boarding a plane for the first time ever on my way to debate at the CEDA national tournament. I debated Policy for the next four years, and after college, coached forensic squads that competed in National Forensic League and Texas Forensic Association events. I was a Policy debater and a Policy Debate coach. Policy Debate had changed my life.

I left coaching for several years but returned to it in 2005 as the first league director of the Houston Urban Debate League (HUDL). Helping bring debate back to urban high schools in Houston, where I had won my first tournament as a novice debater, was a great experience. Back in the 70s, all the HISD schools had debate teams. By the time I was hired by HUDL only three of more than 30 high schools maintained teams.

At the time, I suggested to some of the HUDL board members that if we really wanted to impact the lives of our students we should consider selecting our own topics to debate. I knew traditional Policy Debate was a good tool but not the best tool for meeting the needs of these students, and I thought its physical performance style would hinder our ability to demonstrate debate’s usefulness for school administrators and fundraising.

It would be another five years before HUDL made a dramatic paradigm shift in high school debate possible by introducing World Schools Debate during its 2012-13 season, the direct result of the HUDL Board of Directors, their open-mindedness about what works best for our schools, and their willingness to make bold moves.

The introduction to World Schools Debate happened to coincide with my first season back as a teacher and high school debate coach at Sam Houston Math, Science, and Technology Center. I refused to coach World Schools Debate at first. I “knew” that with my 20 years of coaching experience I could coach these kids to be successful in Policy Debate.

I eventually was able to step back and evaluate Policy Debate as a teaching strategy at this urban high school. I started the year with two debate classes. Midway through the year I saw enrollment drop and interest wane and decided to roll the dice on World Schools Debate.

Much to my surprise, the number of students interested in debate went through the roof. We have five debate classes this year, and we were able to hire a second full-time debate coach. Why the turnaround? Simply stated, World Schools Debate is a comparatively better teaching tool in urban high schools. But let me make one thing clear—I would push to compete in World Schools Debate at any established program. While Policy Debate, as it is, is educational—it seems to me that the education is almost a side effect of the activity, not the driving force behind its design.

Administrators and financial supporters can immediately observe the relevance of the activity, including the literacy, writing, and language skills it develops. Instruction in World Schools Debate teaches language

arts and writing skills that many of our students must master to be successful on our state standardized tests. As a result, administrators made a commitment to speech and debate instruction, and Sam Houston MSTC now has four speech teachers and two debate teachers—a very high number for a school with approximately 2,000 students.

Why did World Schools Debate take off? For starters, it is more accessible to students. It allows many more students to experience debate as a transformative activity. Designed to meet the needs of international students who need to compete in a universal language (English), it makes a very useful and understandable tool for engaging urban students and ESL students. World Schools Debate skills are more transferable to other classes and job opportunities. At Sam Houston I am teaching debate and speech classes—but in reality, I am teaching communication literacy, civil discourse and argument, and applying sound communication principals in and out of debate. World

Sam Houston’s Debate Team prepares to board the bus for their first HUDL debate tournament of the year. The team had a full bus of 55 students participating at a school that had no program a year ago.

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A look at the World Schools Debate Ballotby Mark Webber

STYLE (40% emphasis) – The style of World Schools Debate is grand and eloquent and focuses on clear, articulate speaking. Cases are extemporized and not read. Debaters are not penalized because they do not speak perfect English or speak with an accent. It is a fierce but friendly debating atmosphere. Good posture, good eye contact, good gestures, and good composure are all rewarded. According to Slovenia coach Bojana Skrt, about 60% of teams competing in the last five years have been ESL or EFL teams. Fast speaking or spreading would really hinder many countries’ abilities to participate. Good speaking style also lends ethos to the speaker and is an important element of persuasion, especially when communicating on a global level.

CONTENT (20% emphasis) – Debaters are awarded points for having a strong and broad world knowledge. To use examples from one’s own country in a debate is uncommon because it gives one team a clear advantage. Debaters are expected to be able to articulately provide analysis about any event taking place on the globe at any given moment and to understand how geopolitical issues are intertwined. In World Schools Debate, evidence is almost never read into the round. It appears through current and historical events, scientific knowledge, and even literary examples and references that are brought up. For each motion debated, we collect as much evidence as a good Lincoln-Douglas topic warrants. Most importantly, evidence does not take the place of analysis. The debaters must be able to explain how their examples relate to the motion using a “common sense” rationale that proves their side of the debate.

STRATEGY (20% emphasis) – This area mainly deals with knowing what arguments are important, giving those arguments sufficient attention, and the ability to focus the debate on the key substantive issues. Not much weight is given for undeveloped, peripheral arguments that have little to do with the main topic. Definitional debates or arguments on technicalities are frowned upon. The judges would much rather listen to you argue the motion head-on. If there is a definitional challenge, it usually makes for a better debate and much happier judges when the teams can come to a compromise of what the definition means.

During my last year in the Sudan, my debate coach dream came true! We were invited by the Qatar Foundation, all expenses paid, to bring a team from the Sudan to the November training session and January World Schools Debating Championships to be hosted in Doha. We went to work right away learning how to debate World Schools style! At first it was really strange; I had not given much thought to how people in other parts of the world debate or don’t debate and why. During the training session, I remember being asked if my Sudanese team would debate the team from Israel if we drew them, and how odd that question first struck me—but think of the political implications of debating a country that your country does not even recognize.

At first, it was a bit difficult to teach my debaters not to read evidence in a debate round. Using words like “motion” and “proposition” and “opposition” were a reach. Many things I rejected not because our way was better but just because that was the way I was used to doing debate. Yet I knew I had to embrace World Schools Debate format in its entirety to be able to do it well. It’s like living in a new country—you have to at least try to learn the language so that you can understand the culture.

The Sudanese experience was sort of serendipitous, because no one had formal debating experience so we used mixed teams with kids from different schools debating together for the sparring sessions we had leading up to our departure for the world championships. It was fabulous to see the Northern and Southern Sudanese students working together (this was before the country voted to split forming the new nation of South Sudan). They were a bit cautious at first, but really dove in later as trust and camaraderie were built. I always thought that was a model for how the Sudanese

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