More than 664 rounds of debate occurred during the Howard and Diana Nichols Invitational speech and debate tournament, held Oct. 1-2. The event was attended by more than 20 schools, who took part in policy, Lincoln-Douglas and public forum debate contests. On hand to help with the tournament were more than 50 Harker student volunteers, who assisted competitors with finding rooms, helped the event run on time and made sure the upper school campus was kept clean. Speech and debate chair Jenny Alme reported that the visiting students were appreciative of the food provided by Harker’s kitchen staff.
This article originally appeared in the spring 2016 Harker Quarterly.
Upper School
The speech and debate team had a great showing at the state qualifying tournament in late February. Harker students participated in public forum and speech with students qualifying in both events. Eesha Chona and Sorjo Banerjee, both grade 12, will represent Harker in public forum debate, while Nikhil Dharmaraj, grade 9, qualified in oratorical interpretation. Sana Aladin and Divya Rajasekharan, both grade 11, qualified as a team in duo interpretation of literature.
The California High School Speech Association will host the state tournament at Mission College in Santa Clara April 15-17.
Middle School
Also in February, more than 60 Harker middle schoolers competed at the Cesar Chavez Memorial Tournament at Cesar Chavez Middle School in Union City. About 400 middle school students from 19 schools, including 62 from Harker, attended and the results were great! In Lincoln-Douglas debate, rishi Jain, grade 6, Montek Kalsi, grade 8, Annie Ma, grade 8, and Aditi Vinod, grade 7, were undefeated.
Avi Gulati, grade 8, took first place in congressional debate. Nikki Solanki, grade 8, took first in declamation and third in dramatic interpretation. Gulati and Bryan Wang, grade 8, tied for third in impromptu debate. Arusha Patil, grade 7, took first in original oratory, while Gulati took second.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2015 Harker Quarterly.
By Jenny Alme and Greg Achten
Speech and debate participants reap many benefits, including enhanced critical-thinking, high-level research skills and many more, but one often overlooked benefit is the growth of students’ leadership skills.
Students who participate in middle and upper school speech and debate (also called forensics) competitions not only learn teamwork skills and the value of hard work, many of those students also take on impressive leadership roles that prepare them for success long after they leave Harker.
On any team, whether athletic or academic, there are always team leaders, and the speech and debate team is no exception. Many older, more experienced students serve as team captains or mentors for the younger students and in so doing learn important leadership skills. These students are tasked with organizing research assignments, judging novice debates and generally assisting the coaches both at tournaments and at school in team preparation and management.
Leadership on the Team
Experienced speech and debate team members often note they were grateful for the help they received from varsity team members and are eager to give back. They can also gain valuable skills from mentoring. Nitya Mani, grade 12, a captain from the 2014-15 team, said teaching was one of the best ways to learn. The mentors have to learn how to explain concepts clearly and relate to younger students.
Thinking about how to teach a concept gives the mentor a deeper understanding. In the process, they also are practicing the audience adaptation and argumentation skills that will help them be successful at competitions.
“Through leading our team’s research efforts, working with novices and middle schoolers, and helping the rest of the team improve, debate has allowed me to hone my leadership skills,” said Ayush Midha, grade 12, also a captain and winner of the 2014-15 O’Neill Leadership Trophy, an annual award given to a single student who best represents the attributes a national committee of coaches desires in a student role model.
“As a captain,” he added, “I have had the opportunity to foster team success and lead my teammates by example. Even outside of debate, these skills have allowed me to take on leadership positions and experience success.”
The coaches enjoy watching the older students grow into these roles. Seeing a nervous and inexperienced sixth grader evolve into a confident varsity team leader is deeply gratifying.
“The middle school team is extremely lucky to have our experienced upper school debaters come to the middle school and act as coaches, judges and great role models,” said Karina Momary, head coach of the middle school program.
“It is fantastic to see students who started participating in speech and debate in middle school come back as juniors and seniors to be student coaches. They not only are able to help the middle school students but also themselves grow through teaching their younger teammates.”
