Over the 22 nd , 23 rd , 24 th and 27 th of May, a debate - in co-ordination with the English department - was held for the Year 10s. It was a fun-filled experience, yet quite a heated one. There were 4 different topics which were:
Money makes the world go around.
Political leaders trying to keep their citizens safe.
Is animal testing justified?
Should Brazil be in the top 5 countries?
For the first topic, money makes the world go around, there was a proposition team which included Adnan Chalawala, Deeksha, Mohit Nilesh, Zainab Aliasgar, Vinay Nankani and Zahra Riyas. The opposition team consisted of Saud, Daaniyal, Qasim, Aarohi, Hritban and Samriddhi. This debate was held on the 23 rd of May, Wednesday - during the first two periods of the day. The proposition team had Deeksha as their opening speaker. She gave a brief description of the topic and why it is true. The opposition team had the opening speaker Daaniyal, who gave valid points as to why the team was against the statement the topic made. Each of the four speakers from both teams gave strong points, which provided them with a concrete ground for proving their points. The opposition team said, “It’s a greed of humans. For instance, let’s look at the Japanese Monks, they live in a world without money and they’re the happiest people alive which shows that money doesn’t buy happiness.” This point gave them strong ground to fight on, which led to them winning this debate!
Here are a few opinions on the debate by a few participants: As quoted by Saud from the opposition team, “For the first inter-class debate, it was a great experience. We hope that it continues in the future years to come and reaches an inter-school, national level. We could have done better if we worked on the delivery of our speakers.” Adnan from the proposition team stated, “It was a good initiative for the school to have a formal debate. It gave many people a chance to refine their speaking skills. The judges could be more specific as to why they cut our marks and we should’ve worked on the posture of our speakers and their eye contact with the audience.”
The second topic, is animal testing justified?, had a team of supporters who were Zakariya Maklai, Abhishek Krishnan, Salmon Tabani, Maria Indorewala, Abhipriya Chakrabarty, Rhema Bhamburkar and the opposition team consisted of Mohit, Zayed, Haneea, Danushi, Naavya and Adam.
The debate was held on 27 th May, during the 3 rd and 4 th periods. The proposition team had Zakariya Maklai as the opening speaker who spoke about why his description of the topic was true, whereas the opposition team had Mohit as the opening speaker who provided details as to why it could not be true, and supported his point using evidence. Both of the teams provided concrete examples which justified their points, and the proposition team’s enunciation and speaking skills resulted in them winning the debate. However, the opposition team also had good points laid out to their audience, and one of them stressed on the cruelty the animals faced. Over 60 million animals are killed or brutally ripped from their homes for animal testing in the United States itself. This can only be described as cruel, and as humans have claimed to be the superior species on this planet, we cannot use the weaker species to benefit us. The torture animals go through, just because of animal testing, is far more than any human can ever imagine.
Topic three: Are political leaders doing all they can to keep society safe? The intensely controversial topic was taken on by the students of year 10. The team ‘for’ the topic started their opening remarks with an example of Barack Obama and the legislations he passed while in office after 9/11. The team ‘against’ the topic started their opening statements with a generalized yet powerful metaphorical comparison of diapers that need to be changed once their use is over. They mentioned how politicians work for money, are fueled with greed for power, and only provide benefits for their supporters. Over the course of the debate, the two sides discussed fruitfully and the situation started to heat up when rebuttals began.
While the team ‘for’ the topic focused, in a generic manner, on speed limits, legislations and cyber security, the opposition was quick to cut them off with real-life examples of abuse in India and shootings in USA. They nullified the logic of drinking-and-driving laws in existence when the leaders can't even control gun laws, because laws on drinking and driving, although important, aren't as BIG a problem as sexual or mental abuse and mass shootings. The debate was judged by Ms. Joretta and Ms. Farhana and the results were as follows:- The team for the topic bagged 39 points, and the team against the topic bagged 52 points, winning by a margin of 13 points. One of the students in the winning team, Tarishi, had this to say about the debate: “We thoroughly enjoyed debating over topics which are so important in today’s world. Not only did we benefit from the knowledge we gained, but I can say with utmost certainty that the audience members and even the judges benefitted. This is a fairly new concept in school, which was probably introduced quite recently into our school's education system and we look forward to more of these debates.”
Topic number four, should Brazil be in the list of the top 5 countries? Do you think Brazil should be in the top 5 list? If so, there is one team that supported Brazil, who stood against all odds stating, If Brazil is at position 8 then in no time to spare they’ll boost up to 5 with the help of important statement events like the World Cup and Olympics resulting in law and order which will bring down major influences such as drug trafficking, a major contribution to the retainment of Brazil being on the top, which has reduced surprisingly over a period of time. Compared to Brazil’s previous status, what better way of showing the country's growing efforts than by increasing it's GDP. A strong debate took place between the teams, who were arguing about whether or not Brazil should be in the top 5, with strong arguments from the team against Brazil. Brazil's ESPE has advanced greatly. A country’s main strength lies in this. ESPE being the base and the root of a country, with this factor at stake, the foundation of any country may collapse, regardless of it's blooming secondary sectors. In order for Brazil to be at the top it has to have a strong political and social base which still hasn’t been established, and the country has a long way to go in order to attain the position it wants to acquire.
The team for Brazil states: “It was a quite good experience. Our deliverance was a bit shaky but overall it was good." The team against Brazil has the same stand on their experience: “Definitely it was good to learn something new, because the debate was as adventurous as it was challenging."
To conclude, what better way to convey ideas and options than this platform set up by the English department to unleash the young speakers of tomorrow and enhance their skills of public speaking!
Written by Alicia Kunte (9B), Devin Fernando (9C), Lamya Butt (9C) and Sara Firdos (9C) Edited by Anupama Warrier (9C) Compiled by Aryan Changrani (9C)