Point, counterpoint: Middle school students ‘step out of quiet zone’ in debate class

KEALAKEKUA — The clock starts ticking down and one of Woody Plaut’s seventh-grade debate class students launches into an argument about why video games do more harm than good.

The Konawaena Middle School student has just five minutes to lay out his argument, during a part of which time his classmates — and competitors — can stand up and question the points he’s raised. Once his time is up, it’s his opposition’s turn to argue the counterpoint.

You might expect the students in Plaut’s debate class to be the most outgoing and eager to speak out on the Kealakekua campus, but of the dozen students in class last Wednesday, the vast majority said they were actually pretty shy.

Debate class, though, is changing that.

“It makes the students that don’t speak a lot step out of their quiet zone to be more like an outgoing person,” said Anela Abran, one of Plaut’s students.

This is the second year Plaut, a National Board certified teacher, has taught the school’s debate class and it’s his hope that the state will embrace the opportunities his course can offer Hawaii middle-schoolers and include it into the state’s catalog of Authorized Courses and Code Numbers, the official list of courses students can take.

“My goal as a teacher is to have my students end up being outstanding citizens. That’s my goal,” Plaut said. “Here it is; this heads everybody in that direction.”

Every debate cycle kicks off with each team pitching a topic from a list of 170 debatable issues, issues such as the value of social media (Wednesday’s topic), the death penalty and whether police officers should be required to wear body cameras.

Once the class hears each team’s pitch, they vote on which topic they’ll be battling out for the cycle.

Then, the whole class together brainstorms a list of arguable claims that could be used on each side of the debate.

Finally, team captains randomly select counters that determine which side they’ll be debating and whether their team will debate the first or second head-to-head.

Given the topics available for discussion, Plaut’s students said they liked being able to talk about real issues facing the world.

“The subjects we’re debating, they’re not just made-up subjects,” said Sophia Burgess. “They could be debated in the real world.”

And the topics push students to challenge their own notions and conceptions about an issue, such as the question of whether beauty pageants should be banned.

“I used to hate beauty pageants and I thought they were just horrible for people,” said Evabella Sandberg. “But then I learned that there are actually really good things to beauty pageants, and the same with other subjects, too.”

Once a topic’s decided, then comes the big debate. And last Monday, the focus was video games.

The debate happens in three rounds, starting with the “first proposition constructive speech,” in which the first member of the team in favor of the debate’s proposition has five minutes to build an argument in favor of his or her side. Afterward comes the first member of the opposing team who has five minutes for the first opposition constructive speech.

A second round of constructive speeches with five minutes for each side follows that, and finally the third team member on each side gets three minutes — starting with the opposition — to rebut the opposing team’s claims.

Throughout the debate, every student, including those not arguing in the day’s debate, is busily taking down notes about every claim and counterclaim.

Because once the debate is over, it’s time to score some points.

Points are awarded to teams from their classmates based on the arguments they were able to raise during the constructive speech portions of the debate with students referring to the notes they made. But any point can get literally wiped off the board if an opponent was able to rebut an argument during the debate.

While the debate might be at the center of the class, it’s by far not the only thing that makes it exceptional.

One particular example is that in Plaut’s class, the students grade themselves.

Each student fills out their own grade sheet in which they have to evaluate and score their participation, note taking, debate presentation and outside research, with a chance to earn some bonus points for vocabulary words.

And not only do they grade themselves, they’ve also got to justify their grade.

And Plaut’s students are OK with that.

“With this, when I’m grading myself, I actually get to see how I’m doing in this class, and if I’m doing well in different subjects or not,” said Sandberg.

And Plaut said students by and large are very honest in their self-evaluation.

“They’re so honest with themselves that the norm is that I will ask their permission to raise their grade,” Plaut said.

There’s also no homework assigned, but the kids know they still need to prepare for their debate.

“It sort of prepares us for the future of doing what we need to do and what our responsibility is,” said Sonny Fitzgerald. “He doesn’t give anything, but we know if we want to complete the objective, we’ve got to do what we think is right.”

Plaut’s hope now is that middle school students throughout Hawaii will have a chance to experience the excitement his own students have for the class.

“I want the state to embrace the value of middle school debate by placing it in the ACCN catalogue,” he said.

Plaut said his goal for this year or next year is to write the course that will be submitted to the state.

And Plaut’s own students said they’d recommend to principals throughout the state that they offer the course.

“This is a really good class for shy people,” said Anuhea Spinola. “And it’s very competitive and if you’re shy, you can get confidence and you can get rid of stage fright.”

And the fact that the class nearly always runs past the bell can’t be a bad sign, either.

“I don’t want to go to my other class,” Spinola said.

Email Cameron Miculka at cmiculka@westhawaiitoday.com.