Leadership in the Harker Community
Team members also often speak of the skills that the speech and debate program contributed to other aspects of life at Harker. Whether they are writing a research paper, presenting science research or speaking in class, debate coaches often hear that students attribute some of their success to speech and debate.
Megan Huynh, grade 9, noted that speech and debate helped her to run for student council because she felt that she could confidently deliver her campaign speech.
Less tangibly, students also learn to accept constructive criticism and bounce back after failures. Team member will all say that competitions are not easy and that before winning major trophies, they had to lose lots of rounds and be critiqued by judges from every angle. Learning to absorb these comments and turn them into better performances can help a student learn to run for office again after losing an election, work harder on a project after receiving a low grade or try something new.
“Debate has really taught me that failure is not the end of the world and that when you fail, you just have to shake it off and move on,” said Panny Shan, grade 11. “Last year, I was devastated every time I lost a debate round, but this year I’ve learned to focus on what I learned from a debate instead of the win or loss.”
Leadership After Harker
While the skills and lessons certainly help them win competitions and do well in school, speech and debate team skills also serve students long after they have graduated. Many alumni attest that their participation in middle and upper school forensics was a formative experience that helped shape their collegiate and professional careers.
“Debate requires you to work closely with a team of peers in high-pressure situations and be fully committed to the success of the team,” said Roshni Bhatnagar ’11, a rising medical school student at Northwestern University. “There’s no better way to practice effective leadership and teamwork skills.” Other alumni note the critical impact speech and debate had on their already- remarkable careers.
“Debate was perhaps the most valuable aspect of my formal education,” said Alex Iftimie ’03, now counsel to the assistant attorney general for national security at the U.S. Department of Justice. “Leaving aside the oft-cited points that debate teaches critical- thinking and communication skills, debate taught me to be a competitor – to have the drive and determination to succeed – and instilled a confidence that I could reason my way through any legal or policy issue.”
Ziad Jawadi ’11 just graduated from Georgetown University and is about to start his consulting career at Bain & Co. in Dubai. “Debate was, by far, the activity that most prepared me for collegiate and career success,” he noted. “In college, I excelled at writing and analytical thinking early on due to the preparation debate offered, as many of the skills directly mirrored what I had to do for class.
“When I began recruiting for consulting, many of the skills that Bain was looking for in students were the exact skills that debate trains for: research, analytical thinking, writing, public speaking, and the ability to effectively communicate complex public policy and economic concepts into lay terms.”
Helping Build Future Leaders
While the Harker speech and debate team is certainly successful year in and year out and brings great acclaim – along with lots of trophies – to the school, perhaps its greatest accomplishment is the lifelong skill set it imparts on students. As the testimonials of current and former debaters demonstrate, Harker’s forensics program plays a vital role in helping students prepare to be effective leaders.
“Speech and debate has helped me in a lot of different ways,” said Frank Wang ’08, a doctoral candidate at MIT in computer science. “Most of the research I do requires positioning my research in a way that’s attractive to reviewers. Many Ph.D. students spend the first two years trying to learn that, but I had a head start on that. Speech and debate has made me a better researcher and a better leader.”
Reddy Declared National Champ for Second Year!
For the second year in a row, Pranav Reddy, grade 12, was named the national Lincoln-Douglas Debate Champion. The tournament, hosted by the National Debate Coaches Association (NDCA), was held in Las Vegas April 11-13.
Reddy’s winning debate was on the topic of minimum wage and whether it should be substantially increased. The senior successfully affirmed the proposal.
In 2013-14 Reddy became the first Harker Lincoln-Douglas debater to win the prestigious NDCA National Championships. Reddy built on this success his senior year, being named the top speaker at five of the first six tournaments he attended and winning the Glenbrooks tournament in November, the largest tournament of the fall semester.
Reddy entered the 2014-15 debate season as the No. 1-ranked Lincoln-Douglas debater in the nation and won two national titles in April – the NDCA National Championships and the Tournament of Champions. Reddy also won the Harvard-Westlake tournament in January and entered the championship season as the only student to win two majors in the regular season. He is the first student ever to win the NDCA National Championships twice. Reddy is also only the second student in the history of Lincoln-Douglas debate to win the NDCA National Championships and the Tournament of Champions in the same year.
