Debating Final 2020!
By Elizabeth Pleiger
The other week, on the 22nd of October, St Kevin’s college held their finals for the senior debating. All debating teams involved from houses did an amazing job in the debates and a special congratulations go to Whyte house who were the overall winners of the debating competition. The debaters in the team were, Bethan Adourn, Alex Houston, and Joel Kunethadam, Whyte won overall by 8 points and huge congratulations to Bethan who won the best speaker overall. Bethan Ardouin, the leader of the Whyte house debating team shared with me her recipe for success when it comes to debating.
I asked Bethan, What makes you a good debating team? [Bethan, Alex, and Joel]. Bethan shared “Me, Alex, and Joel have grown up used to working together. After our year in the top six, we understand how each other’s minds work, and we are good at communicating. I think we know each other’s strengths, know which points best suit each speaker, for example, Alex giving stats in a professional manner and talking about logistics. Me talking about morality and trying to pull heartstrings, and Joel getting fiery and delivering good rebuttal to the other team’s points.”
As I followed up I asked, What are your own personal tips for good debating? To which she replied “My tips for good debating are to make sure you are prepared. Having quotes or statistics to back up an argument is always really helpful. Something I personally like to use my advantage is speaking with passion. If you deliver your speech with conviction, that adds power. Also, team communication, both before and during the debate, bouncing ideas off of each other in terms of coming up with the rebuttal.”
I then asked what got her into debating, to begin with? To which she gave me the answer of “ I became interested in debating in year 10. I’ve always enjoyed public speaking, and I’m quite a political person who’s quite vocal about what I think is moral, so I thought debating would suit me well. Since that year, I’ve loved debating. It’s a brilliant atmosphere, it’s very rewarding in a way that regular public speaking isn’t. It’s given me friendships and rivalries with people from other schools, it’s definitely something that requires quick thinking, but that just adds an extra layer of adrenaline and satisfaction.”
I then concluded by asking about her views on Whyte’s win and what she thinks her team did right to secure the win? Bethan shared “ I think Whyte house won because we had a good team strategy. We play to each other’s strengths and build on each other’s ideas. Also, Joel, Alex, and I are all confident speakers, so we are all strong in terms of delivery. As well as that, all three of us are relatively experienced debaters, so I think our knowledge of how to communicate ideas effectively helped us out quite a lot. It was also a very close debate though, and there were strong arguments on both sides, but Whyte house focused a lot more on morals as well as practicality, and finding the moral high ground is essential to debating.”
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