Debate!

              

             Last week, we had a debate in our economics class. The topic was “Free Trade should be allowed in all countries.” Each group had to give a speech about its beneficiality, practicability, and necessity. We should also cross-examine the opposing group, give facts and evidences, and defend our stance.  On the first day, we were quite nervous especially because there was confusion in the assignment of tasks. But surprisingly, it went quite well. We even won and we had a chance for the final debate. Then for the final debate, we were up against John’s group. This time, we were twice much more nervous because the judges were all teachers, there was a podium, and we were even wearing formal attires.

The topic was “Should we (the world) establish diplomatic relations with North Korea?” but our group thought that the topic was “Should we establish diplomatic relations between North and South Korea?”  At first, we felt bad because we got the topic wrong and worse because we really prepared hard for it and even had our visuals and speeches ready, yet not being able to use it. But then later on, we just told each other to do whatever best we could and just improvise a lot. It was somehow a funny situation for us. We had to revise our speeches or just make it an impromptu speech. We just tried to answer and find arguments and try to make sense of what we were saying.  Even though we lost, and we knew we were going to lose, we still felt good and relieved. I also felt proud of our group because each of us really tried the best we could and did the tasks assigned to us. There were also no blame games or sad faces afterwards but just saying “Good job!” to each other and smiles and laughs.

It was a great experience for all of us. Not just academically: by experiencing an actual debate, presenting researches and proofs, and speaking in front of a crowd, but also in our character-building. We were able to practice sportsmanship, build confidence, deal with unexpected situations and try to look at the positive side. And most importantly, teamwork---learning to trust, cooperate, and support each other. Therefore, on the long-run, all of us were winners.