“His achievements are truly historic,” said Greg Achten, Harker’s Lincoln-Douglas team coach. “Winning one national championship tournament takes hard work, incredible intellectual range and exceptional speaking skills. To win three national titles over the course of two years is simply an unheard of accomplishment. In the history of Lincoln-Douglas debate, no student from any school has ever achieved this level of success.” For the full story on the debate teams tremendous season go to news.harker.org and search on “debate.”
Middle and upper school debate had a stellar past few weeks, performing well at tournaments in and out of state. In Las Vegas, senior Pranav Reddy was named the national Lincoln-Douglas debate champion for the second straight year by offering a convincing argument for increasing the minimum wage.
At the California Middle School Speech and Debate Tournament in southern California, Maddie Huynh, grade 7, and Anusha Kuppahally, grade 8, were named the policy debate state champions. The team of Julia Biswas, grade 6, and Jai Bahri, grade 7, and the team of Jason Lin and Andy Lee, both grade 6, finished in the semifinals. Kuppahally was named first speaker.
Seventh grader Nakul Bajaj was named the top speaker in public forum, where the team of Clarissa Wang and Cindy Wang, both grade 8, reached the semifinals. Akshay Manglik, grade 6, was a semifinalist in Lincoln-Douglas, and Jason Huang, grade 8, finished third in congressional debate.
In speech events, Nikhil Dharmaraj, grade 8, was named state champion in original oratory and impromptu speaking, where Avi Gulati, grade 7, took second and third, respectively. Riya Gupta, grade 8, took fourth in original oratory. Yet another state champion, seventh grader Nikki Solanki, won in in dramatic interpretation, in which Matthew Hajjar, grade 8, took third, Gulati finished fourth and Gupta took fifth. Natalia Feinberg, grade 8, won third place in humorous interpretation. In storytelling, Ashli Jain, grade 8, and Feinberg took fifth and sixth place, respectively.
In late March, 45 debaters from the middle school attended the Cesar Chavez Memorial Tournament in Union City, where Harker performed very well in speech events, finishing first in three events and appearing in the top three multiple times. Avi Gulati took first in original oratory, with Ashli Jain finishing as a finalist. Kelly Shen and Matthew Hajjar, both grade 8, took first and second, respectively, in dramatic interpretation, while sixth grader Arusha Patil took second place in declamation and Natalia Feinberg finished second in humorous interpretation. Jain was also a finalist in the storytelling event.
In debate events, Harker was recognized several times for going undefeated. Kenneth Liou, grade 7, and Krishay Mukhija, grade 6, were undefeated in Public Forum, while Catherine Zhao, grade 7, Akshay Manglik, grade 6, Alexander Young, grade 8, and Sachin Shah, grade 7, went without a single loss in Lincoln-Douglas. Finishing with only one loss in public forum were the teams of Emma Boyce and Sidra Xu, both grade 6, and Nikki Solanki and Naveen Mirapuri, both grade 7. Annie Ma, grade 7, and Suraj Pakala, grade 8, were recognized for losing only once in Lincoln Douglas.
This article originally appeared in the spring 2015 Harker Quarterly.
For nearly a decade, Harker’s speech and debate program has given students the invaluable skills they need to present and persuade. In the past five years, Harker students have won multiple national championships in nearly every speech and debate event they have entered. The department’s profile has continued to grow as more people realize the critical importance of clear, persuasive communication.
Before department chair Carol Green joined Harker in 2006, the speech and debate program consisted of only a few dozen students at the upper school. “Now I myself teach about 70,” Green said. She attributes the heavy growth over the past several years in part to the program’s expansion into more types of events.
“When I first got here, the only two events we did were policy debate – which is a very technical two-person debate – and Lincoln-Douglas debate, which is a very technical one-person debate,” Green recalled.
These events have students debating a single topic year-round, requiring intensive research. They are judged by experts in the chosen topic who are keenly aware of how nuances of speech can affect how a message is received.
