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However apart from the personal learnings, the topics of the debate helped me consider the questions about war and education critically and look at these issues from different perspectives.
This debate was very educational and I am glad I was a part of it.
Learning outcomes achieved:
1. Increased awareness of my own strengths and areas of growth
2. Planned and initiated activities
3. Engaged with issues of global importance
Though I'd taken part in several elocution competitions and extempores, I had interestingly never taken part in a formal debate. The inter-house debate in Indus (my new school) was my first experience.
The topic for the preliminary round was “Does religion cause war?” Whenever I write something, I write down the first thing that comes to my mind and later revise it. However this was a topic for which I had points for both for and against and as I kept writing whatever came to my mind, I ended up confused not knowing what I believed. This was when I realized that it helps to arrange my thoughts before I start writing. I drew mind maps and I saw that my thoughts became clearer and I could make more connections.
The topic for the preliminary round was “Does religion cause war?” Whenever I write something, I write down the first thing that comes to my mind and later revise it. However this was a topic for which I had points for both for and against and as I kept writing whatever came to my mind, I ended up confused not knowing what I believed. This was when I realized that it helps to arrange my thoughts before I start writing. I drew mind maps and I saw that my thoughts became clearer and I could make more connections.
During the debate itself I practiced
listening to others completely. When someone contradicts me or is arguing with
me, I generally start thinking of ways to come back even before they are done.
So this was a good practice.
The topic for the debate finals was “Should
schooling be voluntary?” For some reason I thought I topic was “ Should
schooling be compulsory?” So when my teammate said she wanted to be against the
topic, I was happy and I planned my speech on why I thought schooling should be
made compulsory. It was only 10 minutes before the debate that we realized that
we were both saying the same thing. So I naturally panicked. I had to suddenly
twist my entire argument around. I could not think of anything. However once I
stopped panicking and allowed myself to relax, thoughts and ideas started
coming to me. I also realized that I could not possibly twist my previous
argument around. So once I let go of previous thoughts and stopped panicking I
got new ideas. My team won!
I also learned from this instance that misunderstandings come from assumptions. Hence it is better to be doubly sure that assume
I also learned from this instance that misunderstandings come from assumptions. Hence it is better to be doubly sure that assume
However apart from the personal learnings, the topics of the debate helped me consider the questions about war and education critically and look at these issues from different perspectives.
This debate was very educational and I am glad I was a part of it.
Learning outcomes achieved:
1. Increased awareness of my own strengths and areas of growth
2. Planned and initiated activities
3. Engaged with issues of global importance
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