Debating Championship

My name is Alona, I'm 17, and I had to have very clear and well-formed opinions about these exact issues when I went to the World Schools' Debating Championships which were held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania last month. 28 countries participated this year in the international debating championships for high school students. Among those countries were England, Germany, Peru, Scotland and even Singapore and Brinei. And Israel of course, which is where I live.

Debating in Israel is practiced in Hebrew, Arabic and the holy language of English. I'm here to tell you about some of my experience with the English debating, because I think it's great and at the moment I am very pleased with it.

I started debating about three years ago, in a summer debating workshop held in Jerusalem (where I live) by "Siah Vasig", the Israeli debating society. There was a group of about twenty kids in the workshop, and we learned how to use some structure and logic and humor in order to make what we were trying to say sound convincing. Mind you, we were trying to sound convincing about stupid things like little green men coming in from outer space, but that's what debating is about: Being persuasive about any topic you are given.

Soon after that week there was a national tournament, which won me a place on a team going to debate in Argentina. That was a long time ago. Since then I have been to tournaments in Argentina (as I said), England, Croatia, England (again), and just now in the USA.

What do we (the five members of the Israeli team) do in these tournaments? Well, there is the debating aspect of it, of course, which is great intellectual stimulation because it forces you to think about issues most teenagers never really deal with (third world debt, multi-national organizations, civil war, women's rights), and allows you to get the rush of adrenaline from speaking in front of an audience (my largest audience was in a debate against New Zealand. We had a school of 600 in the auditorium watching us).

But besides debating, these tournaments are the best way to meet interesting new people. It is very typical to walk through the hotel lobby at night and find a mixed group consisting of some Irish, Greek, Bermudan, Israelis and Pakistanis (which, as fate would have it, is the country my team seems to always like best) sitting around singing "Don't cry for me Argentinian" or "Bohemian Rhapsody" at the top of their lungs (which leads to hoarse voices for the debate the next day, but that's another issue).

This year there was an added benefit, because we came out with the satisfaction of making the semi-finals. That put us third in the world. I'll explain that last year we came in 14th, and that was considered a very normal placement for a non-English speaking country to come in. So we jumped 11 places in the ranking, made the semi-finals, lost to England, and then watched them lose to Australia (who won the championships. 7-0).

I'm back in Israel now, and there are no more trips for me because I'm graduating high school and will be in the army next year. But I'm still pretty involved because I coach a group of debaters in Jerusalem along with two teammates of mine. And hopefully next year some of our group will make the national team. If any of you have any questions about debating, or if you live in Israel and are interested in hearing how you can start debating too, please feel free to write me, and I'll try to answer on anything I can.

Alona-