The judges’ expertise in the chosen topics means students must demonstrate considerable knowledge of the subject area when arguing their sides.
In her second year at Harker, Green added public forum debate to the program. In contrast to the more research-heavy debate events, public forum changes topics every month, and is evaluated by citizen judges.
“Citizen judges are anyone off the street – lawyers, doctors, moms, dads. People you’re going to have to persuade in everyday life,” Green explained. “So you’re looking at a different type of persuasion, because they don’t know necessarily the most technical jargon, but you’re still looking at the human elements of persuasion.”
In addition to public forum, the department added individual speech events and congressional debate, which fit better with the schedules of most Harker students. “So if a child takes a month off to go do robotics, they don’t lose out on a competitive edge because they just skip,” Green said. “And so when we introduced these other activities that still taught oral communication skills, taught research skills, but maybe weren’t as intense, we had a greater retention level.”
Once more students began entering these events, “the students became successful and success breeds success,” Green explained. The program’s growing profile and the reputation it developed for building strong communication and presentation skills attracted more students to the program.
Senior Nikhil Kishore, who in the fall semester earned a trip to the National Speech & Debate Association’s Tournament of Champions, found that he enjoyed debate because it gave him more control over how far he progressed in comparison to other competitive events, such as sports.
“It’s a lot more student driven,” he said. “If you actually do more work yourself, that’s a lot. It really dictates how well you do, how much research you’ve done, how much prep you’ve done.”
He has also found the environment highly collaborative, which has been key to his success. “It’s really good because you can bounce ideas off of [peers] and you’re working with some of the smartest people, which helps you create all these good ideas and things that you can work with in a debate.”
“If you get eliminated [from a tournament], you immediately turn around and become a member of the coaching staff and continue to help until Harker is eliminated as a whole,” Green said. “Because even though you’re an individual competitor, you’re still part of a team.”
In summer 2010, Harker’s middle school debate squad traveled to the National Junior Forensic League’s national championship, where it took both first and second place in public forum. The addition of Karina Momary to the faculty later that year bolstered the middle school debate program. Momary quickly sought to expand the middle school program by adding more events.
Having come from a larger debate program in her previous job, Momary wanted to enhance the middle school program by offering more than public forum, which focuses on current events. “Not everyone likes talking about current events. Some people want to talk about moral values and some people want to talk about policy issues,” she said.
Since then, the middle school program has won at the national level in every debate event it has entered. “A lot of parents ask me which style of debate are we better at, and we are just as good at all of them,” Momary said. “Part of the reason is we encourage students to find their passion and to research something that interests them, and with that comes the passion to excel.”
When she joined Harker, there was a scarcity of local middle school debate competitions, which made preparation for national tournaments a challenge. Momary took the bold step to start entering her students into high school-level tournaments, which drew criticism from some in the debate community. “And then our kids started beating the high school kids,” Momary said. “And now all the middle school programs out here do the same thing.”
Green attributes much of Harker debate’s success to the resources available to students. “Honestly, I think the Harker community’s a large part,” she said. In a recent example, upper school debate teacher Greg Achten’s students were to debate on environmental issues, which prompted Achten to invite science teacher Kate Schafer to speak with his students on the topic. “Being able to draw from the rest of the Harker resources and the Harker community really allows our students to take it outside of the text,” Green said.
Green added that students also learn how to argue from both sides of the debate, “forcing students to question their own beliefs, to understand and build stronger foundations in their beliefs, because they know what the opposition’s going to say and they know how build a response to that.”
Middle school students also get help from upper school debaters, who offer support and guidance at after-school practice sessions and workshops. Momary noted that middle school team captains are in near-constant contact with upper school captains to coordinate and prepare arguments. When middle and upper school students travel to tournaments together, they are set up as buddies. “Everyone supports each other and really works as a team,” she said.
“Harker debate is really like a huge family,” said Cindy Wang, grade 8. “The shared love of debate connects all of us and we help each other in difficult or stressful situations. Being on the team is an amazing experience; the support I have received from the parents, coaches and peers has really helped me work hard toward improving.”
