Blog 6

In this week’s Public speaking class, we talked and practiced debating. We were given a list of debates to choose from and we had to pick 6 topics that we would like to debate. We had to pick them and post it on our blog so we could go over them in class. We had a vote do decide which topics we would like to have a debate about. Most of us didn’t pick the same topics so it took us a while to finally pick a topic. We ended up picking 2 topics. “Should people be fined for recycling”, and “Should grades be abolished”. We were for grades should not be abolished, and against people being fined for not recycling. Our side’s argument basically went like this: I can honestly say that grades are the motivation in high school. If something is not being graded, it is never completed to the same standard as something that is. Upper level students often thrive on the competition between other students, and without this, there will never be work of such a high standard. Also, how will students be picked for universities, when universities can't tell an A+ student from a D- student? Grading is an essential part of testing ones abilities or knowledge. Testing knowledge and problem solving abilities is an important aspect of teaching. Grading is an important aspect of testing. One cannot test ones self without a result of that test, to succeed or fail is how we can come to grow. We learn from the results and consequences of our actions, What will college look at? If a kid was a bad student in high school, then will any college just pick them? I am for grading systems. Keep them. That was what we argued for the topic, “Grades should be abolished”. After the debate we went over who we thought won or had a more persuasive argument, and obviously the people that were on one team were biased towards their team so we couldn’t really get a clear view of who we thought had the better argument. The next topic we debated was, like I said, “should people be fined for not recycling”. The other team had a really good argument so it was hard for us to rebuttal. I thought that Alexis did a good job of rebutting and always shows a lot of passion when she does so. Simon also did a good job of presenting his argument and Omarion did a good job as well. I didn’t think that our intro was very good. It could have been better. I believe that I was the strongest speaker in the debate because I presented my argument very clearly and cohesively. I did a good job of addressing and counter arguing some of their points. All in all I think this was a good activity because I feel like everyone needs to know how to debate. Debating is something that you can apply to a lot of things in your life.