Debate Helps Teenagers: A High School Student’s View

1. Debate Helps Teenagers: A High School Student’s View Debate makes sense to me as an academic boost and even social tool. There are many different outlets that you can involve yourself in to learn debate, such as summer debate camps, online debate camps and high school or middle school debate clubs. Debate teaches how to voice your opinion in an organized, convincing manner. You learn how to manipulate the English language in ways that your opponent cannot counter and in a way that conveys your point. You take advantage of human psychology and that becomes your biggest tool. Because of this, debate is an excellent social activity as well. It teaches you to take the time to understand how another mind works, and leads you to interact in a constructive way with other people. There are multiple debate competitions–one on one, two on two, even large group events, such as model congress and model united nations. Multiple debaters can cover a plethora of different perspectives on the same issue. The outcome of large group debate can be very surprising. Teenagers who participate in debate are motivated to explore current events and the past. Competition gets your attention and spurs you to undertake research. You discover that studying textbooks and newspapers can be fun, not to earn a grade, but to win a point. Adults constantly remind me and my peers how important scholastic performance is for our future and how important thoughtful discussions are for our society. Debate is a recreational and analytical tool that we teenagers can use to better ourselves academically and socially. Debate helps us in school and in our future.