Embedded Files
When I think about the environment, it often feels like you can only go one way, more education more sustainability practices and more efforts to stop climate change. But not everyone agrees about climate change and moreover, even the people who do agree about it, they have differences on what to do about it. We never put ourselves in their shoes and think about how they think. The debate section of the Youth Green deal did just that for me. I was forced to think about the other perspective. Our motion was “ Teaching about environment and climate change related issues must be be included as a mandatory subject in the curriculum even at the cost of reducing study hours for the other subjects”. The participants were divided into two teams of 4 debators, a team of 4 adjuticators and the rest as observers. We were given 1.5 hours of time for preparation of initial statement and arguments. The teams were pro and against the motion. The oxford method of debating was to be followed.
We centered our arguments on the point that while climate change was important, its introduction as a mandatory subject will only add additional burden to the students and make them lose interest. However, there can be after school voluntary activities that can help them learn in fun and interactive ways about this topic. When the debate started, the other team came strongly in favor of the topic by emphasizing the importance about learning about the climate change. Personally, I was impressed by their arguments. However, what they did not actually anticipate was that we would not go against the education part, but just the tactic of how to do it.
After the debate was concluded, the judges went outside to discuss how they had judged each participant and team according to a pre-decided matrix. During that time, even though the debate was over, an informal debate started between the two teams, where each participant so enthusiastically presented additional arguments and counter arguments that you could feel that they were excited to be heard on their topic and they were passionate about their arguments. It was no longer an activity, but a general discussion of people who seemed to care about the subject.
After the debate was concluded, the judges went outside to discuss how they had judged each participant and team according to a pre-decided matrix. During that time, even though the debate was over, an informal debate started between the two teams, where each participant so enthusiastically presented additional arguments and counter arguments that you could feel that they were excited to be heard on their topic and they were passionate about their arguments. It was no longer an activity, but a general discussion of people who seemed to care about the subject. When the judges came back in, they appreciated all the participants’ efforts, and announced the winner. My competitive spirit wanted our team to win. And when the judges announced the winner, it was in fact our team that had won. Both team engaged in some friendly banter after that, but it ended with increased mutual respect for each team. We believe that this was the best task we had in the entire project, it worked on multiple levels for us. We got a first experience of how to debate in a structured manner, a deeper intuition about the topic and a respect for different points of views.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse