The Debate Club participated in their first tournament at Pinole Valley High School on November 17. 9 Campo teams were entered in the competition with 2 people on each team.
One team, comprised of Aaron Lin and Keiko Eng, went 4-0 in the competition.
“Overall, we were pretty successful,” said club president Julie Meng. There were 30 teams from different schools at the tournament, including Miramonte and Bishop O’dowd.
The Campo team debated 8 current event topics, including “Will the US fall the fiscal cliff in January?” and “Should states be able to secede from the country?”
The team had 20 minutes to prep for each topic in the impromptu formant.
“I think the team did pretty good for the first debate [sic],” said freshman Aaron Lin. “[The tournaments] are very similar to middle school debates but harder because we use impromptu. They are more exciting than the debates in middle school,” said freshman Keiko Eng. Both Eng and Lin previously competed in middle school debate.
“We expected nothing going into the tournament, and fortunately, we weren’t disappointed,” said Meng.
“I think we are successful so far,” said Lin. “Debate club is extremely fun and I’m really happy there was a debate club established by Julie,” added Eng. The club’s ultimate goal is to learn and master the skill of public speaking.
