In 6th class a team of debaters usually between eight and ten children is selected and we then debate against several local schools. Each of the team members gets to be in at least one debate where we brainstorm the topic, decide on who is going to be 1st, 2nd or 3rd speaker; prepare their three minute speech and then deliver it before an audience of children and teachers.
There are four preliminary debates and then a final between the two schools with the most wins. This year John Colet is in the final against the Alexander School.
This final will be held next Wednesday at the German School.
The topic of the final debate is: Wisdom is better than strength. And we are the negative team. This is a very challenging argument and has required us to delve deep into what we mean by wisdom and strength .
We found it helpful to go back to the source of the phrase in Ecclesiastes 19:16: Wisdom is better than strength: nevertheless the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard.
We have had extremely lively and creative brainstorming sessions and the children are busily preparing their arguments, examples and rebuttals of arguments we think the other team will raise. Wish us luck break an egg indeed!
