Krish Mysoor, grade 8, had a record-setting weekend in debate, placing first at the Damus Hollywood Invitational, hosted by the Harvard-Westlake and Notre Dame schools in Los Angeles, Nov. 2-4.
Mysoor is the only eighth grader in memory to take first place at a varsity national qualifier to the Tournament of Champions (TOC). TOC-designated tournaments are considered to be the most challenging debate tournaments because they attract the most competitive schools from multiple states. The topic for the event was whether or not the United States ought to eliminate subsidies for fossil fuels.
Students who reach a certain level of elimination-round success at two of those events are invited to compete at the most elite varsity championship at the end of the year. It is extremely rare for a middle school student to even reach early elimination rounds at TOC tournaments, let alone to have a perfect preliminary record and then go on to win five elimination rounds in a row. The team is very proud of his outstanding accomplishment.
Lincoln Garrett, the head debate coach of the University of Kentucky, which hosts the Tournament of Champions, noted of Mysoor’s accomplishment, “That is incredible. To go from learning the activity a short while ago to winning a competitive tournament is remarkable.”
Mysoor is known for his hard work and being a great teammate. His remarkable success has attracted quite a bit of attention from the national debate community. Go Harker speech and debate!
The middle school and upper school speech and debate teams held their annual retreat Aug. 23-25 in Milpitas. Seventy students attended the retreat and got a head start preparing new topics and speeches for the 2019-20 season. They also won prizes at the team bonding event at Dave & Busters! Check out the photos!
Editor’s Note: Harker’s speech and debate team ended on the highest of notes, with students taking first and second at the National Speech & Debate Tournament in mid-June. Check out these additional updates to the speech and debate year!: Nationals, middle school speech and debate results
This article originally appeared in the summer 2019 issue of Harker Magazine.
Roshni Bhatnagar ’11 doesn’t recall why she was drawn to speech and debate during her sophomore year at Harker, beyond noticing that other students seemed to be having a lot of fun on the team. “I just know that I enjoyed it immensely once I joined,” she said. She competed in Lincoln-Douglas debate, a one-on-one format that emphasizes logic, ethics and philosophy. Competitions offered a reward for the weeks of hard work conducting research and writing arguments. “Debate was a phenomenal opportunity to be exposed to different ideas, to learn how to compete and to have fun traveling to new places,” Bhatnagar said.
She also noted that Harker’s team and coaches were encouraging and supportive. “Whether I won or lost, it was always OK, because we were encouraged to see each debate as a step in the road and a learning opportunity.”
Bhatnagar had been out of high school for several years before truly appreciating what she learned as a student debater at Harker. “I developed strong critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, as well as the mental agility to think quickly and to recognize patterns,” said Bhatnagar, who will be an internal medicine resident at UCLA this fall. “Thinking strategically and analytically at such a young age was key to my development as an excellent communicator and listener, skills which serve me well in my work with patients now.”
Top Notch Hundreds of current Harker students are gaining the skills Bhatnagar spoke of – persuasion, organization of thoughts and ideas, intensive research and information literacy, poise and presentation – while finding success on the national speech and debate stage. The students are guided by the expertise of Harker’s speech and debate teachers Jenny Achten, Greg Achten and Scott Odekirk at the upper school, and Shania Hunt and JJ Kim at the middle school, who are in turn aided by numerous coaches (several of whom are Harker alumni).
Launched in 1998 when the upper school was founded, the speech and debate program has grown into one of Harker’s most popular student activities, with 115 upper schoolers and 175 middle schoolers involved this year. It is one of the best programs in the nation, consistently sending students to national competitions and winning both individual and team national titles.
As both an academic subject and an extracurricular activity at Harker, speech and debate emphasizes the connection between high-intensity learning inside the classroom and intellectual competition outside of class. “Our academic curriculum is largely about teaching kids to think critically about modern sociocultural controversies,” Odekirk said. “We translate that learning into the applied format of extracurricular competition, which adds so much to students’ intellectual and personal growth.”
