ISDA Debating Report Round 2 vs St Andrews
M. D. Kwak
IT’S FINALLY HERE. SHORE’S DEBATING RENAISSANCE HAS ARRIVED. Last Friday, Shore was away at St Andrews debating topics surrounding politics, with Shore winning ALL of its Senior School ISDA debates in a cool display of classical Shore dominance.
The Primary As and Bs, negated ‘That’ Unfortunately, both teams went down closely but received valuable feedback that can hopefully increase the depth of their points.
Our Year 7 LND teams had the curly topic ‘That we should promote gamification in schools’ (I personally have no idea what that is), losing one debate and winning the other. Boys should be commended for their teamwork, excellent rebuttal and point allocation. Both Year 8 LND teams had conclusive Ws, affirming the same topic by establishing a sensible model, proving their benefits and comprehensively rebutting the opposition’s most persuasive material.
The Year 7 ISDA team continued their winning ways, successfully arguing ‘That we should have term limits’. Despite a squirrel by their opponents creating a somewhat messy debate, the lads did well to respond to their key claims and will be working on how to respond to soft models for next week. Special mention to Aaron Zheng for his standout performance!
Year 8 ISDA negated the same topic on term limits and emerged victorious. Edward displayed a masterclass in characterising the debate and sneakily pre-empting the opponent’s points which Leo backed up with decisive rebuttal. Miraculously, Richard ‘Larry’ Zhang was debater of the week for his excellent weighing that explained why we should care about the Negative’s preferred stakeholder (that kid needs to stop copying me).
Year 7 ISDA after a clinical victory (it’s just too ez for them)
Year 9 negated ‘That politicians who break promises should have to run for reelection’ and in a close debate, Shore clutched the dub. The boys pulled through with the depth of their arguments and their attention to the harms and benefits of each point. Oliver Dorney was the standout speaker with strong argumentation and the yummy thematic structure we all salivate over.
After last week, I was thinking it was over for Year 10, but they proved me wrong by clutching their first victory of the year, negating ‘That we prefer multi-party systems of government to the two-party system’. Will Nicholas’ summary was greatly amusing, and as always, quite elegantly written (complete with metaphors, fancy vocabulary and even a plot…) so here it is below:
“Arguing the merits of a two-party system, Year 10 struggled to their first victory of the year through a quagmire of a debate in which neither side really proved anything, and came perilously close to being bested by a significantly inferior SACS team (😔 I’ve been there). Henry Marshall gave the speech of the night at first, brandishing his characteristic level-headed, soft-spoken argumentative style; but as the debate lumbered on, it became clear that Shore had been somewhat flummoxed by their opponents’ inexperience. Yukai and Kevin’s speeches contained fleeting glimpses of their formidable oratory skill, which were just enough for the adjudicator to wave away a couple of contradictions which had snuck past the prep-room cull. He ultimately swallowed Shore’s claims that two-party systems would generate better policy, and about the illusory nature of freedom of choice in multi-party systems.”
If Will’s flexing that kind of writing for a mere debating summary, no wonder he received a cheeky 50/50 in his English Ext 1 HSC exam.
I’m starting to think that this year’s Senior Bs team is the strongest ever created. Not only does it boast the philosophy guru that is Callum Vujanovic and the public speaking machine Gus Leslie – it also has the powerhouse debater: Michael Xu. Oh and then there’s ‘E-giant’ Qiao, (a top 100 player in Clash Royale). In a somewhat confusing debate, the lads were able to sufficiently prove that the inefficiency created by a multi-party system would outweigh any democratic benefits. Unfortunately, Ms Wolsley didn’t provide a debater of the week, so I’m nominating Ramon Zhang, who, despite being 5th speaker this week and recovering from a cold, accompanied the boys on the rainy trek to SACS and waited in a 50-person line for my KFC order. What a king, embodying the true spirit of Shore debating – a paragon of dedication and humility we can all learn from.
The beaming Senior Bs, now with 2 Ws in the bag
The vibes were not it for the Senior As debate. After 20 minutes of being mightily confused by the topic, the team scrambled to put together a case for what was the trickier side of the topic. The SACS team engaged in a brutal intimidation campaign from their first speaker, who carefully spread 20 pages of handwritten notes before requesting another table to fit them all on. Despite being “example-bombarded” as Dan Liu put it, Maximus Kim did well to counter SACS’ sus general knowledge of the German political system with mechanistic prowess and delicious argument delivery. Despite a less than optimal performance from myself at 2nd Neg, the dashing young buck, ‘Daddy’ Liu, cleaned it up at 3rd, earning himself the well-deserved title of debater of the week. In his Senior As debut, Dan summarised the debate perfectly and tipped the scales towards Shore’s favour. Of course, Kang’s contributions as team advisor, (a nonsensical rambling about Rwanda in the prep and handwriting comparisons during the debate) were excellent as always.
The Senior As, on the verge of tears, as they feign hard work for their group photo
Next week, Shore faces Scots at Scots. I’m looking forward to another week of Shore doing what it does best: winning.