APUSH Student Debates

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Every year after AP exams are over, APUSH students—old and current—ask teachers if they can miss their class period to watch the student debates. The hype surrounding these debates were mostly due to three reasons: the controversial topics, the “hot seat questions,” where students are placed on the spot much like in court, and of course, the opportunity to dress up. My partner and I chose to argue against the death penalty, and while I thought our in-class research sessions had been productive, a friend of mine told me she overheard my partner say otherwise in another class.
Apparently, she was convinced that she would have to do all the work because “Dana never talks. She’s just silent the whole time.” My initial reaction was anger, since
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With her already having arguments from a past MUN conference and me in charge of the hot seat questions and concluding statement, we completely demolished the opposing side (or we’d like to think so at least) and even earned some extra credit points for our fancy attire. Despite this happy ending, it still bothered me that my quietness was perceived as a negative trait, even though it clearly had no effect our success in the end.
In fact, the belief that being reserved is a weakness extends well beyond my single experience. Just look at the clichés found in film and literature today: the shy, clumsy girl at work is just waiting to be coaxed out of her awkward shell, and the lone, introverted protagonist ends his story with a larger circle of friends and transforms into a “better” character by becoming a social butterfly—which according to media, translates to being more interesting.
For a long time I believed that as I grew up, I would randomly gain the ability to just talk to everyone I see about anything and everything, and that being reserved was a flaw I’d need to fix. I believed that making friends came before being confident, and that if I forced myself to reject my quietness, confidence would come along

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