It’s finally summer! And while all my friends are having fun travelling to 20 different countries in Europe (special mention to my lovely sister, who chose to start her vacation while I still suffered through exams), I have been sitting at home, “enjoying” seeing everyone’s cute little European aesthetics on instagram **cough cough**. But that’s okay, because you know what I did last week? Debate Camp!
Yes, like the total nerd I am, the anticipated highlight of my summer was Webber Academy’s third annual Debate Boot Camp! Held at the prestigious Webber Academy, this four day camp is focused around teaching youth the art of public speaking and debate. (Taken from the WADBC facebook page).
And so, the morning of July 4th, I got up bright and early (a little too early for my taste), and drove over forty minutes to arrive at Webber Academy. First impressions? If I’m being honest, I felt so intimidated driving up to the school. Firstly, it’s a large campus. To use the immortal words of Donald Trump; “It’s huge. It’s really great and huge, and it’s just so great.” (That’s not a real quote, but probably very close) And yes, this intimidation I felt was probably partly influenced by the fact that all of my previous schools have been tiny. Ex. my current school is literally just a square, with a little portable extension. But secondly, everything looked so distinguished, and fancy, and just super prim and proper, and being the peasant public school student that I am, I didn’t feel like I belonged. But partly because I was trying to take risks and step outside of my comfort zone, (and also because I had already paid for the camp and didn’t want that money to go to waste), I entered the school.
And I’m so glad I didn’t back out last minute, because the camp was definitely worth it!
First, we got so much free stuff! And of course, pretty much all of the stuff we received was labelled with that “Webber Academy Debate Boot Camp” logo.
One thing that I definitely noticed about being in Webber was that they did a lot of branding. Everything had that logo on it. Even the paper dispensers in the washrooms had “Webber Academy” on them. One might guess that they thought we would forget what school we were in!
In the first few hours, I had already realized just how amazing all of the staff at the camp were. They’re all incredibly intelligent, amazing teachers, phenomenal debaters, and all the students there were equally amazing. I am so fortunate to have been in the midst of all of these wonderful people for the week.
I attended eight sessions over the course of three days, and I loved each one of them. I wish I could tell you about everything that I learned, but I think I’ll leave you guys to go to the camp and experience it for yourself. However, I do have a couple really great pieces of advice (pearls of wisdom, if I may) that were given to me throughout the course of the camp.
Be open minded
Now this one’s pretty cliche, and everyone probably already knows it, but this really became apparent to me over the course of the camp. For example, on the first day, some of the staff did a sample debate for us. The resolution was “THBT (This House Believes That) child labour is beneficial in third world countries” (I can’t remember the actual resolution, don’t kill me !). And upon hearing that resolution, I instantly thought : “Oh gosh, how is side prop supposed to debate that?” But then first prop speaker gets up, starts speaking, and in his speech, he gives this genius phrase ; “Sure, child labour is not ideal. But there’s a difference between ideal, and let’s get real.” And I heard that, and gosh, I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. Basically, we were not even two hours into camp, and I was already on the verge of supporting child labour. Crazy, right? But the point is to not automatically side with one stance, but to keep your options open, and keep an open mind, which is so crucial in debate.
Your role as a debater is not necessarily to convince the judges that you’re right, but rather that they’ve always agreed with you
This was something that Keenan MacNeal told us in a session. And I thought that it was such a subtle difference, but so important. It’s reasonably easy to get a judge to side with you. If you have convincing arguments, logical points, etc, it’s not hard to change a judge’s mind. But the real challenge is to convince them that they’ve always agreed with you, even if they haven’t realized it yet. The challenge is to get them to think you know, I’ve never really thought about it, but yeah, I definitely agree with this. And I think this subtlety is such a great way to approach a debate.
And finally, this one was sort of one that just made me laugh, but in a session, Keenan was talking about his former debate coach, and how he would give the advice that You have to grab zem by ze balls (French accent included)
This one is talking about the judges. You have to really get their attention, and pique their interest. Of course, Keenan added, this one is figurative. I would not advise anyone to literally grab their judges by the balls.
So what did we do after the first three days were done?
On the last day, we had an ADSA (Alberta Debate and Speech Association) sanctioned debate tournament. For juniors, it was two rounds of impromptu, and a final round (if you were amongst the top two teams). The resolutions we debated were that “THBT liberal democracies should ban online anonymity” (for which we were prop) and that “THW (This House Would) impose a minimum age for pop stars” (for which we were opp). I was super nervous for this tournament. It was actually my first time being first speaker in a tournament, and I was so nervous about delivering a reply speech. But thanks to the Reply Speech session I had taken, I actually did a lot better than I had anticipated. My partner and I ended up 4th for team (winning both of our rounds) and I placed 6th for speaker. At the beginning of the camp, I never would have dreamed of doing that well.
This camp has helped me improve and to grow as a debater so much. I had so much fun, I learned so much, and I would definitely encourage anyone interested in debate to check it out.
And after these four incredible days of camp, what have I really learned?
That I always look derpy in photos.
(what an anti-climatic ending amiright?)