The debate club at my school is a joke. What to do?

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

My school is a pretty nice upper-middle class school, and has a number of speech and debate clubs and activities that are available to students. Model UN, Mock Trial, and Debate Club are all available, and they are all sponsored by the same teacher. I am involved in all three of these activities.

Up to this year, however, our school did not have debate. Debate is a new addition to our school’s offering of clubs, and unlike Model UN and Mock Trial, it is not being monitored or guided in any way by the teacher. The club is entirely student run, and unfortunately, does not appear to be the type of club that would be a very nice fit to me.

I am extremely passionate about debate, and I really do NOT want to quit, both because I enjoy the practice and because it would look nice on college applications, especially when listed in addition to similar activities like MUN and Mock Trial (displaying passion.) However, the founder and president of the club, a junior, runs the club in a manner that I do not believe to be genuine debate. I have much respect for her, and I have seen her skills as a Model UN and an attorney in Mock Trial. Debate, however, appears to be an activity with which she has no experience.

The club does not participate in competitions. The club does not learn about any legitimate debate format, such as lincoln-douglas, congressional, public forum etc., and instead likes to practice chaotic, unstructured arguments. I believe that there is a difference between argumentation and debate. Debate should be an art, like literature or poetry, while argumentation is simply unfiltered emotion and disagreement. The club picks debate topics which are very unclear and broad, and the debate becomes either very watered down, so chaotic that several people are speaking constantly at once, or just ends up completely off topic. The actually discourages research for some reason I cannot really be sure of. The entire club does not even resemble true debate, and consists of just a bunch of loud. young kids loudly voicing their opinions with utter disregard for their opponents, and with utter disregard for actually learning how to debate. Essentially, the entire classroom just shouts under-researched ideas at each other, not even listening to anyone or anything. In addition, the leadership of the club has very little experience and knowledge of how to practice official debate.

I hate to be rude, as I respect the participants of the club, as well as the founder of the club, but this unstructured format of club proceedings will not accomplish anything, and fail to improve anything other than the maximum decibel of peoples’ voices. This is my opinion. As of now, the club is nothing but an outlet for the pent up emotions of precocious high schoolers. There is no education or learning happening.

Given that there is good chance that if I remain, I will become president of the club in my junior and senior years, should I stay, in the hope that I could just tolerate this nonsense for now, until reforming it later? Or should I just quit now, and go find something else to do? Should I stay for a little longer, just to see if it may change for the better? I am afraid my ComApp will be weak on ECs; I was really counting on this club to put a little more color into my app…

Also, on a side note, since Lincoln-Douglas is a solo debate form, is it possible for me to participate in it, without a school team? How would I go about doing that?

2

What a great leadership opportunity.

3

Unfortunately, this form of debate appears to be very therapeutic to everyone. Also, the idea that such a “smart,” “official-sounding” activity, such as debate, could possibly be so easy to participate in is more convenient for everyone to believe. People embrace the club because they are not overwhelmed, and they feel good about themselves when they “win” a “debate” by screaming over the other person. In other words, I imagine that it would be difficult to change everybody’s mindset now as a young sophomore, and even later, when I’m a junior or a senior. Would you still consider this to be a leadership opportunity?

4

Yes.

5

Which type?
PF seems the most logical in this case if you started the team.

6

Have you told your club president or debate teacher about it? They might help make it more like debate and take your suggestion into account. It sounds like you really want to implement an actual debate type next year, so I’d say you should probably stick around this year to become president next year. Im not sure how quickly you can change everyone to an organized debate format, so it would be best if you helped the club ease into a real format by adding some rules and organization or something.
Just because your not president now, doesn’t mean you cant have an impact on others

7

I’M IN THE EXACT SAME SITUATION! I’m a sophomore and I’m going to revolutionize my club next year, just get a leadership position and I’ll tell you how to expand your club and make it the best in your school. It looks great on apps and it’s really fun to manage everything and watch it all come together (for me at least).

8

I think you should talk to your teacher and discuss the possibility of your club starting to compete in your state high school debate league (assuming there is one, there is in our state). By necessity that gives some format and structure to what your club is doing (topics are set, formats and rules are defined, etc.). The other thing I would suggest is scope out your fellow students for the most solid debate partner for competition.

If this doesn’t work, is there another high school in your town? Could you investigate competing with their team if your school isn’t going to participate in competitions? I know some students who have done that in our city for other clubs, like Robotics or swim team when their school didn’t field a team for competition.