Debate Day

What better way to culminate a year-long Debate elective in both high schools (the first of its kind) than with a debate against... each other.  So it was on Monday, that four pairs of debaters from the Boys School squared off against four pairs of debaters from the Girls School, over the national high school policy debate resolved "That the United States government should substantially increase social services to those living below the poverty line in the United States."  The teams sparred with each other over three rounds, each team arguing both the Affirmative and the Negative side of the debate at least once, and needless to say it got rather intense.  Each side grilled the other over their knowledge of the government's current social service programs, over the other team's proposal to enhance or reform it, over funding, over statistics, evidence, and anything else you can imagine.

It was a special privilege to have members of Seedco's Memphis Office, who several months ago introduced our debaters to many of the issues related to poverty in the US, join us as judges for the day.  Across the board, they were impressed by the eloquence, thoughtfulness, resourcefulness and creativity of both teams.  In the end, though, there could only be one winner... and this year it was our girls.

Here's a list of all the recipients of the individual and team awards:

1st place team: Maddie Tavin and Debbie Farber
2nd place team: Jeremy Cooper and Isaac Krupp
3rd place team: Shoshana Somer and Zahava Gersten

1st place speaker: Debbie Farber
2nd place speaker: Maddie Tavin
3rd place speaker: Jeremy Cooper and Zahava Gersten (tie)

A job very well done by all!