What was your experience with debate in school?

[imawesome 449]

Just curious, have any of you ever done middle school or high school debate? 

I debated in middle school but not in high school. I remember I had a REALLY bad partner (she got the 138th speaker award out of 139), but she was generally a nice person. For the third tournament, she had to go to this church thing and so I got a much more fitting partner instead, and we got 4th place team. 

I also remember that our coach was also my math teacher and he was pretty strict, saying things like, "We're the best team, show them that" and constantly talking about how in the City Finals one of teams barely talked about Topicality and that was the reason the lost. If you DON'T do debate, I won't dig deep in my experiences, because you'd probably be lost. But I had lots of fun doing it and would love to hear about everyone else's experiences! 

[Lucky Bolt 35,062]

No, I don't believe I ever did... 

[Mellow Mane 5,931]

We had to debate in the last year of high school in groups of 4. two person against and two persons in favor. Our group had to debate about decreasing the legal age for alcohol to 16 (it's 18 now). My friend and I were against. I was really nervous before the actual debate but when it was my turn to speak I suddenly stopped being nervous and calmly explained all of my arguments.

[TBD 17,254]

Meh it's okay since I'm not bad at it but I prefer mock trial. 

[Lucid_Nightlight 923]

Took professional communications and had some debates. The teacher would always interupt being like "point of clarity this, point of clarity that." She was always interupting to try and make herself sound smart.

[Dashy 4 Ever 4,835]

Yeah, I did a couple of them. Mostly about politics and martial arts which would get on my nerves.

[SparklingSquirrels 21,340]

No way, I tried to avoid public speaking as it is, never would I want to do it as a hobby

[Treeglow Flicker 13,619]

I never did anything like that. My school didn't really have any clubs or groups of any description.

Besides. I'm not really one for debate.

[Here No Longer 5,276]

We didn't have a debate club in school. Needless to say if there were one, I'd have never considered joining.

[Phosphor 11,528]

Debate was offered in high school, but I didn't take it. I took economics instead, which was quite easy since the teacher was also a baseball coach.... and it was baseball season.   

 Now that I think about it, there weren't enough students signed up for the debate class, anyway. 

[imawesome 449]

When I did debate, the first year topic was immigration. It's funny now because everyone used to think I'd make a perfect lawyer except my mom... who was a lawyer. 

[Nsxile 26,898]

I don't think there were any proper debates in my high school...