Come experience a debate tournament first-hand by signing up to judge!

The National Christian Forensic and Communications Association’s Regional Invitational Tournament in Savannah next week Apr 23 to Apr 26 and is a perfect opportunity to see if debate is right for your family.

From Michele Norman –

Here is the link to sign up to judge at next week’s NCFCA Regional Invitational Tournament in Savannah, GA.  You will be seeing the best of our region’s speakers as they seek to qualify to compete at the national tournament this summer.

Please do not feel as if you need to have any special qualifications to be a judge.  As mentioned in class, you will receive trained in how to judge, fill out a ballot, etc.  I may have forgotten to mention that there are snacks for our judges as well!

I know that there are several families in our class considering participating in speech and debate for their children’s high school years.  In my family’s twenty-one years of homeschooling the NCFCA has been the best investment of our time and resources not only for academic purposes but, most importantly, for character building.  The students and parents in this video communicate it far better than I can.

Perhaps you’re not interested in participating in the future.  That’s okay!  You will be blessed by witnessing so many students who can think and communicate for the glory of God.  Please, please come and judge!

Please feel free to call/email me if you have any questions!!

Thanks so much,

Michele Norman

843-592-0020

michelenorm@gmail.com

Have you ever wondered why your student should participate in debate? Here are 17 reasons from Homeschool World Magazine – http://www.home-school.com/Articles/the-benefits-of-debate.php

1. Debate provides preparation for effective participation in a society with representative government. Our form of civil governance has relied upon debate to empower citizens with greater knowledge and to help spread that knowledge. This allows fellow citizens to more effectively participate in the democratic process.
2. Debate offers preparation for leadership. The fundamental requirement of all leaders in any position is to provide direction and be able to explain why that direction is needed.
3. Debate offers training in argumentation. From its earliest beginnings to today, debate has been the best practice for argumentation. As an educational method, it offers short-term and long-term motivations and rewards.
4. Debate provides for investigation and intensive analysis of significant contemporary problems. While education in general might only touch upon various recent issues, debate topics cover ground students may never discuss and in much greater depth than most curriculums will allow. Some debaters comment that after researching and debating a public policy topic for a year they are now more interested in that topic in general.
5. Debate helps integrate knowledge. Debate topics are multi-faceted and cut across several disciplines. This allows debaters to gain knowledge from unique disciplines outside the student’s normal academic subjects.
6. Debate develops proficiency in purposeful inquiry. Often debate topics are on the cutting edge, dealing with new technology and different ideas from the norm of the day. By learning to research and inquire into new sources, debaters find ways of collecting data new to them.
7. Debate emphasizes quality instruction. Since classical rhetoric was taught in ancient times, argumentation and debate instruction has relied more upon interactive coaching and a closer relationship between coach and student than most other educational settings.
8. Debate encourages student scholarship. While some parents and students worry that debate might interfere with other education, most report that it enhances their work in general education with better note taking skills, research skills, organization, and presentations. The competition encourages students to pursue their regular course work with vigor and use their full capabilities. David Zarefesky, former associate dean of the School of Speech at Northwestern University, remarked that “debaters gain research skills at a pretty sophisticated level, certainly compared to undergraduates in general… in intensity it is equivalent to working on a masters thesis.” 2
9. Debate develops the ability to make prompt, analytical responses. Cross-examination demands quick and decisive responses to questions about argumentation made before.
10. Debate develops critical listening skills. Debaters develop excellent listening skills from their first debate when they learn that they must know their opponent’s arguments as well as their own. Through making accurate and practiced note taking of the “flow” of a debate round, debaters learn to glean and analyze information as they hear it.
11. Debate develops proficiency in writing. While the greater part of debate is perceived to be speaking in front of people, a good portion is research and preparation of argumentation before ever standing in front of another team or judge. This researching, writing, and arguing ability will carry over to many other fields such as preparing research and background papers and answering essay questions on exams.
12. Debate encourages mature judgment. Debaters learn the value of suspending judgment until both sides are scrutinized. After debating both sides of an issue for an entire year, debaters know that the complex issues of today have many sides that need to be examined.
13. Debate develops courage. Most people would rather be in the casket at a funeral than giving the eulogy. It takes discipline, preparation, and a bit of bravery to stand up and defend a position in front of a judge and another team arguing the exact opposite.
14. Debate encourages effective speech composition and delivery. Debate not only requires work in knowing speech material, but in the presentation of the material. Debaters will present before hostile teams and in front of class.
15. Debate helps develops social maturity. The business-like atmosphere of a debate tournament coupled with the diversity within the debate community forces debaters to react to various situations. Along with the competitive prospect of losing or winning, debaters learn appropriate manners and proper behavior.
16. Debate develops computer competencies. Most research by debaters is now done on various types of computer systems. Whether Internet, college library catalogs, or databases, debaters learn how to find, organize, and use the information they collect.
17. Debate uses students’ skills to their utmost. To argue requires students to: research issues, organize and analyze data, synthesize different kinds of data, evaluate the conclusion drawn from the data, understand how to reason the conclusions, recognize and critique different methods of reason, and comprehend the logic of decision making.