A large part of debate’s popularity with Harker students can be attributed to the skills its students develop, which can be applied to many disciplines, including academics or future careers. “They’re learning how to construct an argument, which is really helpful when they’re doing things like writing persuasive essays or writing research papers and things like that, for social sciences and for STEM,” said Green.
“There’s nothing that would prepare them for the boardroom better than being able to stand up and deliver their ideas,” said Momary. “A few of the parents have come back and told me they watched their students talk to VCs in a boardroom and couldn’t believe that they had the ability to do that.”
Debate also gives students the opportunity to perform extensive research on a wide variety of topics. While researching a debate topic, students may immerse themselves in global economics, environmental sciences, current events or even the nature of debate tournaments themselves.
“We focus a lot on current events. So it encourages you to keep up with the world and see what’s going on, which is pretty interesting because often you learn a lot of things that you wouldn’t have otherwise known,” Kishore said.
As students frequently travel to tournaments, time management also becomes an important tool of the trade, which Wang found especially important. “I’ve learned to do my homework faster and more efficiently so I can leave time for debate, and I can apply this skill everywhere to do as much as possible in a given timeframe.”
Harker rocked the Southwest Championship tournament at Arizona State this weekend!
Lisa Liu, grade 11, took second overall in humorous interpretation and third overall in impromptu speaking. Misha Tseitlin, grade 10, breezed through semifinals to end his Congressional Debate run in finals. Arjun Narayan, grade 11, welcomed in 2015 by earning a spot in the semifinals of extemporaneous speaking.
In public forum debate, all 10 teams were 3-2 or better going into round six and eight teams advanced to elimination rounds. Sorjo Banerjee, grade 11, and Emaad Raghib, grade 10, were in the final round where they ended up in second place out of 124 public forum teams. Nikhil Kishore and Vamsi Gadiraju, both grade 12, advanced to the Elite Eight where they met Banerjee and Raghib, ending their run as quarterfinalists. David Jin, grade 11, and Alexander Lam, grade 10, were also quarterfinalists. Both Kishore/Gadiraju and Jin/Lam complete their qualifications to the Tournament of Champions.
Ending their run in the Sweet Sixteen were Jasmine Liu and Abhinav Ketineni, both grade 11, who met Jin and Lam in the octofinal round, also know as “the bid round.” Also earning bids to the Tournament of Champions were Samali Sahoo and Anthony Luo, both grade 11, as well as Aumesh Misra, grade 11, and Ashwath Thirumalai, grade 12, who advanced to double-octofinals but met Harker teams in the round of 32 and were thus awarded ghost bids. Avik Wadhwa and Aadyot Bhatnagar, both grade 12, as well as seniors Andrew Jin and David Lin also advanced through triples to end their run in double-octofinals.
Special recognition goes out to alumni coaches Kiran Arimilli ’13, Anuj Sharma ’13 and Andy Wang ’14 for their coaching in Arizona.
Congratulations to all 23 Harker speech and debate Eagles for rocking The Grand Canyon State!
Harker Debaters were busy this past weekend, earning great results at two events!
Greenhill Round Robin and Invitational The debate team had a great weekend at the Greenhill Round Robin and Invitational in Dallas. Senior Pranav Reddy was the first place speaker in Lincoln-Douglas debate in both the round robin and the invitational. The round robin is for the top 16 Lincoln-Douglas debaters in the country, so a first place finish is quite an accomplishment. Reddy also made it to the quarterfinals of the invitational. Senior Ayush Midha was the second place policy speaker at the invitational (out of 232 competitors). Midha and junior Panny Shan made it to the octofinals of the invitational. All three students earned one of the two required qualifying bids for the Tournament of Champions.
Yale Debate Invitational Nine Harker debaters traveled to New Haven, Conn., to compete at the Yale Debate Invitational. Alumni coaches Arjun Kumar ’14 and Aneesh Chona ’13 coached public forum debate and served as judges.
