Dragon Debaters Continue To Claim First Place During Their Perfect Season!

We have two words to describe our Dragon Debate so far: Perfect season! Yes, our Dragon debaters have been quite busy these past two months, competing at various tournaments where they have clinched first place overall in each of them! Read on for all of the details from our intrepid Debate Coach Mr. Glasser, including news about our own Speyer-hosted tournament!

Last month, Speyer had the opportunity to host a New York Debate League Tournament, inviting schools from New York and New Jersey to compete in four rounds of debate on topics ranging from education to international politics. The Boulevard was abuzz and every classroom in the school was transformed into a debate chamber to accommodate the surge of passionate argumentation.

On their home turf (in their home lair?), the Dragons gave an inspirational performance. Every Speyer team achieved a winning record, though none could be more winning than our eighth grade debaters Alden, Sana, Sasha, Alex, Brynn, and Caitlin, who all managed to go undefeated through the whole event. Speyer took home (short walk) the first place prize for overall tournament performance, with all of our teams combining for an 80% win rate!

Since Speyer hosted a debate tournament only the weekend before, it was suggested that our debaters might want to skip the next weekend's tournament. After all, they only had a week to turnaround and prepare a whole new slate of topics while the rest of the league had about a month. Despite impressive powers of persuasion, some of our eighth grade debaters decided to give it a go anyway and traveled to Sunset Park Prep in Brooklyn to compete in the New York City Urban Debate League Fall Classic, which featured 44 schools in attendance with an astounding 250 debaters competing.

Brynn, Alex, and Caitlin argued their way through the field. Our three eighth graders debated the motions: It is Unethical to Eat Meat, Governments Should Have the Right to Spy on their Citizens, and Schools Should Require Metal Detectors. At the end of the tournament, they were undefeated! Despite being Speyer's only team competing last weekend, they managed to win first place at the tournament, keeping Speyer's perfect season alive.

What's more, Brynn, Alex, and Caitlin also received the third, second, and first place awards as individual speakers, completing a rare sweep of the competition! Caitlin brought Speyer home another coveted Champion Speaker's Gavel and also received a shout-out from The Girls' Leadership and Debate Institute!

Just this past Saturday, Speyer debaters made the trip to Booker T. Washington Middle School to participate in one of the largest Middle School tournaments of the year. In fact, with almost 700 students from 48 schools participating, the Urban Debate League even had to add a new division in order to accommodate all of the teams. We are delighted by the increasing presence of Middle School debate around the city, as it gives our students the opportunity to meet their peers from an ever-wider variety of schools and locations.

Debaters argued the merits of three topics at this event, having to research both sides thoroughly beforehand. They debated: This House would make public colleges and universities free to attend; This House believes the United States government should pay reparations to African Americans; and This House believes that governments have the right to spy on their citizens. Arguing such deep and impactful topics is an exercise in preparation, persuasion, tact, and passion.

Speyer eighth graders Sana, Alden, and Sasha W. took home the first place award in the advanced division of the tournament, going undefeated in all three of their rounds! Eighth graders Alex and Caitlin also managed to go undefeated in all three rounds, but a tiebreaker of speaking style points left them just short of passing their teammates for the top spot. Each of these debaters also won an award for individual speaking performance with Alden, Sana, and Sasha W. all placing in the top 10.

At the end of the day, Speyer took home the first place award and, by a narrow margin this time, continues to run a perfect season!

Our younger debaters Nathan, Zack, Mikaela, Max, Elliot, and AJ have also moved up to the open division and scored an impressive number of rounds as well. They also earned a number of speaking awards, including Max's 11th place finish making him the highest scoring non-eighth grader.

Our novice debaters climbed in their rankings as well. Zadie, Gavin, and Ruoyu won all of their rounds and clearly have gotten into the swing of things. Henry and Max debated with only a two-person team, but argued on nevertheless, and Henry led our novice field in speaker presentation points.

As you can see, our Dragon Debaters go to a lot of tournaments, twice as many as the next most competitive program, actually! Huge high-fives to all of our debaters on their hard work and amazing passion! Stay tuned for the next updates in January…when one of the topics our Dragon Debaters will tackle is: Gifted Schools Do More Harm Than Good. Should be fun!