November 11, 2011-Debate Practice to train new debators

My partner, Akash, and I helped to train the new debators today at the practice party before their first tournament at EHS. We observed a debate between two of the novice teams and gave them critiques. We tried to teach them what learned throughout our years of debate. We attempted to give them wisdom from our mistakes and tell them what approaches have worked for us in the past. It was nice to see the novices look up to us with such respect because they knew how accomplished we were in the field of debate. We crossfired against a novice team and showed them how to approach a case in many novel ways. The kids all tried to grab our points and cross fire questions, but we refused to give them any points because we wanted them to learn for themselves. The activity meant a lot to me because I have never been in the position to teach other people about things which I know better than other people. I am happy to help my teammates but i feel resentful because we never had anyone showing us the ropes like these novices we trained.