he was the better speaker in my, and probably the audiences, opinions. He then gave his rebuttal points because the debate was structured strangely, I think in the interest of time. While he spoke I was trying my best to note what his main points I could counter were, to little success. Or maybe it was that he was saying exactly what I had predicted, but it was only then I realized one man’s opinion cannot be effectively countered by a prepared return. If I was going to negate his points, I was going to have to make some shit up. And I didn’t do that, not well at least, and my rebuttal was, put nicely, a mess. I stumbled through my points, I made leaps to connect seemingly unrelated topics, and all in all it looked like I hadn’t prepared. To top it off I was cut off just as I was getting somewhere.
I didn’t like it, but I was glad it was at least over. All that was left were the closing statements and I knew I couldn’t mess that up. When it was all said and done to my surprise the audience voted mostly affirmative, meaning they agreed with me. I’m not going to undermine my victory but to be fair I probably only won because there were more people in the audience knew me than knew Sepaus. I didn’t deserve to win, and Sepaus definitely didn’t deserve to lose, but as they say, It is what it is.
The rest of the exhibition was cool. I didn’t have a ton of time to see everything because watching each debate was at least a 10-minute commitment, and the exhibition night was not long. From what I saw, it looked similar in quality to last years winter exhibition which I thought looked pretty good. Overall, 7/10.
The driving question for the Great Debaters project is “How can we use a formal debate to convince an audience we are right?”
There are a few good things I have learned throughout the duration of this project. Strictly for debate, it is imperative to be prepared, for any and all situations relating to your topic of debate. Preparation is often difficult because you need to fully understand your topic of debate, your opponent in debate, and also yourself as a debater. The first two are obvious, however the third is not. Knowing yourself and what you are going to say, retort, explain: it is very easy to sabotage yourself in a debate whether it be a slip-up, an intrusive thought, or a sudden loss of confidence. To overcome this you need to have an iron-clad resolve in the face of overwhelming adversity. If this fails you also need a recovery to get back on even ground.
The point I am trying to make here is that the most important debate skill is not obvious. You could research all you want, and that’s great, but if you forget to prepare your mind, and condition your will to succeed, then it might as well be over.