Bloomington High School South, The Gothic, 2010, Page 36

Description:	firing up a debateBloomington Souths Debate Club wassuccessful in its first year after beingstarted by two South sophomores.What do two determinedsophomores, a Spanish teacher,solving global issues and locallaw firms have in common? Theanswer: Bloomington SouthDebate Team. In its first year asan active club, the debate teamwas going strong thanks to somehard work by sophomoresMargaret Christ and ColinDiersing.During their freshman year,Christ and Diersing attended aspeech team meeting with hopesof exploring the debate aspect ofit. They disappointedly found thatthe club mainly focused onspeech, and were determined tofind a way to introduce debate toSouth. A year later there was adedicated team of about 12students that were happy to bepreparing for and competing indebates. When asked whatsurprised them about the teamsfirst year Christ and Diersingresponded in unison, We werevery happy with the turnout [ofstudents] at even the first calloutmeeting. To get to that point,however, it took a lot of hard workand extra effort by those thatformed the team,In the early stages of creatingthe club, Christ and Diersing wererequired to overcome theobstacle of finding a teacherwilling to sponsor them. Afterasking for sponsorship throughoutthe faculty, Spanish teacher Ms.Abby Gray stepped up. Althoughshe didnt have much debateexperience herself, she willinglyvolunteered to sponsor the club.Ms. Gray handled theadministrative aspect of the club,allowing the students to focus ontheir research and debatepreparation. The whole teamcame together once a week, butmost members also metseparately with their competitionpartners during the week, Christand Diersing met about four timesa week to do extra research andwork out the kinks of a first yearclub,The debate teams regularseason was mostly during thewinter, with the state competitionin early February. At the meets,each team was allowed four pairsof debaters to compete. Themeets were structured with eachpair allowed a certain amount oftime to speak per round. A judgeoversaw and scored the debates,and one topic was selected foreach seasons debates. Whensome people hear debate clubthey picture students arguing overa simple issue like schooluniforms or cafeteria food. Inreality, the debaters wereexploring solutions to some of thenations most pressing issues. Thefirst years topic was How can theUS government expand socialservices to address the issue ofpoverty? which is no light issue.The students not only had toprepare an answer, they also hadto be ready to argue against it. Inany given competition the clubmembers may have had to arguefor or against a certain issue. Theteam prepared for thecompetitions with extensiveresearch, along with the help ofvolunteers, such as IndianaUniversity law students, The teamalso received the support of localbusinesses and law firms bywriting letters to them,Debate Club had started offstrong in its first year as an officialextracurricular club, and hoped tocontinue to grow in the years tocome. Diersing and Christ agreedthat all the work put into startingthe club was absolutely worth it.- ANDREW SILLSTop: Sophomore Colin Diersing speaks with freshmanEmma Walters during a debate club meeting.Middle: Sophomores Colin Diersing and Margaret Christpractice debating, in front of the debate club.Bottom: Sophomore Margaret Christ explains the layoutof a debate round to the members of the club.PHOTOS BY CHANDLER WAGGONERadjJtous
Source:	http://cdm17129.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/hs-bloomsouth/id/8339
Collection:	Bloomington High School South

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