Masters of Debate

DEBATE. Students Hannah Hillis, Eli Berman, and Iylaf Almustafa standing at Gig Harbor High School with their awards. Speech and Debate is a public speaking sport that includesLincoln Douglas Debate, Interpretation, Poetry, Story Telling, SPAR, Original Spoken Oratory, and many more. Photo courtesy of Jennifer Wilke.

Arguing, acting, speaking, debating, interpreting, all these events and more at VHS’s very own debate team! This year, Vashon High School's debate team has been amazing, specifically in the spontaneous argumentation, Lincoln Douglas Debate and informative speaking events. A newer category for our school is interpretive events, which has only just recently been added to the VHS debate resume. The VHS debate program has been around for a while, but is just now springing back to life since the pandemic.

Spontaneous argumentation, or SPAR, is the category where students are given a prompt, and have to spontaneously argue with the opponent. Lincoln Douglas Debate is an event categorized by a one-on-one debate, usually about justice, morals or philosophy. Interpretation or “interp” is an event category where one or more students act out a prepared scene from a pre-published play or skit. It can be dramatic, humorous, or done with a partner. Informative Speaking is an event where the speaker picks a topic they’d like to inform people about, then write an informative speech to present in front of a small crowd of about five other students and one to three judges. All events have time limits, which can range from five to forty-five  minutes, but most have a thirty second grace period.

This program was thriving before COVID, but it died off during the pandemic.

“There was a lot of success in the 90’s... We’ve historically had lots of success… Mrs. Wilke [the current volunteer coach] and the coaching team have done a great job reviving the program after COVID,” Matt. Tilden, a previous coach and social studies teacher, said.

While there was lots of success pre COVID, there has also been lots of success bringing the program back to life!

“We had a strong debate team years ago, and then the coach left… COVID came and the whole program died,” volunteer coach Jennifer Wilke said. 

This year's coaching team is led by Jon Howland, who meets with students and helps them practice,such as setting up practice debates with other schools and helping develop arguments. He mostly works with the Lincoln Douglas Debaters. Practice debates are much like real debates, and for the interpretive events, practice looks like rehearsing performances, or recording students practicing. For events like Original Spoken Word Poetry, it's all about writing, refining and repetition.

“I love Speech and Debate because I can compete in something competitive without it feeling competitive, and it's like its own little community in its own way, and I love the event I’m doing, which is informative speaking, since I love choosing my own topic to share with people.” Said Senior Eva Watkins, who competes in speech and debate in the informative speaking event. 

This year, VHS’s team has four varsity debaters, and many more novices, or first year debaters, a student can be a novice in one event and compete in “open” in another. Open is for more advanced debaters.. Junior Iylaf Almustafa placed in Lincoln Douglas debate last year, and informative speaking this year. Hannah Hillis has also been bringing the wins in SPAR and other events. Way to go Iylaf and Hannah!

Junior Willa O’Reilley, has applied for, and been awarded, the Appleford Grant through Vashon Partners in Education to help pay for this year's session, Speech can be pricey, especially for Lincoln Douglas debaters, who have to pay fifty dollars each round they miss, if they are absent.

All in all, VHS’s debate team has grown a lot since COVID, and with the support of all the amazing coaching staff, students and volunteers, it will continue to grow. Great job, debaters!

BREAK. Students taking a snack break after, or in between, their events. When competing in Speech and Debate it is of utmost importance to stay at full mental capacity, so no hunger allowed. Photo courtesy of Jennifer Wilke.