Great story last night on “60 Minutes” about inner-city kids making great strides at school and in their lives through participation in the debate team. I was never on the debate team at school, but as a frequent participant (combatant?) in weblog conversations, I sort of feel like I’m on one now. 🙂 What struck me most was one kid saying, paraphrased, “It’s hard to get people to listen to kids our age. But when you’re on the debate team, people *have* to listen.”
Is that great or what? Kids get to feel powerful, and feel the power of words, and it makes a huge difference. Plus, they also have to do tons of their own research, and master all aspects of a complex topic, something no standardized test will ever measure.
Of course, the team also has a dedicated coach, a police officer who teaches criminal justice in the classroom and coaches debate after class. And far from being the dispassionate automaton that people like Mrs. du Toit seem to favor, he’s a guy who gives the kids unconditional support, in and out of class.
This is what public education is about: integrating society and school, and teaching kids not what to think, but how to learn. If we lose that, we’ve lost ourselves.
“Toit” means “roof” in French, I just looked it up.
Ah, high school debate. I remember those days. Not only a good place to hone one’s rhetorical skills, but something that forces you to actually research current issues. I still remember a lot of stuff about energy sources, criminal justice, and health care reform from those days. Wildly obsolete stuff, to be sure, but stuff.
It’s a bummer that the highlights in public education are so few and far between.