Greenwood students take third place at the Fulford Debate Tournament

Maya Kassam ‘28 and Violet Kostoff ‘28 represented Greenwood at the Fall Fulford Debate Tournament at Appleby College on November 2. The two are members of Greenwood’s Debate Club, and Ms. Dienesch, the teacher supervisor of the club, invited interested students to attend the tournament. Maya and Violet agreed to participate, both with prior experience in debating and public speaking. 

The tournament consisted of three rounds with the first two rounds being about the same motion: “social media should be banned for anyone under 16”. Each participant then had to argue for one position in the first round before arguing for the other position in the second round. All participants were given the motion a week in advance to prepare. 

“It was a bit intimidating to see other participants bring big binders into the tournament,” Maya recalls. “But as soon as I started to speak, I felt way more confident and it was fun.”

“It was a lot easier to argue for the House’s position rather than the opposition side for the first two rounds,” says Violet. “There is a lot of statistical evidence to support a social media ban.”

The third round was an impromptu round to argue whether a work week should be four days instead of five. 

Maya and Violet were paired with students from different schools for each round. “It was interesting to see what techniques other participants used in the debate,” Maya says. “Some students would adjust their cadence like speaking slowly for emphasis or speaking quickly.” 

Before beginning each round, the partners had 15 minutes to prepare their arguing points. Each participant was individually scored by the judges but teamwork was a factor to the score. The two students placed third overall in the Junior (Grades 9 and 10) category out of 18 other schools. Congratulations to Maya and Violet!