Sophomore Michael Tseitlin earned a bid to the prestigious Tournament of Champions by making it to the semifinal chamber in congressional debate. Tseitlin also was nominated by the judges to be considered for the final round and missed advancing by a single vote! This is a very strong showing by a sophomore at such a tough competition; he competed against last year’s national champion in preliminaries!
Junior Sorjo Banerjee and sophomore Emaad Raghib won five of their six preliminary rounds in public forum debate. Their sixth preliminary was against last year’s elite national champions and, while they lost the final vote, they tied for overall speaker points in the debate! Banerjee and Raghib advanced to the first round of eliminations where they were defeated on a 2-1 decision.
Harker debate students competed at the Robert Garcia Memorial Invitational Tournament, held Sept. 13-14 at Saint Francis High School.
Six policy debaters and eight public forum debaters represented the Eagles in Harker’s first regional tournament of the school year.
In policy debate, Arya Kaul, grade 12, took fourth overall in individual speaking. Kaul and his partner, Anika Jain, grade 10, won four of their six preliminary rounds, narrowly missing the elimination rounds.
In public forum debate, individual speaking awards were won by sophomore Emaad Raghib (fifth overall), junior Abhinav Ketineni (sixth overall) and sophomore Alex Lam (seventh overall).
Raghib and partner, David Jin, grade 11, as well as Ketineni and his partner, junior Jasmine Liu, made it to elimination rounds where they finished in the top eight overall.
Next weekend the public forum and congressional debaters will head to Yale University to compete, while policy and Lincoln-Douglas debaters will head to Dallas to compete at The Greenhill School.
This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Harker has robust debate programs in the middle and upper schools – and it was a successful year for both!
Middle School by Karina Momary
Growth and Competitive Success
The middle school speech and debate program has seen tremendous growth in the past five years. In 2010, the competitive debate team had fewer than 15 students and participated in only one type of debate. This year, 120 students competed in four styles of debate and 10 speech events.
Team members are dedicated, with students attending lunchtime workshops, after-school practices and weekend competitions. All of this hard work has yielded notable competitive success. The team has been awarded an Overall School of Excellence Award by the National Speech & Debate Association for the past two years.
This prestigious award is given to the top four speech and debate programs nationwide. In addition, the team has won five national championships and numerous regional awards. Several students, including eighth graders Serena Lu and Alan Hughes, have been recognized as undefeated during debates, and speech and debate students in all grades have brought home first, second and third place finishes.
Community
While competitive success is valued, the speech and debate team also builds a strong sense of community. The program hosts numerous team-building events for students and families. For example, the Forensics Family Dinner offered speech and debate families a chance to share a meal and build lasting connections. The team also hosted a speech and debate showcase in May, giving families and students an opportunity to hear from some of the talented team members and providing extra practice to those attending the California Middle School Speech & Debate State Tournament and the National Speech & Debate Association Middle School Nationals.
Preparation for state and national competitions has allowed the students to share the work they have honed over the year with an even larger audience.
Upper School Buddies
This year, relationships were forged as upper school buddies helped middle school team members prepare for competitions. Together, the buddy teams have edited cases, watched videos and shared useful feedback – and the result has been tremendous growth for Harker’s younger debaters. This student interaction also will help ease the transition for middle school students as they move on to the upper school. Upper school buddies have provided middle schoolers with personal coaches and a cheering squad for each tournament.
As the teams prepare for summer trips, they are all excited to share their debating skills with the rest of the country.
Karina Momary is a middle school debate teacher.
Upper School
by Jenny Heidt
Harker’s upper school teams took home national titles this year in Lincoln- Douglas, public forum and congressional debate. Individual events and policy debate students also did very well, and several qualified to compete at nationals. In fact, Harker had more students qualified to compete at the elite Tournament of Champions than any other school in the country.
The team has a long history of winning top awards, but what set this year apart was the breadth of success across all of the forensic events. The upper school team has about 165 students competing in five main events: policy debate, public forum debate, individual events, congressional debate and Lincoln-Douglas debate. The team competes at tournaments throughout the state and nation.
