Judge Jackson Was a High School Debater

 Recently I read an article in the New York Times about the impact high school debating had on Judge Ketanja Brown Jackson, who has been nominated by President Biden for the Supreme Court. In the article Judge Jackson was quoted as referring to her debate experience at Palmetto Senior High School in Miami, Florida, as being "the one activity that best prepared me for future success in law and in life." The article indicates that the experience of debating offers a glimpse into how Jackson eventually became a Supreme Court nominee. In The Best Version of Alice, my novel that will be released soon, the central characters are on the debate team in their high school. In previous posts I've talked about debate and what students can learn through debate, and this article confirms my belief about the impact it can have on their success.

In my new novel, it is clear that debate is having an impact on the skills students are learning that will follow them into their adult lives. In Alice's case she is learning to become more confident and able to speak out when she needs to, but the students are all also learning to work together as a team and support one another. When I read about Judge Jackson, I realized that she is a great example of how high school experiences can have a lasting impact on the student's life. If you'd like to read the article about Judge Jackson, here is a link to it:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/26/us/ketanji-brown-jackson-high-school-debate.html?smid=em-share

Learning by Doing

 

In The Best Version of Alice, the main characters are high school debaters.  Students learn from debate in a variety of ways. They learn to work with a team, write a convincing argument, and present it in a confident, compelling way. It takes practice to become a good debater, but most people learn by doing. Coaching debate allowed me to watch students as they grew in their ability to construct effective debate briefs and present them confidently. They also learned to listen attentively to the opposition and respond appropriately. Traveling to and from debate tournaments as well as other literary events allowed me to get to know students in a more personal manner. Those students are often the ones I've kept up with after they graduate.

I enjoyed  going through a box of pictures recently from my years of teaching at Armuchee High School, and I thought my readers might enjoy them too.  Students don't just learn from listening to teachers from 8 to 3 each day. They learn from finding information and presenting it to one another; they learn from acting out plays they study in literature; they learn by tutoring children in a mobile home park in their community; they learn from competitions like Mock Trial, Debate, and Academic Decathlon; they learn from going on field trips to Washington, D.C, Renaissance Festivals (in costume),  Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in North Carolina,  Tybee Island (where they hold a snake); they learn by creating a brochure  and a handbook to outline how their school creates a recycling program; they learn by going to yearbook camps in the summer before they work on the school yearbook.

Writers Write What They Know