One of the most important, but hard, task for students to achieve is to have creative mind and critical thinking. Mixed thinking of creative and critical mind leads teenagers to form unique ego, which makes each person more special. Furthermore, these values make everyone more precious and indispensable. These are a few of the reasons why a lot of schools and academic institutions emphasize above skills as the main ideologies,which schools need to fulfill through teaching students. Among plenty ways to develop the skills, ‘Debating’ is the most efficient way to accomplish the purpose; creative mind and critical thinking. In this essay, I will present the general knowledge about debate and its effects.
The debate what I mean in this essay is different from casual debate or anargument which occurs with friends or other people. Of course, arguing with friends orparents is also a part of debate, but the debate, which I am trying to explain, is about the competing parliamentary debate. These debates are the model of British parliament, but were transformed and fixed for Asians – Asian Parliamentary Debate.
Asian Parliamentary Debate is as same as the real congress debate. There are two different sides claiming opposing opinion of a motion. There isPrime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Leader of Opposition, Deputy Leader of Opposition and Whip, which has each different role to fulfill. 3 people are in a group and they are called first (Prime Minister, Leader of Opposition), second (Deputy Prime Minister, Deputy Leader of Opposition) and third (Government Whip, Opposition Whip) speaker. The first speakers of each side have to define the motion with general background knowledge and argument. Also, they have to suggest problems of the current social status with justifications for what they are claiming. Second speakers should rebut to opposing argument and present one or two arguments, which first speaker has justified. Arguments should contain assertion, reasoning, evidence and impact. Lastly, third speaker should generally summary what previous speakers argued and claimed about with well-developed linkage, which areclashes. Each speaker must achieve each role with the respect and formality toward opposing team, adjudicator and the spirit of the motion.
The rule is simple. The division is divided into two groups; middle school age and high school age. They compete with same age group with equal rules. There are preliminary and real rounds.Preliminary rounds areproceeding as a form of league and the break round is proceeding as a tournament. There are 5 preliminary rounds and each round has an adjudicator who judges the round. The team who has more wins is breaking to the real round. The number of the breaking team is different in every single competition. Usually there are 3 impromptu rounds, 2 prepared rounds out of 5 preliminary rounds. Each team has 30 minutes to prepare in each impromptu round, while no preparing time is allowed in prepared rounds. Prepared rounds requires high quality of statistics with a lot of efforts, however, the background knowledge is more important on the impromptu rounds because no electronic or technological devices are allowed during the preparing time but only paper dictionary. The real round is lively broadcasted on television with audiences and 5~10 adjudicators. The motion becomes more advanced, and, as it’s a tournament format, you no longer have chance to go upper roundsonce you lost a round. So a list of matches and luck also has big influence on match results in the real rounds.
Debate is effective method for students to ponder in bigger picture. Debate motion has a lot different themes; human rights, environment, law, common knowledge and so on which are unpredictable. Also, each theme has uncountable numbers of sub motions. For example, under the theme of human right, the motion can be created about women, race, social minorities, teenagers etc. Therefore, to prepare for the competitions, debaters should do immense amount of researches and experiments. When I was preparing for the theme, law, I had to search for the aims of punishment, elements to call the act as a crime, the current Korean and the United States’ law system, current status quo and so on. Like such, through preparation, students are likely to improve depth of knowledge and quality. Moreover, concerning the nature of debate, students are able to learn how to speak well and logically.
Debate also helps students to ponder creatively. Every debate round has to attack or defend the motion. The Opposition usually attacks the motion and the Government mostly defends the motion. When attacking, Opposition side has to think about the counter policy. Counter policy is the policy that can have better effects with lower efforts. As an example, if the motion suggests banning tobacco products, Opposition has to introduce the better way to solve the social problems, instead of banning, with logical, trustable arguments and evidences. Throughout this process, students get to think about the better way to enhance the weak part of the world, society and life.
Moreover, people can also improve critical thinking. Attacking sides always brings out better policy which sounds more efficient. But, as a defending team, team members have to rebut every single point that the attackers make to drag down the motion. Defenders not only have to rebut, but also have to continuously emphasize and prove why their policy is better than others’. During this procedure, defenders must think about the weakness and paradoxes of opposing side’s new policy or arguments. Accepting others’ opinion on the critical view can form each person’s own stubborn value of thinking.
The world is seeking people who have creative mind with critical thinking because they can develop the world by solving and complementing the current status or problems. This is the primary reason why academies try hard to develop such skills for students. Due to all the effects above, I believe debating can lead students to think more deeply with complex logic.
<Website>
1. http://cafe.naver.com/evandebate/7
2. http://cafe.naver.com/debatediscuss/18
3. http://blog.naver.com/pjj2788?Redirect=Log&logNo=60189963483
<Book>
1. YTN English Debate –YTN Broad casting company (Not on sale)
2. Cheong-shim Diary -9beans (Publish-늘봄, Neul-bom)
<Newspaper>
English specified high school, raising global leaders-Chung-chungToday(2000,01,01, 9th page)
fliegen high! 