Harvard Debate Camp

I completed two weeks at the Harvard Debate Camp yesterday.  While the first week of the camp was focused on public speaking, this second week was about debate and argumentation.  We learned a very formal debate format and we argued the resolution: the benefits of open borders outweigh the harms. 

Debate.  There’s actually a personality called “The Debater” on the 16 personalities test, though I’m not one myself.  An additional quality about me is that I usually just take for granted what people tell me.  My brief introduction to debate has taught me how to challenge what people tell me so that I am capable of forming my own opinions and beliefs.  When people tell me X is bad, I can now ask myself, Great, but how could X also have a positive effect? How could this statement actually be false? I’m beginning to challenge ideas, rather than eat up whatever information people feed me. 

I’ve never done a formal debate, though I’ve been in casual class debates in history.  This week was enlightening, I received a quick introduction to debate and argumentation, and I’ve learned multitudinous debate terms, like resolved, affirmative, refutation, and contention.  When I first walked into the second week, I thought the hardest part of the debate would be constructing a rock solid case that was impossible to take down by my opponent.  I was mistaken, building my own case was actually not the hardest part.   The hardest part of the debate was also not taking down my opponent’s case.  The hardest part of debate for me was keeping organized.  

One of key components that I’ve learned through participating in this debate tournament at camp, is that everything that is mentioned or said must have an argument, defense, or attack.  I made the mistake of leaving my opponent’s rebuttal to one of my three contentions untouched, in which case, he took as factual and that I supported the claim even though I didn’t.  For that purpose, we were taught to flow, which is to chart where the conversation goes, that way, all contentions that are touched upon can be tracked.  

While at this camp I was able to learn debate skills and hone my public speaking skills, at this camp I was being able to interact with different types of people.  I didn’t realize this before, but at school, people get along very well in almost all circumstances and personalities are very compatible.  Perhaps it is because we are in school, everyone is tired, people are stressed, but there’s a particular aura of sternness that makes everyone so similar.  This year, I was also the youngest in the school, which is why I may have felt like everyone around me was so mature. 

Perhaps it is also because the people at school are older, but at camp, I met an impressive array of people.  There were people who were very hyper all the time, people who loved to be a part of drama, people who never stopped talking, people who could get on anyones nerves, people who were shy etc.  It amazes me to reflect on how many different kinds of people I met at camp.  Perhaps these same people who were hyper all the time, are mellow during the school year, or the ones that enjoyed causing drama are actually unconcerned at school.  Regardless of who they may be at school, in retrospect, I encountered and met an array of different kinds of people, with different personalities.  I learned how to talk, how to work, and how to interact with different kinds of people, different from the people at school. In fact, I’ve never met anyone like some of the kids I’ve met at this camp and it was a true pleasure being able to learn from them. 

Being social.  For me that may be one of the most critical areas of development.  I admire people who are able to start and sustain conversations with everyone, and I’m not going to lie, I’ve met many of these kinds of people.  I agree that I’m able to start conversations, but the array of people I’m able to have these conversations with is not as scopious as I would hope. School is definitely a place where I try to reach out and get to know people and their interests.  This camp threw me off by surprise when I realized how many different kinds of people there were.  Being more sociable with more types of people will be an ongoing goal of mine, but at least I was given some practice these past two weeks:)