Benefits of Debate

Debate is a sport truly worthy of the Olympics – it trains your analytical, critical, and quick thinking, persuasive speaking, note-taking, speed reading, and in-depth research. Debate does not only teach a person how to win an argument, but also instructs the person for a great amount of life essential skills.

For starters, policy debating looks fantastic on a college application or a job resume. This is because debate enables one to develop phenomenal speaking skills, confidence, organization, and critical thinking skills. These are qualities that colleges and jobs look for in people to succeed. Also, many schools will offer a scholarship to a hardworking debater. The basic skills that a debater is able to acquire in the first year of debating are:

• Knowledge – Your son and daughter will never be clueless about the real world. Current international, national, & local events, politics, new foreign policies, government, economy, science, health & other exciting topics are constantly researched for better evidence in debate rounds.
• Persuasive communication – Tired of a shy son or daughter? Fear no more, debate will make anybody into a confident speaker that can stand up in any audience. Not only that, debate will increase a person’s cohesive speaking abilities and lead to more persuasive and easier communication.
• Better cooperation - As two person teams, a debater can operate much more easily with more than one person. Teamwork is a golden rule in debate. Not a single tournament is won without the help of the team.
• Faster and Better Note Taking- It is attained from flowing (note taking) the rapid speaking that occurs in debate rounds.
• Speed Reading- With the pressure under time, a debater must skim or read quickly to get through the evidence whether it be from speaking or trying to understand it.
• Fast and critical thinking- The amount of pressure trains the debater to think of good arguments and loop holes in evidence in an abnormally short amount of time.
• Better Focus- The noisy atmosphere in a room can get stressful under the clock, so a debater learns to shut out all of the noise and focus on what he or she is doing
• Better Organization Skills – If you are not organized, debates become very hassled, so organization helps one to prepare faster, hassle less, and operate efficiently.
• Responsibility- Being apart of a team, a debater must fulfill deadlines of research in order to help the entire team to win and strive to succeed. Furthermore, a debater’s speaker position allows him or her to build responsibility.

Another perk of debate, is the social community that is developed. You get to make life long friends from all over the country! A debater is able to meet the most brilliant and successful high school students around the nation at debate tournaments. All the debaters are not necessarily from the same area or state, so they can network. This is beneficial to a team sometimes in gathering information about other teams for future tournament.

Debate can teach a person what he or she might want to do with his or her life. It also makes a person learn and understand things objectively; which, without a doubt, makes a person much more mature in the world today.

In other words, debate is an activity full of high speed action where a single second cannot be wasted. A true military for students abroad, policy debate is a once in a lifetime activity that will ultimately change a person and lead to a easier and better life. Oh yeah, word of caution, if you tell your children to do policy debate, then they might be able to prove you’re wrong!