Do you miss the last Anand Debate between teachers and students? Do you crave the interesting arguments and laughter that resulted from it? And do you wish to have another debate?
Well, the international debate club Trivium began their first debate competition between Dulwich Shanghai Pudong, the Bangkok Patana School, and the Lancers International School in Gurgaon India on Discord on Sunday, 4th of December. It is the first time Dulwich has had an international debate competition for almost three years due to the inconveniences of running any event posed by COVID-19. The debate format was a public forum, for which six pairs from all three of these international schools debated on engaging topics within the social sciences. Public-forum debate is a widely popular debate structure using evidence and logic to construct compelling arguments centered on current events. Huge shoutouts are made to Michael, Joshua, Justin, and Jonathan for being the first debate speakers representing Dulwich College Shanghai Pudong. Gratitude has also been expressed to the organizers of this competition: Dev S (Lancers International School), Krish K (the Bangkok Patana School), Terry W (Dulwich College Shanghai Pudong), and Kevin K (Dulwich College Shanghai Pudong). All of these organizers spent tremendous amount of time planning and ensuring that the competition was conducted smoothly and effectively. Last week's international debate competition is only one of the three competitions that will happen this year. So stay tuned for the other debate competitions coming in 2023.
Structure
The event formally began at 11:30 Beijing Time, 10:30 Bangkok Time, and 9:00 India Time. Participants first joined the main meeting room for the opening ceremony, during which the organizers introduced themselves and the main aims of the debate. The organizers also ran a few icebreaker activities with the participants to get them engaged and talking. After the rules, sides, and guidelines were outlined, each team spent 10-15 minutes preparing to research the debate prompts as a collective. The first round of the debate formally started at noon.
The strict structure of the public-forum debate ensured that all four pairs had a fair say during the match and that neither of the teams are disadvantaged or given an advantage throughout. Of all the sections, the crossfires are definitely the favorites to watch as both teams adamantly propose their claims and try to point out the fallacies addressed by the oppositions, seeking to downplay each other's arguments.
Student Voice
As the participants moved through the rounds, the debate got increasingly intense and the prompts chosen for subsequent rounds got harder. Arriving at the semifinals were two DCSPD teams competing against two teams from Patana and Lancers. Jonathan & Justin debated on the topic of the rightful provision of Universal Basic Income against Johnny and Aidan (Patana) while Michael & Joshua debated on the topic of the abolishment of Standardized testing against Hugo & Viviana. All four teams offered deep insights, whether that be outlawing the benefits and flaws of standardized testing in the process of university matriculation or the necessity of UBI in achieving financial equality within society. Although the teams were a bit
tentative debating on unfamiliar topics not well-covered within the school curriculums, all four teams fought hard. All of them proposed their arguments in unconventional ways, seeking to place emphasis on the keywords of the prompt, proving troublesome to all sides. The debate was very intense to the point that there was a tiebreaker between Michael's team and Hugo's team. On the other end, Justin's team narrowly beat Johnny's team by a margin of 0.5 points. At the end of what appeared to be a stalemated semifinal round, Michael's team took the slight upper hand in the end and successfully moved on to the Finals. Little did we expect the two Dulwich teams to meet together at the culminating point of the event.
There was much anticipation from the audience and the participants to see the final round of the competition take place, debating on the topic: Being a Global Citizen is more important than being patriotic to your own country. Justin, as the constructive speaker, started by defining the meaning of being a Global Citizen, formulating his arguments on the importance of Global Citizenship by indicating the importance of this entity within international schools. Returning in a quick manner was Joshua, arguing the meaning of being patriotic and how patriotism forms the bedrock to countries' identities and beliefs. The crossfire was heated. Both sides seem to bombard each other with deep philosophical questions that both teams did not expect beforehand. Closing the debate was both Michael and Jonathan, reiterating their own stances with accurate evidence and confidence that made the winner of the debate hard to decide. Clapping and cheering, the debate closed with jubilant remarks from the organizers and participants, congratulating Jonathan and Justin for winning the first debate event organized by Trivium. Although there was only one triumphant winner, I am sure we have all walked away having learned something new, whether that be teamwork, areas of argumentative knowledge, or the meaning of using your voices.
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