Be it resolved that I filled those shoes.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, please go read my learning intention post for this project, which is right here. (The shoes comment will make more sense if you do)

To jump straight in (because there’s a lot to jump into) this project was super fun, my team placed third, which is a bit further off the goal of first I had for myself than I would like, but it’s by no means a bad place to be. For all three debates we had I was doing crossfire, and on our last debate I also delivered the case.

I think my first debate was definitely my worst, but I also think that’s a really good spot to be, because it means that I showed growth. I was also having a minor panic attack before our first debate, because public speaking is wonderful.

In our last two debates, I was really proud of how I performed, and I believe that the work Jack (who’s blog you can check out here) and I did was the deciding factor for the debates we did win.

One of the reasons I was so stressed in that first debate, is a few days previously Finn (who’s blog is here) and I had a mock debate for the class, and during the crossfire (the thing I’m supposed to be good at) I somewhat floundered, so I was really worried that I was going to continue to fail at crossfire. Luckily, fail does stand for first attempt in learning. I suppose it was third though (third times the charm?), because that’s when I really caught my groove. I found it easiest to think of the crossfire as a conversation, with the audience as one person, and my interlocutors (I’ve been waiting to sneak that word in somewhere) as two separate people.

I found this method to work quite well, because it lets me interact with the audience in a way that doesn’t feel super intimidating, instead like I’m having a conversation with an acquaintance, and the two other people that I’m crossfiring as heinous devils that spew lies and half-truths

Oh yea

The other part

The other thing I was always thinking is my opponent is never correct. (Thanks, “The Great Debaters” by Denzel Washington, starring Denzel Washington) or that they are doing something wrong. This is especially easy in crossfire, double especially because we’re highschool students (Ms Madsen and\or Mr. Edel (or anyone that wants to participate) your skill testing question is what’s the logical fallacy in that sentence?)

Besides my favourite part of this exhibition, what else happened?

Well, for the rest of the exhibition, I haven’t the foggiest clue. I didn’t get the chance to check out another group, and I honestly have no clue what anyone was doing, or what it looked like. The only thing I do know is that people painted their faces to look like the blue guys in avatar, which is pretty cool.

For this project however, I was very present, and do know what went on with it. We started the project with the movie I mentioned a few paragraphs ago, and it was really good, although I was sick and missed the final part. I find it was a very engaging and interesting way to start our project, and almost gave us role-models for good debaters.

Overall, this exhibition was a 9/10, would participate in again.

The debates were stressful enough to be fun, but not too stressful as to be nightmarish (thank you Ms. Madsen and Mr. Edel), the setup was really easy (and ended up looking quite good), it’s always fun to be dressed up, and all the project work was good fun!

Thank you for reading, have a wonderful rest of your day\night!