Upper school students are required to take a course in the speech and debate department – at the introductory, intermediate or competitive level – in order to compete on the team, while middle schoolers can take speech and debate courses as electives. Upper schoolers mainly prepare and practice for tournaments during class time, while middle schoolers meet three times a week after school.
“Harker’s program is unique because of the dedication of a highly qualified faculty that is solely focused on teaching and coaching speech and debate,” said Jenny Achten, speech and debate department chair for grades 6-12. “We also receive incredible programmatic resources and support.”
Harker is a member of the National Speech & Debate Association, which chooses topics for student debaters, sponsors tournaments, and offers conferences and resources for teachers and coaches. Harker students compete in four categories of debate, including Lincoln-Douglas, congressional, public forum and policy (see page 41 sidebar for descriptions). Students choose from a variety of speech categories, depending on their personal interest, including original oratory, dramatic interpretation, impromptu, extemporaneous and humorous interpretation. Speeches are either memorized in advance of a competition or prepared quickly (in 20 or 30 minutes) during the tournament. Harker students compete at 35 to 50 tournaments a year, though no one student attends all of them.
“We believe students should have the freedom to select the number of tournaments and events of their choosing, depending on interest and time and how well they can balance other commitments,” Jenny Achten said.
The competitive season runs the entire academic year, and this year, students have competed at tournaments in Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, Phoenix, New Haven, Conn., and Jacksonville, Fla., as well as at local and regional tournaments throughout California (see page 39 sidebar for highlights). Eleven Harker students qualified for the postseason Tournament of Champions, held in late April at the University of Kentucky, and five students will compete at the National Speech & Debate Tournament in Dallas in mid-June.
“Tournaments don’t have age requirements so if a younger student – say a seventh grader – is advanced enough, they can compete at the varsity level, rather than junior varsity or novice,” said Hunt. “They may be in a little over their heads at first, but they learn fast.” It’s fairly common for upper school debaters to attend middle school practices to mentor and coach the younger students. Ariav Misra, grade 7, welcomed support from Harker’s upper school students after struggling at a varsity tournament in congressional debate. Harker’s older debaters help Misra with prepping bills and resolutions and give advice on how to compete effectively. “I love the sense of community on the team,” Misra said.
Jason Lin, grade 10, agreed. “The team has created a truly unique, wholesome dynamic where the advanced debaters don’t hesitate to help novices with whatever they need,” said Lin, who participates in congressional debate. “Older students are even enthusiastic about helping underclassmen with things not related to speech and debate, like math homework.”
The program has had such an impact on students that recent alumni often return from college to serve as assistant coaches. This year, Anika Jain ’17 and Ayush Midha ’15 have assisted the team as time allows.
Jain, who just finished her second year studying economics and social policy analysis at Rice University, recalled her days of being inspired by older debaters. “They were so skilled in argumentation and in spreading, which is a fast-talking technique used in policy debate, and that motivated me to improve my skills,” she said, noting that she hopes her assistance with current Harker debaters provides similar motivation. “It’s great to advise students on aspects of debate that confused me as a middle schooler.” Midha debated for Harvard University while earning a degree in human developmental and regenerative biology. He plans to attend medical school after spending a year in research at Boston’s Joslin Diabetes Center. As a high school student, he competed in policy debate and attended summer debate amps, intensively researching a topic and practicing debate with 30 other students. “Debate offers an interesting duality of a hypercompetitive activity that turns into a form of deep collaboration,” he said.
Midha also mentored middle schoolers while at Harker, and this year he watched two of his former mentees (now in grades 11 and 12) reach the quarterfinals of a national championship tournament. “That was the proudest moment of my involvement in Harker debate,” he said.
Alexandru Iftimie ’03 recalls lugging around several 20-gallon tubs of documents at debate competitions in the days before digital files were readily available. “We had to be prepared for every possible argument,” he said. “Those tubs contained piles of highlighted research at our fingertips.” Iftimie debated for the University of Southern California – coaching Harker students during the summer – and earned a J.D. from Yale University. He recently left the U.S. Department of Justice to return to the Bay Area as an attorney for a private-sector law firm.