Policy Debate
At various policy debate tournaments, our students advocated for lifting the embargo against Cuba, better enforcing money-laundering laws with Mexican authorities and assisting with a reforestation project in Mexico. Other teams proposed entering into a treaty regarding oil with Venezuela, giving more humanitarian aid to Cuba and improving our border infrastructure. Next year, they will debate the development and exploration of the oceans.
Several policy debaters are considering debate in college, including our most successful pair of Arya Kaul and Ayush Midha, both grade 11. The duo made it to the final round of the elite University of Southern California Round Robin and qualified for nationals. Anika Jain, Aditi Maheshwari, Emmie Malyugina, Rahul Shukla, Molly Wancewicz, Vienna Wang and Ray Xu, all grade 9; Panny Shan, grade 10; and Nitya Mani, grade 11, also brought home trophies.
Policy debaters compete in pairs, argue about the details of public policy and have one resolution for the entire year. This year’s topic was about increasing economic engagement with Mexico, Venezuela or Cuba. Debaters have to innovate and learn about a wide variety of possible public policies to stay current with the topic. Judges tend to be highly trained in argumentation and are looking for students to maximize the number of logical points made during their speeches. As a result, the rate of delivery is very rapid and there is a premium on strategic thinking and research skills.
The in-depth research required for success teaches policy debaters skills that go far beyond the debate rounds. Midha says that policy debate “has been incredibly valuable not only because it has facilitated my research, critical thinking and advocacy skills, but also because the activity has improved my efficiency, time management and organization.” Chandini Thakur, grade 10, agreed, adding, “I’ve learned several methods of research, organization and analysis that I can apply to my other classes.”
Public Forum Debate
“Debate teaches you some of the most important skills in life,” said Sorjo Banerjee, grade 10, public forum team member. “Research, public speaking and critical thinking are all required to become adept at debate. Debate is an amazing extracurricular where you grow as an individual and compete with friends.”
Public forum debate is focused on persuading a general audience. Students need to make logical arguments, but focus on public speaking. Their topics change every two months and cover a wide variety of areas. One of the topics this year asked them to weigh the value of single-sex education, while another was about economic development in India.
Vamsi Gadiraju, grade 11, added that he “enjoyed getting to meet and befriend people from all over the country” and from as far away as China.
Some of the most successful public forum students included Jasmine Liu, grade 10 and Kevin Duraiswamy, Arjun Kumar, Stephanie Lu, Sreyas Misra and Sebi Nakos, all grade 12. Misra and Nakos closed out the National Debate Coaches Association Championship Tournament. Duraiswamy, along with Aadyot Bhatnagar, Nikhil Kishore and Avik Wadhwa, grade 11, and Shreyas Parthasarathy and Jithin Vellian, grade 12, also closed out a tournament, winning a three-way championship at James Logan High School. Finally, Maneesha Panja, grade 12, and Nakos were the champions of the College Prep School Round Robin.
Individual Events
Harker will have three students competing at the National Speech & Debate Association Championship in June: Rohith Kuditipudi and Madhu Nori, both grade 11, and Kenny Zhang, grade 12. Continuing on the theme of strong success across the events, Harker set a new record by qualifying five students to compete at the state tournament in individual events. Kuditipudi; Lisa Liu, grade 10; Steven Wang, grade 11; Andy Wang, grade 12; and Zhang performed very well at the state tournament, with four of them advancing to semifinals.
Students in individual events compete in categories such as original oratory, extemporaneous speaking or dramatic interpretation of literature. Unlike the other debate events, there is not an element of refutation and so students strive to perfect their presentation and are largely judged based on their public speaking skills.
Sarah de Vegvar, grade 9, said that when she was in middle school, she never dreamed she would enter into speech competitions, but that the experience has given her a “chance to improve [her] public speaking skills and become more well-rounded.”
Congressional Debate
“My favorite aspect of (congressional) debate is learning how to deal with competitors in a group setting,” said Sandip Nirmel, grade 9. “This is especially important in congressional debate, where politics play a large role in deciding who gets to speak the most and who gets the most influence in the chamber. Learning people skills is really important for me because I know that they are relevant in the real world,” he added.
