If you are a dedicated viewer, you should know about my debate failure, which I had talked about in one of my posts. In case you haven’t read it, here is a brief summary:
Go read it.
So, two weeks after I lost the debate, my teacher asked me if I wanted to join another one for extra credit. I had been thinking things over for a while, and now I was confident I could win. The debate would be against another class, and it would take place next Thursday. Monday came and there was a sub for my social studies class. No news on the debate. On Tuesday, my teacher told me to study my Athens and Sparta packet because it would help me in my debate. I still did not know what the debate what about, and I was getting pretty anxious. In the last debate, I was given nearly two hours to write down my thoughts and arguments. Perhaps I would get that time on Wednesday. Wednesday passed, and there was no news on the debate. I wondered if the other class was preparing while I dawdled around. Maybe I was supposed to get time on Monday, but didn’t because there was a sub. On Thursday, I wondered if I had misheard the teacher on the debate. I was heading to math class when a classmate tapped me on the shoulder and told me the social studies teacher needed me.
The teacher dumped me with a load of information at once.
“You are defending Sparta.”
What?
“Debate against Athens.”
What?
“Convince the audience to vote for you.”
What?
Then, the social studies teacher shunted me into the hall so I could prepare for the debate. I didn’t know what was going on, but I was feeling pretty excited about being able to skip math class. My partner was the kid who told me to go to the teacher. I’ll call him Bob. Bob asked me what we were debating about. I told him I wasn’t sure. We began brainstorming on a piece of paper. Only a few minutes later, the teacher called us in. We had a single sentence written on the paper. The social studies teacher sent her entire class and me to the other social studies teacher’s class. Since I don’t feel like writing this much, I’ll refer to the two teachers as SS1 and SS2. When the class of SS1 arrived, SS2 had already gotten out their laptops to vote at then end. Two of the kids from SS2 were to be my partners along with Bob. I’ll call my two new partners Jilly and Billy. I asked Jilly and Billy if they had won their first debate, the one I had done last time. They both said that they had not debated before. My team had two debaters who had lost their last debate, and two people who had never debated before. On the other team were four debaters who had won their debates. The odds were stacked against us. Our team started arguing among ourselves on what should be our opening statement and who has to say it. Eventually, Jilly sacrificed herself and volunteered to do it. SS1 and SS2 told us to come inside the classroom, and all the the debaters solemnly walked in.
The teacher said that the audience is playing the part of Argo, a small city. Greece is on the verge of a civil war, and Agro (or the audience) must decide which side to join. Our job is to convince them to join our side, and mention why they should not join Athens. The debate began, and the audience immediately began taking notes, which worried me. Athens said some cheesy opening statement on why Argo should support them. Afterwards, Jilly stepped forward and said our opening statement. A few people cheered when she was done, and I took that as a good sign. After the applause died down, SS1 asked the first question. This is where Sparta’s problems began.
If you have never debated before, you should probably know what a loaded question is. A loaded question is designed to make the other person look bad, no matter what they answer. Skilled debaters can dodge the question and move on. Keep in mind, none of the people in the classroom were skilled debaters. About twenty-five percent of the questions were loaded, and it hurt our arguments badly. Our first question was fine.
“Why should women consider life in Sparta?”
We answered stuff about all the rights women had and how women had no rights in Athens. Athens started arguing about our remark, and soon, everyone was yelling at each other, trying to spit out their argument before the other. I just stood awkwardly on the side.
The teacher asked Athens a question on how Athens would be able to beat Sparta since Sparta had a superior military.
“Well, Athens is mainly based on education,” one of the Athens debaters began. “We’d be able to outsmart the Spartans with military tactics.
This is where I had what I like to call a “You’ve activated my trap card!” moment. I stepped forward and started to speak.
“Actually,” I said in my most smug voice. “Athenian education mainly consists of singing, memorizing poems, and playing instruments. I don’t see how this translates into military tactics.” Did you see what I did there? I changed some of my vocabulary so I would sound smarter.
“But,” one of the Athens debaters said. “Athenian education also teaches math and science.”
I was gonna hit them hard with another statement, but Bob stepped up and sarcastically asked if knowing two plus two was going to save them from being stabbed. During all of this, the audience remained mostly silent, occasionally murmuring in agreement with what was being said. I was getting a little frustrated, because getting the audience to cheer for you is what usually convinces everyone else to take your side.
Then, SS1 asked us the first loaded question.
“Sparta has a very extreme training process for becoming a soldier. Why would a man want to join Sparta?”
I did not know how to reply to that, so I remained silent. Billy and Jilly said some things about the tough training to be necessary, but they sounded unsure of themselves, which made everything they said seem weak. That should’ve been the end of it, but Athens hopped in to beat us while we were down. They made several accusations and statements about us, and at the end stated that Athens is more intelligent than us. A kid in the back of the class who I’ll call Josh started cheering for them and laughing at us, as if Athens had just said something really clever. Of course, this got the rest of the audience cheering for them, and I realized that we had to comeback quickly if we wanted to win. Our salvation came in the form of another loaded question.
“Athens,” SS1 said. “Women get little to no rights when living in Athens. Why would a woman want to join Athens?”
The braver one of the Athens debaters spoke up, but she sound like she was making things up on the spot. “Well, er… women in Athens receive education, unlike in Sparta.”
I noticed it straight away. I noticed that Athens had made their first mistake of the debate.
“Women are not allowed to receive and education in Athens,” I said.
Unfortunately, the Athenian debaters were quick to make something up. Even though it was a really weak statement, it was able to stop the audience from trying to take our side. My brilliantly thought out plan failed. SS2 said that the audience was allowed to ask questions now. This girl asked us a question. We answered it very badly, and I was hoping that this part of the debate wouldn’t last long. Then, a kid I’ll call James spoke up. I didn’t know it then, but James ended up saving us.
If you don’t know what mob mentality is, I’ll give a quick explanation. When a few people in a crowd start strongly supporting something, that gets everyone else to do it as well. If you’re trying to convince an audience, you’ll probably want to get a few loud people to support you. When James started asking Athens a lot of loaded questions, that made everyone else start asking them too.
“How will you defend yourselves?”
“Only ten percent of your population can vote. Is this really a democracy?”
“Why do women have to have arranged marriage?”
Athens tried to block them at first, but it became more evident that they couldn’t handle this. SS1 saw Athens getting nailed, and she ended the audience question section. Athens couldn’t get anymore traction after that. The crowd was on our side, and any points they made were disregarded. After what seemed like an hour of Athens trying to climb out of the hole they sunk into, the debate ended. SS1 and SS2 didn’t announce the winners yet, so we all went back to class. That was fine with me. At the end of the day, I learned that the Spartans won.