Charles Barkley’s hands wrapped around my shoulders. My head barely went to his armpit. The 6’6”, 250 pounder, NBA legend towered over me. We were located in the hotel lobby in Birmingham, Alabama, I was there to compete in the National Speech and Debate Tournament, he was there for fun. “That’s a good skill to have,” he said. “ To be able to communicate effectively and debate.” Is it? I have come to the conclusion, as I have contemplated this one simple question the past year , that the single greatest thing I have learned as a high school student at BHS is the ability to communicate and debate effectively. Debate has taught me some of the greatest life lessons that I will ever learn. I have also solidified my adventure into adulthood by
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MacBeth is noble, and he is a friend. His friendship with Banquo is unmatched. His facade is demolished though after the once noble MacBeth kills his friend. Although he seemed to be a hero, the rest of the story that unfolded proved otherwise. Just because someone uses a static doesn’t mean it’s a fact. And when MacBeth says he’s a friend, he doesn’t actually mean it. Nothing is as it seems. Words have power. Debate involves the manipulation of words. The better one is at using rhetoric, the more he will excel in debate. An extremely great lesson I have learned in debate is the importance of how things are presented oratorically. The power of one’s words can not be underestimated. If words didn’t matter than no one would care about Trump’s tweets, but they do. Because words have the power to start wars, and stop them, words are diplomacy. Words have …show more content…
A lesson I learned when I lost all but one of my debate rounds my freshman year. Four years, a state medal, a national tournament, and much experience later I still face this challenge. Debate is very subjective. It is not like other school activities. In football or other sports things are clear and outcomes are natural. If the ball goes into your opponent's end zone you score, if you score more than the other team you win, that is guaranteed, the only uncertainty is a few bad calls from the refs. Debate more resembles life. There is no exact way to do anything. You can be the best and fail. The most frustrating thing in debate is that I could face the same person twice, say the same things, and do everything the same way and I could end up winning one round and losing the other. There is no exact way to “score” points in debate. Each round a person must adapt. It is extremely hard to come out of a round feeling like I have just destroyed my opponents just to find out that I actually lost. My brother Kohl once watched me debate. In a personal interview he told me, “You thrashed them. Everything you did was better. You seemed to understand the topic better and you complicated much more effectively.” ONe can imagine the look on his face when I told him that that was the one round I lost at the tournament. It made no sense to him or me. There was no logical way to explain why I lost. It was not fair. I had researched harder, spoke better, and done everything
MacBeth is noble, and he is a friend. His friendship with Banquo is unmatched. His facade is demolished though after the once noble MacBeth kills his friend. Although he seemed to be a hero, the rest of the story that unfolded proved otherwise. Just because someone uses a static doesn’t mean it’s a fact. And when MacBeth says he’s a friend, he doesn’t actually mean it. Nothing is as it seems. Words have power. Debate involves the manipulation of words. The better one is at using rhetoric, the more he will excel in debate. An extremely great lesson I have learned in debate is the importance of how things are presented oratorically. The power of one’s words can not be underestimated. If words didn’t matter than no one would care about Trump’s tweets, but they do. Because words have the power to start wars, and stop them, words are diplomacy. Words have …show more content…
A lesson I learned when I lost all but one of my debate rounds my freshman year. Four years, a state medal, a national tournament, and much experience later I still face this challenge. Debate is very subjective. It is not like other school activities. In football or other sports things are clear and outcomes are natural. If the ball goes into your opponent's end zone you score, if you score more than the other team you win, that is guaranteed, the only uncertainty is a few bad calls from the refs. Debate more resembles life. There is no exact way to do anything. You can be the best and fail. The most frustrating thing in debate is that I could face the same person twice, say the same things, and do everything the same way and I could end up winning one round and losing the other. There is no exact way to “score” points in debate. Each round a person must adapt. It is extremely hard to come out of a round feeling like I have just destroyed my opponents just to find out that I actually lost. My brother Kohl once watched me debate. In a personal interview he told me, “You thrashed them. Everything you did was better. You seemed to understand the topic better and you complicated much more effectively.” ONe can imagine the look on his face when I told him that that was the one round I lost at the tournament. It made no sense to him or me. There was no logical way to explain why I lost. It was not fair. I had researched harder, spoke better, and done everything