“I still use the critical-thinking, publics peaking and advocacy skills I learned from debate,” Iftimie said. “Those skills have been tremendous assets to me as a lawyer.”
Student Driven Harker’ speech and debate program wouldn’t be as successful as it is without the students who commit to learning debate techniques and skills while conducting hours and hours of research.
“Speech and debate are academic competitions that allow our very bright students to apply their knowledge and test their wits against their peers, all while getting immediate feedback,” said Greg Achten.
Students join the program for a variety of reasons, from a desire to learn more about current events to wanting to lessen public speaking anxiety to their parents suggesting it.
Oftentimes, they’re hooked by the first taste of competition. Krish Mysoor, grade 7, tried speech and debate at his mother’s insistence and attended seven tournaments before he broke into the quarterfinals. “Taking all of those losses early on taught me that I was in it for the experience and the love of this brain sport more than I was into just winning,” he said. He has since seen more success, making it to a bid round for the Tournament of Champions this year.
Harker’s teaching and coaching staff works to de-emphasize a “winner take all” attitude in speech and debate. “We talk a lot about realistic expectations,” Greg Achten said. “We talk about goals not associated with wins or losses, such as achieving a better understanding of an argument or improving in a particular debate technique.”
Competing in speech and debate provides tangible rewards for students beyond wins and losses, noted Haris Hosseini, grade 12, who recently earned third place in original oratory at the Tournament of Champions.
“I’ve become a better speaker, writer and friend,” Hosseini said. “My capacity for empathy has deepened by listening to those wildly different in background and circumstance than me.”
Madison Huynh, grade 11, joined the debate program in sixth grade because she wanted to have intellectual discussions on topics beyond what she was learning in class. “I love debate’s basis in curiosity, research and strategy,” said Huynh, who finished fifth in the nation in policy debate at the National Debate Coaches Association National Tournament in April.
“From learning how to work on a team to developing strong critical thinking skills, being a part of speech and debate is truly a unique experience,” Huynh said. “It offers education and real-world skills in the most fun, intellectually spirited way possible.”
A banner year for speech and debate
In 2018-19, Harker students participated in dozens of speech and debate
tournaments across the country. After achieving great results during the
fall and winter, students continued to shine on the national speech and
debate stage this spring. Here are a few highlights of their successes:
Western Junior Varsity and Novice National Championship
(held at San Francisco State University, March 9-10)
Harker set a tournament history record by having the top six finishers
in JV Lincoln-Douglas debate – Deven Shah, Akhilesh Chegu, Karoun
Kaushik, Arnav Dani, all grade 9, and Krish Mysoor and Ansh Sheth,
both grade 7 – close out two quarterfinals and all of the semifinals,
making them co-champions. Shah also was the top speaker in the
By Jenny Achten, Speech and Debate Department Chair, Grades 6-12
The middle school speech and debate team had an outstanding weekend at the Middle School Tournament of Champions, hosted by the University of Kentucky on May 11-12.
The team won first place in overall sweepstakes for the best performance at the tournament by any school. Shoring up this award were the top speaker in Lincoln-Douglas debate, Ansh Sheth, grade 7, and top speaker in policy debate, Deeya Viradia, grade 8. Arjun Krishna, grade 7, Krishna Mysoor, grade 7, and Mir Bahri, grade 8, also won debate speaker awards.
Harker had a three-way closeout of the final round in Lincoln-Douglas debate with Alexander Lan, grade 8, Kabir Buch, grade 7, and Mysoor sharing the championship. Joe Li, grade 7, and Sheth also cleared in Lincoln-Douglas. The policy team of Bahri and Viradia made it to semifinals. Additionally, Arissa Huda, grade 8, was in the final round of extemporaneous speaking.
The coaches are all thrilled with the results of our students’ hard work! A special thanks to Shania Hunt, middle school debate teacher, who did a fabulous job of organizing this large and complicated trip. The students were not only well prepared, but were safe and had fun.
