About Debating

Dina O.
Feb 14, 2017
4 min read

Hello guys!

So, this time I have a chance on explaining my other passion other than writing and reading. I put it n my journal category, Why? Because I do it on daily basis. I chose to be a debater and now am currently on constant rehearsal with my coach and several friends of mine. I've even L.O-ed some high school debater teams because my school recently held this event.

What is debating?

That is the basic outline of definition of debate. But actually, it's much more bigger and complex than that. It's an activity where two teams acting as Government/Affirmative/Positive team versus Opposition/Opponent/Negative are debating to know which proposal of both teams that is more reasonable and sustainable.

The issue that is being debated called motion. Motions usually very detailed and there are two types of motions:

Seeing on the abbreviated motions: Proposal (THW / This House Would) and Philosophical (THBT / This House Believe That)
Seeing on how specific or broadly defined it is: Open, Semi-CLosed, and Closed.

We, as high schooler, we use Preliminary Debate, and me living in Indonesia, has to follow Asian Preliminary debate. In which we are given 30 minutes for case build, longest 7 minutes 20 seconds for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of both Affirmative and Opp's speakers to deliver their speeches and 4 minutes for the reply speaker (can be chosen from either 1st or 2nd speaker), but my school...and probably Indonesia, generally making 5 minutes and 20 seconds the longest for reply speakers.

What is the benefit of debating?

Definitely increasing your knowledge. How is that possible? The motions which are given are vary. From economy, environment, to democracy. It's not rare for us to meet motions which discuss about LGBTQ+ people and or even Trump. Debate is implicitly pushing you to keep reading on updates and browsing through websites you did not know exist. It's very possessive, indeed. But it is worth what it gives to us in return
Develop our critical thinking. As a good debater, we need to elaborate our arguments and link one thing to another. For example: As Indonesian Government, THW Require Environmentalists' Approval to Pass All Development Projects. We as Government team can see why this is very urgent. This can be linked to: We are developing country and we need to apply this requirement; why? Because Indonesia's environmental issues have been increasing and by applying the opinions of Environmentalists which have parameters and are expert on their field, this could help Indonesia to make decision. Environment shall come first rather than the economy. We don't want to be like China; they pollute their country in order to gain more and more funds, they think they'll be able to fix the damage in the future, but truth is, looking at its condition right now, China's polluted air is hard to be cured, let alone creating an eco-friendly country. Therefore, there's no difference if Indonesia applies it right now or in the future, because if we apply it in the future, Indonesia would be already damaged and in order to to fix that, we need more funds more than if we take a step right now for Indonesia to be a country which environment comes first. We as Opposition do not think that this is urgent at all, why? Because there has been no awareness in society yet, they only know the promise the government has been made and not how it will be crystallized. The development of building that supports their needs, etc. When government is prioritizing environmentalists's parameter, then the society will grow tired and they will be very sentiment toward the environmentalists, which actually blacklash their own purpose: to raise awareness toward the society to be concerned about the environment. So on and so far.
It's fun! I'm not even kidding. Especially when the topic is about sex education because there would be heaps of sexual innuendos delivered and jokes being made.
The competitions are endless. Once a week there'd be at least 2 debate competitions being held. And you can improve your skill by joining those and lean much more.

I don't think this I am capable of listing down all reasons why debating is a very productive activity that every people need to follow.

And what about my own experience?

Moving to my story. I wanted to join debating club in the very first place because my seniors publish it in a very tempting way. Our school is also well-known for its English debate. But as the time passed by, I was entirely sure of joining the debate because:

I'm a kind of person who likes to assume. I no longer wanted to be only an assumer (right? It's an ugly word), want to know.
I'm also a very curious person. Has been fed by many books, I know how systems work. But that's fictional life, and I'm living in real one. I want to understand why this requirement is needed in this region but not that. I want to know how society addresses to LGBTQ+ people and why it is so important.
I am generally learning on how to speak English. To write it down is one thing, but to public speak is another. I suck so bad at talking that I need to write down the entire speech on a paper. But actually, being able to debate HAS NOTHING TO DO with your capability of speaking English. It's a fallacy of logic. Debating is hard. If society keeps holding onto this logic, they implicitly accuse that people in Indonesia can debate because they can speak Indonesian. Hell no. My brother would be the #1 worst debater.

Moving to when I already joined, my former couch asked us to watch several movies from The Help (about discrimination toward black people) to Patch Adams (which is about an old man with dream of being a doctor). My coach knows exactly what to do and what to give us. After that, we started our intensive rehearsal. It's very fun to hear way of thinking from every corner. Especially when your school is apparently never run out of debaters and have a name of being the most successful school that holds debating activity. No joke.

The video below maybe could help you to find out something more about debate. Or, just stay tuned on my blog because I'm going to talk about debating a lot. Like, A LOT.