Features

New BHS Debate Squad Prepares for UC Tournament By J. DOUGLAS ALLEN-TAYLOR

Friday February 11, 2005

With a little more than a week to go before their biggest challenge of the school year, members of the Berkeley High Debate Squad sit through their lunch period in an upstairs classroom, munch sandwiches, and plot strategy for the 32nd Annual Cal Berkeley Invitational Debate Tournament. 

Over four days next weekend, Jan. 19 through 22, students representing some 300 high schools from as far away as Utah and Iowa will compete through eight preliminary rounds, hoping to be among the 32 debate teams making it to the elimination round on the last day. 

“It’s the biggest and best tournament in the country,” says BHS Debate Squad advisor and BHS teacher Josephine Balakrishnan. “Most tournaments we enter are for one day and last only four rounds. But this one is pretty rough. Next week, we’re going to be meeting every day to get them ready.” 

Sitting with a handful of students in a near-empty science class (there are eight active members of the team), Balakrishnan’s preparation for the UC Berkeley tournament seems every bit as intricate as Bill Belichek getting the Patriots ready for the Superbowl. 

Josh Gagan, a member of the UC Berkeley debate team who is helping the BHS squad as a coach, passes on research tips to the students on the debate topic: “Should the United States support the United Nations peacekeeping efforts?” He rattles off points to be made on both sides of the issue, interspersed with Internet URLs to be accessed. 

“The reason U.N. peacekeeping isn’t working now is because it’s not being funded properly,” he says, “but you need to find examples of that.” 

He mentions civil wars in the Congo and Sudan in a sort of shorthand which the students appear to understand. Still, Balakrishnan breaks in every few moments to ask, “Did you understand that? Did you get that?” 

She explains that she’s been monitoring websites where competing schools have been refining their debate points. “You’re going against people who are not novices at this,” she tells the students. “Everybody’s going to have to clear their plates in the next week, and figure out what you’re going to do so we don’t get our backs broken.” 

The students nod, ask quiet questions, and munch on. The introduction of a new line of argument, suggested by Gagan, is quickly rejected on the grounds that it is too late to prepare. To an outside observer, it goes by almost too fast to be intelligible, but the students seem unfazed. 

The 45-minute lunch period goes quickly. After the students leave, Balakrishnan explains her concerns. 

“We’re really just getting the debate team back started,” she says. “And we’re going to be competing with teams who spend the summer going to debate camps, getting ready for these events. But it will be good for the kids. They’re going to be moving up a big step.” 

Balakrishnan says that Berkeley High has a “long and distinguished record as one of the top forensic teams in the country”—forensics, she explains, is the proper name for debating, even though current popular use conjures images of Crime Scene Investigators and dead bodies. But the school’s debate program disappeared for some 20 years, and was only revived this fall by BHS principal Jim Slemp. Balakrishnan, a speech and language teacher who once competed on the UC Berkeley debate squad herself, was brought in to coach, and it is clearly a labor of love. 

“John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Jane Paley, and Lee Iacoca all said that forensics was the foundation of their success,” she writes in a promotional e-mail for the program. She says that in addition to teaching students how to present arguments in a public forum—something that will be useful to them in later life—participation on the debate squad also sharpens their research skills. 

“It gives them the ability to find resources quickly, as well as exposing them to information that most adults don’t access,” she said, explaining that on some topics, as an example, students pull the text of Congressional floor debates from the Internet. “They’re forced to get their information from diverse areas, in order to compete with the other teams.” 

She adds that the word “diverse” raises another concern, a need for more diversity on the squad. While six of the eight BHS debate team members are women, it is short on minority students. 

“It used to be that mostly males participated on debate squads, at least back in the ‘50s,” says coach Josh Gagan. “In fact, it was dominated not just by males, but by white males.” He said that the trend is changing on the college scene, with some teams introducing hip hop into their debate arguments, and other colleges taking on the challenge of women and minority participation as a debate topic itself. 

“It’s a little unusual for a high school debate team to have so many women,” Balakrishnan said. “But in Berkeley, I suppose women don’t feel intimidated about speaking out.” 

She said that one of the factors holding back more participation in the debate squad is the lack of a public speaking course at Berkeley High, and setting up such a course is one of her goals. “A lot of kids are very nervous about getting up and speaking,” she said, “even though it is clear that they have the skills and talent to do so.” 

Following next weekend’s UC Berkeley tournament, the BHS debate squad will have little time to rest. On Saturday, Feb. 26, Berkeley High holds its own one day debate tournament, inviting schools from the Golden Gate Speech Association where the BHS squad is a member. Following that will be preparation for the California State Championship Tournament sponsored by the California High School Speech Association during the last weekend in April, and the national tournament sponsored by the National Forensic League in late June. The six day June tournament is considered the Superbowl of high school debate contests.