The Harker speech and debate team had excellent results in all four divisions it entered at the Western JV and Novice National Championship this past weekend. The tournament, hosted by San Francisco State University on March 9-10, attracted 32 schools from three states.
In JV Lincoln-Douglas debate, Harker students set a record! Harker was the first school in the history of the tournament to have the top six finishers in any event.
Deven Shah, Akhilesh Chegu, Karoun Kaushik and Arnav Dani, all grade 9, along with Krish Mysoor and Ansh Sheth, both grade 7, closed out two quarterfinals and all of the semifinals, making them co-champions. Shah was also the top speaker in the division.
Angela Gao, grade 9, was the champion of the novice Lincoln-Douglas debate. Freshmen Ayan Nath and Dhruv Saoji were in the finals of JV public forum debate, where they lost on a close 2-3 decision. Aimee Wang and Alina Yuan, also both grade 9, were in the quarterfinals of JV public forum. As the higher seeded Harker team, they were walked over Arjun Gurjar and Kabir Buch, both grade 7. In novice public forum, Caden Lin and Vedant Kenkare, both grade 9, made it to semifinals. The tournament was also special because so many upperclassmen attended as mentors and judges. The middle school and upper school coaches were very proud of the extraordinary work of all of the students!
Harker middle school speech and debate team members competed at three tournaments in three states – California, Georgia and Texas – in April and early May.
In April, at the National Debate Coaches Association National Championship in Atlanta, 166 entries from 102 schools across 26 states competed. Harker had two middle school entrants and a few upper school entrants.
Also in April, 10 middle and upper school Harker students competed at the St. Marks Novice Round Up in Dallas. A dozen schools were represented. Results are below.
Novice Policy
1st – Deven Shah and Andy Lee, grades 8 and 9, respectively, went undefeated with a perfect 19-0 ballot count.
Novice Policy Speaker Awards
1st – Andy Lee
2nd – Deven Shah
6th – Ansh Sheth, grade 6
On May 7, approximately 40 Harker middle schools students competed against each other in two distinct intramural debate events in preparation for the Middle School Tournament of Champions Nationals, and earned the following awards:
Lincoln-Douglas
1st – Rahul Santhanam, grade 7
2nd – Brian Chen, grade 7
Public Forum
1st – Sriram Bhimaraju and Arjun Gurjar, both grade 6 (3-0)
2nd – Adam Sayed and Sathvik Chundru, both grade 6 (3-0)
Public Forum Speaker Awards
1st – Sascha Pakravan, grade 8
2nd – Carol Wininger, grade 7
3rd – Ansh Sheth, grade 6
4th – Ayan Nath, grade 8
5th – Deeya Viradia, grade 7
In early May, Harker speech and debate team members attended the middle school TOC at the University of Kentucky, in Lexington.
At the event, 232 of the best middle school speech and debate students from 35 schools competed. Overall, Harker had great success across all events. Harker won the First Place Sweepstakes Team Award for best middle school speech and debate team in the country.
Harker students won the following awards, competing against some of the best middle school teams in the country:
Policy
1st – Deven Shah and Mir Bahri, grade 7, undefeated, 20-0 ballot count
5th – Saanvi Arora, grade 8, and Sarah Mohammed, grade 7
Policy Speaker Awards
2nd – Deven Shah
18th – Mir Bahri
Lincoln-Douglas
2nd – Anshul Reddy, grade 8
3rd – Alexander Lan, grade 7
5th – Akhilesh Chegu, grade 8
5th – Arnav Dani, grade 8
9th – Brian Chen, grade 7
Lincoln-Douglas Speaker Awards
1st – Akhilesh Chegu, grade 8
3rd – Krish Maniar, grade 7
4th – Anshul Reddy, grade 8
Public Forum
1st – Sascha Pakravan and Ayan Nath
2nd – Krishna Mysoor, grade 7, and Ansh Sheth
5th – Arnav Jain and Rohan Rashingkar, both grade 8
17th – Michelle Jin and Lexi Nishimura, both grade 7
Harker students did extremely well last weekend at the California High School Speech Association state tournament, with four Eagles making it to finals! Avi Gulati, grade 10, was second in original oratory; Haris Hosseini, grade 11, was third in original oratory; Nikki Solanki, grade 10, was seventh in thematic interpretation; and Jason Huang, grade 11, was seventh in congressional debate. Jason Lin, grade 9, also qualified to compete in congressional debate. Congrats to the students and coach Scott Odekirk on a great season. Watch for more speech and debate news from National Speech & Debate Association Nationals in June.