Students in congressional debate propose and debate various pieces of mock legislation. They need to be well-versed in current events and excellent public speakers to be successful. Captain Saachi Jain, grade 12, was a fantastic team leader and was especially helpful in coordinating the many research assignments that are needed for the students to be ready to give speeches about a wide variety of domestic and international topics.
Her leadership helped Aditya Dhar and Misha Tseitlin, both grade 9, qualify for nationals. Tseitlin was also first at the National Debate Coaches Association Championship. It is unusual for freshmen to do so well at the varsity level and it speaks to the talent of these students and the quality of the program.
Lincoln-Douglas Debate
Srikar Pyda, grade 12, and Pranav Reddy, grade 11, had particularly successful years in Lincoln-Douglas competitions. Both young men qualified for nationals. Reddy also took home first place at the National Debate Coaches Association Championship and won titles at several invitationals. There is no one official ranking system for season-long performance, but it is safe to say that Reddy was one of the top five debaters in the country and that Pyda was not far behind him.
Lincoln-Douglas students debate as individuals and their topics change every two months. The topics tend to be philosophical and ask students to weigh competing values. For instance, one of the spring topics asked how poorer nations should prioritize economic development when it poses a threat to the environment.
Natalie Simonian, grade 10, summed up her first year of Lincoln-Douglas debate by saying that she had “a lot of fun going to tournaments” and making “many new friends and getting closer to some of the old ones thanks to debate.”
Summer Plans
Many students are looking forward to a major tournament this June in Kansas City. Harker also has students participating in summer debate workshops that last between one and seven weeks. It has been a great season and the teams look forward to preparing for the next one!
Jenny Heidt is an upper school debate teacher.
Late-breaking news!
The middle school speech and debate program made history in late May at the first California Middle School Speech & Debate State Tournament! Harker emerged with two state championships – a single and a team – and numerous top five finishes. The students spent countless hours preparing and their hard work definitely paid off.
Sagar Rao, grade 8, was named the 2014 Lincoln-Douglas debate California state champion.
Megan Huynh and Aliesa Bahri, both grade 8, and Maddie Huynh and Avi Gulati, both grade 6, were named 2014 policy debate California state co-champions. In Lincoln-Douglas, Serena Lu, grade 8, took third place and was recognized as the top speaker in her division. Alan Hughes, grade 8, was a quarterfinalist and recognized as the third speaker in his division.
In Policy, Maddie Huynh was recognized as the top speaker in her division. Sonya Verma, grade 7, was recognized as the second speaker in her division.
In Dramatic Interpretation, Nikki Solanki, grade 6, was a finalist and Gulati won fourth place.
In Original Oratory, Millie Lin, grade 8, took fourth place and Riya Gupta, grade 7, took third place.
This story was submitted by middle school debate teacher Karina Momary.
The middle school speech and debate team was awarded the Overall School of Excellence Award for the third year in a row at the National Speech & Debate Tournament, held in Kansas in June. The award, based on the overall success of the team, is given to the top three middle school programs in the country.
Notable achievements at the event included two National Championships. The team of Aliesa Bahri and Megan Huynh, both rising freshmen, won the National Championship in Policy Debate, debating the pros and cons of economic engagement with Mexico. Nikhil Dharmaraj, a rising eighth grader, won the National Championship in Original Oratory, presenting a 10-minute memorized speech he wrote about talent versus practice. These two wins mark the sixth and seventh National Championships earned by the middle school debate team since 2010.
Attending the tournament were 730 students from 100 schools spanning 31 states, the Northern Mariana Islands, Canada and Taiwan. Those students constituted more than 1,200 entries across 14 speech and debate events. Harker was one of the larger entries, with 29 students competing in eight events.
Middle school English teacher Marjorie Hazeltine helped the speech students prepare throughout the year. Upper school debate teachers Jenny Alme, Greg Achten and Carol Green joined the team at Nationals and helped coach the students to perform to their level of success.