DEFENDING YOUR SPEECH PROGRAM
A Speech and Debate Program provides students with an invaluable
experience that no regular class can offer. A school that invests money into
sending students to compete in basketball, soccer and other sports, also should
make an investment in an academic activity that gives students so much
education.
Students in Speech and Debate learn valuable skills that benefit
them throughout their lives. According to scholars Ronald Matlon and Thompson
Briggers, students who participate on Speech and Debate teams become, disproportionately,
the most successful business, political, communication, and legal leaders.
Included in the most notable of this group are former president John F.
Kennedy, news journalist Jane Pauley, and famous legal scholar Laurence Tribe.
I can attest to Matlon and Briggers' findings for I am proud to be the coach of
an honors scholar at Columbia Law School and a leading researcher in the
renowned department of Astronomy at the University of Arizona.
A Speech and Debate Team ensures that students have the best
opportunities available to them. Consider the following benefits:
1. Strong Research Skills
Students learn how to use a library at a very sophisticated level.
Their learning goes beyond what students typically attain in other courses and
in visits to the library. They learn to use advanced databases, government
documents, and electronic on-line information. Plus, when they research they
must do so at a level of depth that goes well beyond a typical class paper,
including ten and twenty page ones. Dedicated, championship level students will
spend hours working at your library, mulling over articles and books,
researching at a level that rivals the work college masters candidates put into
their theses. These students bring these research skills to others at your
school as well, offering tips and help.
2. Strong Communication Skills
Students in speech and debate learn skills in speaking. The effort
to do their best in competition encourages them to communicate in the most
effective way for their audience. Students learn to adapt to differing judges
because every round they must adjust to the judge in front of them. They
improve as communicators as a result of the many comments they receive from a
diverse group of judges. It is true that students in championship policy team
debate have a tendency to speak too rapidly. However, the better debaters are
able to speak slowly and persuasively when their judges prefer that style of
delivery. And the "quick" debaters with whom I have worked, were also,
without exception, able to adjust to regular speaking situations with clear and
articulate presentations (and were far better than other students who did not
participate on the speech and debate team). Indeed, here at
3. Increased Knowledge about our World
Students in speech and debate learn about a wide variety of issues confronting
our world. Students intensively discuss and research issues like immigration
into the
4. Increased Critical Thinking Skills
Students in speech and debate do not accept information
uncritically from others. Instead, they think about how strongly supported the
arguments of others are. They learn to think through arguments and to analyze
them critically. At tournaments, students are subjected to a wide variety of
arguments. Students who debate only in a classroom are not exposed to as wide a
diversity of arguments, leaving them less knowledgeable about the world.
5. Develop Team Work Skills
While students engage in this competitive activity, they also work
together to make themselves as strong as possible. Students in speech and
debate form a strong and cohesive group. Trips to tournaments bring students
together in the van, at restaurants, and at hotels. They form strong bonds with
each other that do not happen in a classroom. They study and work together.
They are friends with each other. In competing against other schools, students
learn ethical approaches to competing as well as the importance of working
together as a team.
6. Build Educational Connections with other Schools
Students on a speech and debate team make strong connections with
other schools. Students compete with and talk with students from other schools.
Students get feedback from instructors at other schools. Coaches learn from the
wide variety of speeches they hear and that enhances their instruction in
classes they teach. These connections enhance the learning experience and add
to the strength of your school.
7. Beneficial to Student Futures
Maintaining a speech and debate program provides more opportunities
for students trying to enter into colleges. Students who have competed in
forensics are considered top notch recruits for graduate school because
recruiters know that these students are committed, hard working students. At
many communication and law schools as well as political science graduate
schools, students are offered scholarships for their skill in forensics. This
opportunity would be lost without such a program.
All in all, forensics is an activity with unique educational
benefits. Students get the opportunity to engage in an intellectually
challenging competition between their ideas and those of other people. They
develop skills that will make them more effective advocates. And, perhaps most
important, they develop a lasting group of friends who share their interests.