Speech and Debate hosted their annual five-day summer camp at Korean United Methodist Church to introduce incoming freshmen to the club, July 28 – Aug. 1. Led by Sunny Park (12) and Serena Lee (12), the camp provided new students a chance to learn about and participate in Speech and Debate events before the school year started.
“Speech and Debate is definitely a difficult club to get into because of how many rules, topics, and jargon you have to learn,” Park said. “So, with the Speech and Debate camp, we had the privilege of giving incoming freshmen an introduction to an event of their choosing, which was the Public Forum for this year.”
Public Forum is a two-on-two debate format where teams argue for or against a current topic. Students learned the basics of this event throughout the camp with a variety of activities, such as games and debates, which culminated in a tournament on the last day of camp.
“In Public Forum, there are two main components: creating your argument and public speaking,” Park said. “We tackled these over the span of a week with different activities. For public speaking, we did a full debate for multiple days where the campers would practice speaking against each other. They would also prepare an argument for these mini-debates. We also had a main debate where we had a formal tournament on the last day, which students spent multiple days preparing for.”
The camp was a primarily student-driven event, with Speech and Debate’s executive team in charge of planning, executing, and leading the incoming freshmen. However, the executive team ran into a challenge a few days prior to the event when the Public Forum captain, Evan Liu (11), was unable to lead the camp. As a result, Lee and Park, Speech and Debate’s Speech captains, took over his leadership role in the camp.
“We had to learn [about] Public Forum just days before the camp, and we were learning alongside the campers,” Park said. “We [spent] long hours in the night preparing lesson plans for the next day, but it did allow us to create a more in-depth plan that catered to the students’ needs and their progress from previous days.”
As it was her first time leading the camp, Park enjoyed the experience of connecting with students and watching them grow in the camp environment. Park said she was also able to provide the incoming students with advice and information to set them up for success during the school year.
“I was very excited to foster an environment where incoming freshmen could thrive and come into the school year with less confusion [than] I did,” Park said. “It was amazing seeing students grow into better debaters, researchers, and public speakers. I felt very proud of them, especially when they overcame their weaknesses. I also [had] a lot of fun, whether it [was] connecting with campers or getting closer to my executive team.”
Park said the camp allowed both the executive team and new students to meet new people and build relationships. For her, the best part of the camp was getting to know and connect with the incoming students.
“The best part was definitely having smaller team-bonding activities,” Park said. “Since we had [fewer] students than in previous years, it was much easier to connect with them on a personal level. Instead of more thought-out and artificial activities, we simply played Uno and other card games together. It helped us relax and loosen up to each other, and created a better experience for all of us.”
Speech and Debate started their summer camp in 2018 to encourage more students to pursue their interest in the school program. Park said they hope to expand their program through the camp, while also providing a space for students to explore their passion in Speech and Debate.
“This camp is important because it gives freshmen a pre-existing understanding of what Speech and Debate is, so they [can] determine if this club is the right fit for them,” Park said. “It also gets kids more passionate about the program so that they’ll be more committed as time goes on. Speech and Debate is always looking for dedicated members, so a program like this is pretty essential.”
Coming into the new school year, Speech and Debate still faces some difficulties from last year, including budget struggles and finding an advisor. With a new executive team, however, Speech and Debate hopes to tackle these challenges and ensure a successful year for the club.
“My hope is that we’re able to recover from the difficulties from last year and still have a successful year,” Park said. “In terms of success, we have a diverse exec team with many different perspectives, so for many of our issues, we’ve been able to come up with multiple solutions for many of our problems. I also hope that our difficulties [won’t] cause members to sway in their commitment to the club and instead motivate them to put in their best effort to show just how great Westview students are.”