Harker middle and upper school students competed at three tournaments in March, all against high school students.
San Francisco State University
From March 10-11, 31 schools across two states representing 157 entries competed in debate events. Fifty-one Harker middle and upper school students competed.
Junior Varsity Policy
10th – Helen Li, grade 9, and Mir Bahri, grade 7, 3-2 record
On March 21, about 50 Harker middle schools students competed in three distinct events.
Speech (Impromptu & Memorized Interpretation)
1st – Zubin Khera, grade 7
2nd – Madeleine Hansen, grade 8
Public Forum
1st – Krish Mysoor and Ansh Sheth, both grade 6
2nd – Joe Li and Ramit Goyal, both grade 6
Public Forum Speaker Awards
1st – Krishna Mysoor, grade 6
2nd – Ansh Sheth, grade 6
3rd – Deeya Viradia, grade 7
4th – Sathvik Chundru, grade 6
5th – Carol Wininger, grade 7
6th – Lexi Nishimura, grade 7
7th – Joe Li, grade 6
8th – Aniketh Tummala, grade 6
Lincoln-Douglas
1st – Krish Maniar, grade 7
Santa Clara University No. 2
From March 23-25, 87 schools across two states, representing 1,012 entries, competed in speech and debate events. About 75 Harker middle school students competed.
Novice Duo Interpretation
3rd – Nikhil Devireddy and Zubin Khera, both grade 7, finalist
Harker’s middle school competed at six tournaments in two states (California and Texas) during December and January. Here is the review of their success. Our middle school students primarily compete against high school students, so success is by no means guaranteed.
College Prep (Oakland)
In mid-December, 37 schools from six states representing 106 entries competed in Lincoln-Douglas debate. Three Harker middle school students competed. You can view the picture album here.
University of Houston
From Jan. 12-13, 58 schools from five states representing 312 entries competed in speech and debate events. Five Harker middle school students competed. You can view the picture album here.
Program Oral Interpretation
4th – Zubin Khera, grade 7
Intramural No. 3 (Harker Middle School)
On Jan. 17, about 50 Harker middle schools students competed in four distinct events and received the following awards. You can view the picture album here.
Speech (Impromptu)
1st – Madeleine Hansen, grade 8
Public Forum
1st – Carol Wininger and Deeya Viradia, both grade 7
Lincoln-Douglas
1st – Rahul Santhanam, grade 7
Policy Speaker Awards
1st – Ansh Sheth, grade 6
Intro (6th Graders Only)
1st – Adam Sayed
2nd – Meishin Yen
3rd – Andrew Tang
4th – Sathvik Chundru
5th – Brittany Tsui
6th – Arjun Gurjar
7th – Anika Mantripragada
Intro Speaker Awards (6th Graders Only)
1st – Sathvik Chundru
2nd – Adam Sayed
3rd – Brittany Tsui
4th – Gautam Bhooma
Harvard-Westlake School (Los Angeles)
From Jan. 13-15, 65 schools from 10 states representing 201 entries competed in Lincoln-Douglas Debate. Eight Harker middle school students competed. You can view the picture album here.
Palos Verdes Peninsula High School (Los Angeles area)
From January 19-21, 82 schools from five states representing 347 entries competed in debate and speech events. About a dozen Harker middle school students competed, and a few received awards. You can view the picture album here.
Policy Debate Varsity
5th – Deven Shah, grade 8, and Julia Biswas, grade 9 (quarterfinalists).
