Middle Schoolers Make Their Case in Debate
Students prepare to make their case at the Merrill Middle School Debate Tournament.
Two bespectacled sixth-grade boys from Merrill and a pair of curly-haired sixth-grade girls from Weeks eyed each other warily. Everyone was dressed to impress. Everyone was nervous. None of them had ever been in this situation before. What if they said something stupid? What if they couldn’t say anything at all? What to do with their hands?
No, it’s not a scene from an interschool mixer. Yesterday marked the first middle school debate tournament of the season and Merrill was the host school. Forty-three teams from seven DMPS middle schools and Holy Trinity went at it, pro and con, on the subject of mandatory national service for young people.
Not only were most of the debaters novices, most of the judges were drawn from the decorated debate teams at Roosevelt and Dowling High Schools. They know the rules of the game but are used to playing it, not officiating. For them it was like taking the ball out of their hands and plugging a whistle in their mouths.
But, as Dowling Debate Coach Tim Sheaff reminded everyone before throwing them into the pool, the judges were there mostly in the role of lifeguard.
“You’ve got to get into the water to learn how to swim,” he said in the packed cafeteria before everyone dispersed to classrooms to joust. “But we won’t let anyone drown.”
The host team boasts 44 students in their debate program, a strong feeder for Roosevelt Coach Lauren McCool. Her counterpart at Merrill, Bill Hendricks, holds afterschool practices twice weekly. Tuesday his orators warmed up while waiting for the other team busses to arrive.
John Puri looked well-prepared as he practiced alone in the midst of the boisterous cafeteria. His dark hair was well-combed and his navy blue sweater vest looked sharp. His gestures were emphatic as he recited facts and he was poised when questioned.
“This will be my first debate,” he said with eager anticipation. His dad was a champion debater at Stanford. Was that an advantage? “Yes, he encourages me and last night at home he gave me a few pointers.”
While John polished his points a classmate, 7th grader Cael Fitch, rehearsed his seven-minute piece for the category of Original Oratory. He described it as comedic but serious, too. He said it was about a boy who likes to play with pencils and sometimes seems silly to others. But people aren’t always who they’re perceived to be, he said. OO seems like a good fit for Cael. Maybe he’ll become a speechwriter. Or a standup comic.
At the middle school level the categories are Public Forum, Original Oratory and Prose. The overwhelming majority of Tuesday’s competitors were vying in two-on-two PF, the only category open to 6th graders.
One pair of teammates in PF prepped on the designated topic by going back and forth about Seahawks vs. Patriots, just to get their arguing muscles loosened up.
The aforementioned foursome in Room 226 fretted while waiting for their judge to arrive. Finally he did, overloaded with a laptop, a sheaf of judges’ instructions and a slice of pizza from the makeshift concession area in the main hallway downstairs (RESOLVED: There is no debate about pizza. It is a good thing). He got himself organized and away they all went.
Nobody drowned.
