Debate Off to a Strong Start

Students plan their debate strategy

 If any sense of after-hours calm ever pervades Central High School after the final bell, there is none of it to be found on Wednesday afternoons. Instead, you will likely find over 100 high school students from all over the city preparing for their debate competitions.     Some school affiliations are obvious: surely the large group made up exclusively of girls pouring over their binders are from Girls High. Vaux High School, in matching uniforms adorned with the Promise Academy insignia, look sharp and orderly standing together. Other students, however, wear only the uniforms of high school: jeans, tennis shoes, and tee shirts, and zip-up hoodies.

  In the flurry of over 20 high schools rolling into Central, Megan Hess-Homeier, ASAP’s debate coordinator, directs students and their coaches, who act as judges, to various classrooms and spaces throughout Central. Slowly, the hallways empty, and the rooms fall silent to any noise but the sounds of students asserting their positions on private funding for space exploration.

  This year’s debate roster is made up of schools from all over the city: neighborhood schools and selective magnets, first-time debaters and big-time power hitters. Science Leadership Academy, last year’s team to beat, sends three teams weekly, rotating newer debaters in their C Team, and seasoned returners in their A and B teams. South Philadelphia High School, a new team this year, has two freshman on their A team, both first-time debaters who became interested in the activity when starting their new school.

Sankofa Students after their win

 George Washington High School, a neighborhood school in the Northeast, is emerging as strong contenders this year: their A team is in first place after three weeks of competition, and the top three individual speaker points have gone all to George Washington students. Other schools have had to deal with disappointment: Sankofa Freedom Academy Charter School, a new school in the league, brought several students to the first debate, but when two teams lost, only one team was brave enough to return the second week. Their tenacity was rewarded with a win and both boys were elated. They quickly reported the news to their coach, who jumped up and down after receiving the news.Their A team is now ranked a respectable 15^th out of 48 teams. Their B team is reforming to return again in November.

 The different stories from debate teams all over the city highlight the diversity of the Philadelphia Scholastic Debate teams- “diverse in more ways than one,” explains Megan, who, as coordinator, is intimately acquainted with the dozens of teams from different backgrounds and types of schools all over the city. The students are given a chance to interact with, and learn from, peers they might not necessarily interact with normally.

 At a recent debate, Girls High C gave the new debaters from South a run for their money, demanding in cross-fire for the sources of the boy’s arguments. The boys, flustered, were unable to respond, a point that the Girls High debaters reminded the judge of in the summation. After the heated arguments, however, the students fell quickly into conversation. “Yo I was so nervous!” laughed a Girls High debater. “I couldn’t tell!” insisted one of the Southern boys, and the teams fell into easy conversation after nearly twenty minutes of heated disagreement. They are getting along for now, until the next time they have to go against each other, in which case, as the debaters show time and time again, they are ready to stand firm and argue their points without mercy. After all, they’re all chasing George Washington to take the top spot 

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For more information on debate, contact Megan Hess-Homeier at meganhh@phillyasap.org.