Debating also has a social aspect. Sam Collier, another Dulwich debater who went on to study at Oxford in 2012 – and was a member of the England Debating Team, going on to rank as the second- best speaker in the world at the World School’s Debating Championship – reflects ‘you get along with everyone because you all have a common interest,’ and debating has left him with ‘many great debating friends who I still keep in contact with.’ Beyond meeting interesting people, debaters argue about interesting topics like ‘This house would make Holocaust denial illegal’ or ‘This house would invade Syria’. For many students, this has created an interest in a particular area and for Sayeqa ‘it has had a very direct impact on the causes I am passionate about and areas that I was not exposed to prior to debating. These are areas that I have gone on to focus on in my work.’ Another benefit of debating, if you get into the national team, is overseas travel. The England
What is debating? Considered by some to be a spor t, debating is best characterised as a game that allows par ticipants to play with ideas, ideologies and systems. In each debate there are four teams, each composed of two people, with two teams arguing in favour of the motion and two against.You are given a motion like ‘This house would aggressively stream students according to their academic ability from an early age’, randomly allocated to a side of the debate and given 15 minutes to prepare a five-minute speech. In order to win the debate your team must have addressed the key issues and demonstrated that, by the end of the competition, your arguments still held (i.e. had not been effectively countered) and were the strongest and most compelling on offer. To win a debate, you must therefore be effective at substance (i.e. is the information we’re conveying the most per tinent?) and style (i.e. have we argued our material in an interesting and persuasive manner?). World School’s Debating Team annually travels to the World School’s Debating Championship and for Sam ‘the World Schools’ in South Africa was probably the best experience of my life – there is nothing quite like it.’ This year Louis and Will, two of four members of the England World Schools’ Debating Team, will be heading to Thailand; whilst last year Will went to Turkey with the Team as well. As if that isn’t enough of an incentive to become involved, Sayeqa has a final claim about the appeal of debating: ‘It’s absolutely open to anyone. If you are someone who is hesitant and thinks maybe debating is not for me, my only advice would be come and see what it is about. I am directly talking to the shy kid: please come to debating and I think you will be pleasantly surprised how accessible debating is to all types of characters and backgrounds.’
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