Forming a debate team... advice?

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>So next year me and a few of my friends are planning to form a debate team. Now, we've already found a teacher to sponsor us and essentially have approval from the principal (he says he's all for it, we just need to get the official documentation in and what-not). My question is, for those of you who have been on debate teams, or started them yourselves, what do we need to do? More specifically: How do we go to competitions? What organization(s) should we join (like the Nat'l Forensic League)? etc.</p>

<p>Any advice/suggestions are greatly appreciated. Oh, and if it makes a difference, we're in Florida.</p>

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<p>If you're interested in entering forensics, my first piece of advice would be to hire coaches or, if you can't find any, immediately teach your team to debate in the correct format for your event (LD vs. PF, for example). In terms of organizations to join, you'll want to join your state's chapter of the NFL, in addition to the CFL. To compete, register your team for competitions, pay the fee, and from there, good luck!</p>

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<p>Academic Team>Debate Team (on topic, i know)</p>

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<p>Debate team is definitely better than Academic team.</p>

<p>Our debate team was knew this year, but we did really well despite our sponsor learning a lot on the fly.</p>

<p>You need to know the different forms of debate (LD, Policy, Student Congress, Public Forum). Generally Policy is looked upon by colleges as the "best" but I dislike it. I'm an LD guy. From my experience (and this is JUST from my school), Public Forum and Student Congress are for slackers. Again, just my experience.</p>

<p>LD deals with moral issues (The death penalty ought not be used in a just society; Hate Crime enhancements are unjust in the United States). The topic changes every 2 months.</p>

<p>Public Forum deals with current events (In a democracy, civil disobedience is an appropriate weapon in the fight for justice; That the United States would be justified in pursuing military options against Iran). This topic changes every month.</p>

<p>Policy has a topic that changes once every year. It's very broad and it's possible (and common!) to have a different debate on the same topic every time you go in. (The United States federal government should substantially increase alternative energy incentives in the United States; The United States federal government should substantially increase its public health assistance to Sub-Saharan Africa). </p>

<p>I'm not familiar with Student Congress so hopefully someone else helps you out there.</p>

<p>Debate is really fun and the friends you'll make at conferences are the best. One second you'll be (hopefully) destroying them in a debate and then the next you're buying them pizza and talking about random topics. We only do NFL and we have a meet once a month (sometimes we do scrimmages). You will need to fundraise or get the appropriate funds from your school because it costs quite a bit. You'll need uniforms, but for this year we just dressed up however we wished as long as it was western business attire (since it was our first year).</p>

<p>Judges can sometimes be very arbitrary and they WILL be wrong. For example, we missed going to states by 1/2 a speaker point. The judge was not supposed to give .5 points so if it would've been bumped up like it should have been, we wouldn't went to states. Not to mention we beat the team that advanced. :(</p>

<p>Most importantly though, HAVE FUN!</p>

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<p>I agree with the posters above (except debate team is better than academic team). But, if you haven't already checked it out, the NFL has a lot of information that would be useful. </p>

<p>National</a> Forensic League, Speech & Debate Honor Society - Getting Started</p>

<p>Plus, the NFL website has a lot of other helpful articles. </p>

<p>Good luck with starting your team, and of course, have fun!</p>

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<p>Good Luck, it's a difficult enough undertaking for me to start an Lincoln-Douglas Team at my school.</p>

<p>First: Join the National Forensics League. sdr691 posted the link. They have the most excellent reasoures.</p>

<p>Second: YOU NEED MONEY. Don't kid yourself, you need a lot of it. Organize fundraisers. When your team is established enough, get your coach to host a tournament (another enormous undertaking). You need the money for registration fees, bus trips to take you to far-off schools to compete on weekends, judges.</p>

<p>Third: Make sure you have a really really really good Coach. They have to be able to organize the funds, help you out with your debating strategies, and most importantly, you will be spending like 10 hours on Saturdays with them.</p>

<p>Honestly, it's really hard to start a debate team. But you'll figure a lot of things out along the way, and the hard work is really worthwhile.</p>