Policy Debate Varsity Speaker Awards
3rd – Deven Shah
Milpitas High School (Milpitas)
From Jan. 27-28, 45 schools in California representing 477 entries competed in debate and speech events. About 70 Harker middle school students competed, and a few received awards. You can view the picture album here.
International Extemporaneous
5th – Ramit Goyal, grade 6
Original Prose & Poetry
5th – Cecilia Yang, grade 6
Original Oratory
9th – Nila Dharmaraj (semifinalist), grade 6
Public Forum Varsity
9th – Aaditya Gulati and Dhruv Shoji (octofinalist), both grade 8
9th – Yejin Song and Alina Yuan (octofinalist), both grade 8
Public Forum Varsity Speaker Awards
2nd – Yeijin Song
Public Forum Novice
22nd – Desiree Luo and Angelina Zhu (3-2 record), both grade 6
29th – Elvis Han and Muthiah Panchanatham (3-2 record), both grade 8
41st – Cynthia Wang and Emma Gao (3-2 record), both grade 6
43rd – Sriram Bhimaraju and Gautam Bhooma (3-2 record), both grade 6
45th – Jeremy Ko and Vishnu Veeravalli (3-2 record), both grade 7
Both the upper and middle school speech and debate teams did incredibly well recently at one of the three major national speech and debate tournaments. The National Speech & Debate Association Tournament was held in Birmingham, Ala., June 18-23. Thousands of students compete at the massive event.
Four upper school students qualified to attend the tournament, and each had impressive results. Aditya Dhar ’17 took home top honors in congressional debate with the senate leadership bowl and a second-place-finish overall. The leadership bowl award is voted on by the debaters, and congressional debate coach Marjorie Hazeltine noted that the whole team was thrilled for Dhar, especially because he has been an incredible team leader and role model throughout his time at the upper school.
Jenny Achten, Harker’s speech and debate department chair, noted Dhar “was seen as a great competitor and also a fair and encouraging presence in the community. It really speaks to how highly he was held as a role model in the Congressional Debate community and within our team.”
Nikhil Dharmaraj, rising junior, made it to the quarterfinals of original oratory with his speech on the importance of quality over quantity. Dharmaraj also made it to the top 20 in impromptu speaking. Avi Gulati, rising sophomore, was close to making it to elimination rounds in oratory and also placed in the top third in impromptu. Rounding out the upper school contingent was Jason Huang, rising junior, who earned a winning record in the relatively new event of world schools debate.
The middle school team also did extremely well in its division, with 157 middle schools from 33 states represented. Harker won the School of Excellence Debate Award, given to the school with the strongest overall record in the debate events across the entire field. Coach Chris Thiele was honored to accept the award on behalf of the whole team.
The duo of Andy Lee and Jason Lin, both rising freshmen, won first place in policy debate on a 5-0 decision, as they successfully argued that the United States ought to increase its diplomatic engagement with the People’s Republic of China, particularly in the area of joint space exploration. Deven Shah, rising eighth grader, and Akshay Manglik, rising freshman, made it to the semifinals of policy debate. In Lincoln-Douglas debate, Rishi Jain, rising eighth grader, was in the semifinals and Akhilesh Chegu, also a rising eighth grader, was in the octofinals.
Harker’s grade 7 public forum teams also had impressive finishes, debating humanitarian assistance and antiterrorism efforts in East Africa. Anshul Reddy and Ayan Nath were semifinalists, Alina Yuan and Amiee Wang made it to octofinals, and Arnav Jain and Harsh Deep, along with Yejin Song and Alysa Su, were double octofinalists. All are rising eighth graders.
Arusha Patil, rising freshman, was a semifinalist in both original oratory and storytelling. Rhea Nanavati, rising fresman, was a quarterfinalist in dramatic interpretation of literature.
The coaches are very proud of all of the students’ accomplishments and send a special thanks to Class of 2017 graduates Sana Aladin, Molly Wancewicz and Anika Jain for joining the coaching staff for this exciting event.