Clash of the Pi-thons

Paideia Policy Team Finishes 4th in District

The NFL’s North Georgia Mountain District policy debate tournament was held the first weekend in April, and was the last tournament of the debate teams first season. This tournament is an “open” division, meaning that JV & Varsity are together in the pairings. Paideia had two teams enter, neither of which had debated at the varsity level before.

Team LW & TN made it out of the first two rounds on Friday night (held at Grady High School) and into the second day, which was held at Emory. After waiting and waiting and waiting, round 3 finally got underway. T & L debated three rounds before getting the second loss and out; only 3 other teams had better W-L records. In addition, they made a “cameo” appearance in a Student Congress session (a favor to the tournament director, who needed two more ‘congresspersons’ for a full house).

A fantastic way to finish Paideia’s first ever debate year. Next year is going to be amazing!

Paideia Does Proud at Milton Tournament

Well, it wasn’t the Golden Eagle, but Paideia put on a darned good showing at the rescheduled Milton HS tournament this weekend.  SG and CB stood their ground and advanced their skills in Original Oratory (OO).  In JV Policy, both our teams made it to the semi-finals, losing to Westminster and Lakeside on split decisions (3-2 for Paideia CA, and 2-1 for Paideia NW).

In individual awards, 3 of 10 speaker awards went to Paideia.  CA-D at #10, TN at #7, and LW got #5.  Way to go Pythons!

March/April Lincoln-Douglas Topic

Resolved: Hate crime enhancements are unjust in the United States.

What the heck does this mean?  A “hate crime enhancement” is an additional penalty, or increase in severity of a criminal charge, for a hate crime — one motivated by racism, homophobia, religion or a number of other categories. 

Discussion and information to get you started can be found here and here. Look for links to NFL overview info coming soon.

Sources for Energy Info and Evidence

Jump start to 2008-2009:

Debate Central has links to several alternative energy-relevant articles by the National Center for Policy Analysis.  Get to know Debate Central’s website.  OK?

Milton Tournament Rescheduled

Same place, same times, same schedule.  New date: Friday, Febrary 1 (policy debate only) and Saturday, February 2 (IEs, LD & Public Forum debate; policy continues with Round 3.

2008-2008 Policy Topic: Alternative Energy

Announced this week by the National Federation of High Schools (NFHS):

Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase alternative energy incentives in the United States.

This early announcement is great — it means that we’ll have a live topic to work with during the Spring Short Term debate class. I will also begin to bookmark & share any pertinent documents on the topic. Check Bookmarked Websites and Debate News at Google Reader (both under the Useful Links sidebar heading) for recent additions. The ten most recent bookmarks, with direct links, show up below that. Look for the “Debate-2008″ tag soon.

To see how each debate state voted, see the 2008-2009 Debate Topic Announcement at the NFHS site.

Topic Synopsis at NFHS (you can also see the 4 topics not chosen)

Topic Discussion at NFHS (PDF download)

Win Hamburgers for Debating!

Only 21 more days left to enter Princeton Review’s Great Debaters contest.  This is a chance to play with “old-fashioned” debate.  You know, where the audience can understand what you say, topicality isn’t an issue and no esoteric kritiks?

You and a buddy choose one of the three topics below, prepare your arguments, and create a 4-minute video of your debate.  Upload your debate on the contest website, and you could win 10 White Castle hamburgers a week for a whole year! Oh, and the Grand Prize winners also get plane tickets, a free Princeton Review prep course, Blockbuster certificates and other good stuff.

Topic 1

Universities should use affirmative action to encourage minority enrollment.

Topic 2
MySpace is Your Space: It is ethical for colleges, parents, or employers to get information about people from social networking websites.

Topic 3
In a democracy, civil disobedience is an appropriate weapon in the fight for justice.

Intrigued? Go to the Great Debaters Video Debate Contest webpage for all the details. Deadline is January 31, 2008.

Cougar Classic Video

Remember the guy walking around the Chattahoochee tournament with a video camera? Well, now there’s an 8-minute video of the tournament on YouTube — check out CB at 1:03 and LW’s name (”all the way from Paideia!”) at 7:38.

January/February 2008 Lincoln Douglas Topic

This is the topic that will be debated at our next tournament, at Central Gwinett High School, on January 5, 2008.

Resolved: It is just for the United States to use military force to prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons by nations that pose a military threat.

To download a topic overview and lesson plans, click here, or go to the Current Topics page of the NFL website.

The Great Debaters

In theaters in time for the December holidays.