Highlights from Debate Showcase Event

Scholars, welcome back from lunch! Scholars, how was lunch? Did anyone sample pasta? Was lunch pasta? I don't know how they sampled pasta if lunch was not pasta, but regardless there is one passionate scholar out there. With that said, scholars, it's time to move on to the next event of the day as some of you are finding your seats. What is that event? It's not like you can't see it already. It is the debate showcase! Scholars, who wants to be in the debate showcase? Who is afraid of being in the Debate Showcase? Who wants their teammate to be in the Debate Showcase? Okay, some support for scholars. Well, from your regional rounds, you might remember what the Debate Showcase is. But we thought we'd go over it very shortly just to make sure that everyone has the right idea. You all remember your debates from yesterday, or at least I hope you remember your debates from yesterday. And your debates from yesterday took place where three of you on your team would debate another team of three. You'd have a judge in the back of the room, there'd be a decision at the end, and one team would win. The debate showcased today is a lot like that, but there are a few key differences. Namely, that first, the debaters that we will call up to the podium are two new teams of nominated speakers. And instead of two teams of three, we will have two teams of four. That is why there are eight chairs here, not because we want extra chairs for the team. Another difference is that yesterday, or two days ago, you were judged by one judge. Today, because there are so many nominator speakers from your debate day, we will have a panel of judges that will sit in this VIP front row. And for this reason, I will kindly have to ask you, for all the people sitting in the front row, if you could kindly get up and choose a different seat. Please. Bye. After the debate showcase, we will turn over the microphones to you all in the audience. Because this is a debate by the scholars, judged by the scholars, and for you as scholars. So throughout the debate, be thinking about what you'd like to add to the conversation. what thoughts that you'd like to share that maybe have not been talked about earlier on stage. Remember though that when you are giving your thoughts at the end this is not a chance for you to give feedback. but rather a chance for you to add to the conversation, not subtract from what was already said. And scholars, lastly, we'd like to just remind you about the spirit of the debate. Always remember to be kind, respectful, and constructive. Yeah, so it's a lot like the feedback session from yesterday, except you won't be giving feedback. With that said, scholars, it is our great pleasure to welcome the first of our... two teams to the stage. This will be the affirmative team for a myriad of reasons, namely that A comes before N. And if you see your name here, scholars, you should give them applause. But also, if you see your name, you should join us on this side of the table. Olivia, who is our first affirmative speaker? The first affirmative speaker is from Indonesia, from Sekolah Paleta Harapan, Sentul City. Thank you. Scholars, thank you for showing your supports. Even if we can't always pronounce names. Yeah, sorry for that. Our second affirmative speaker comes to us from the country of Bulgaria. From St. George International School, please give a warm welcome to Mihail Palmov. Our third speaker joins us from the United States, from Branham High School, Lizzy Kim. And rounding out the affirmative team is a scholar from India. From Pathways World School, Aravalli, give a warm welcome to Anika Sharma. And as our final affirmative speakers make their way down to the stage, scholars, please give it up one more time for the affirmative team! But in life, as in debates, where there is an affirmative, so too is there a negative. And our negative team has four more nominated speakers. Why does it have four? Well, because it'd be weird if it didn't. Nonetheless, our first negative speaker comes to us from... The Netherlands. From the country that we're in. From the International School of Amsterdam. Please give a very warm welcome to Maria Volovojdova. Our second speaker joins us from Hong Kong. From... St. Stephan's Girls College Apple Chang Adding on to the negative team is a scholar from another nearby country, from the country of France, and the institution Notre Dame. Give a big round of applause to Maximilian Picard! And our last speaker for the negative team joins us from Canada, from Heritage Woods Secondary School, Maya Tharp. And scholars, once more, please give a huge round of applause to all of the speakers who are joining us on stage. And the two that are walking across here. Scholars, because of the enormous talents, the skills, and the discourse that you have brought, these are not the only nominated speakers that we have. In fact, there were so many nominations that choose... just eight of you was very, very difficult. With that said, though, it gives us great pleasure to announce the next group of scholars, the panel, who will be presenting. joining us in the front row as special VIPs and who will be assisting in adjudicating the debates. Our panel is made up of scholars from many, many different countries and those scholars are, first, from NPS International School, it is Aditya Kalra. Next up from Dominican International School, Evan Chang. They are joined by a scholar from Pearling Season International School. Please give it up for Basma al-Shalmi. Next from Tamra School for Gifted and Talented, Ramzi Matanez. Followed by a scholar from Greensteads International School, it is Whitney Buluma! Next, from Modern School, Barakamba Road, Shivang Soni! And from Yengon International School in Myanmar, it is Hien Tsar Nee! But these are not our only panelists. They are joined by five more scholars. Starting with, from Strathcona Tweedsmere School in Canada, it is Andrew Bingesser! From Rumorah Road International School, Nikatorntankuptanon! They're joined by a scholar coming all the way from Vietnam, from Vinh School Central Park. It is Phuong Don Nuc Yen! From Aldiava High School, Shara Trandravanshi. They are joined by a scholar from Peterhouse Boys School. It is Tadi Vanshi. Tara! And from the Philippine School Bahrain, Grant Abriel Amandi! Followed by a scholar from Specialized School number 57, it is Miran Golovachev! Scholars, please give a big round of applause to every scholar on the panel! And, without further ado... Now that we have our affirmative team, our negative team, and the panel, it becomes time to reveal the motion. And once the motion is revealed, these scholars up here on the stage will have... 15 minutes to prepare. That motion is resolved. That history teachers should share their opinions about the history that they teach. Scholars, you have 15 minutes. Your time starts now. And time. Scholars, please give a very warm welcome to the first affirmative speaker. Please approach the front, introduce yourself, and start whenever you're ready. Good morning fellow scholars in the WSC team. My name is Suhshian and I represent Indonesia in today's debate. Today the affirmative team will be debating for the motion that history teachers should share their opinion about the history that they teach. Now before we begin... this debate and taking this motion any further, we would like to start by defining a few terms. First, our take on the word opinion is that it is a personal stance on a subject matter at hand. Now, while we say this, we mean that history... teachers should not purely teach from their opinion. We are saying that they are entitled to sharing their opinion, yet they should still teach based on fact and based on what is already in the school's curriculum. We would also like to define history as a representation of perspectives that shape our world today, whether they be things that happened in the past, things that are still shaping our future. Now, for our debate today, the affirmative team will like to talk about three different points. The first one is... is diversity of perspectives. By allowing teachers to share their perspective on the history that they are currently teaching, it allows people to understand more views, more perspectives about the things that they are learning. It teaches students that there is more than one side to a story. It teaches them that different people look at things in different ways. It reminds students that history is still in the making. Nothing is set and you are allowed to have your own opinion. Now that That brings me to my next point, critical thinking. By allowing history teachers to share their own opinion, it invokes the students'critical thinking. By the teachers expressing their own opinions, it allows the students to share their own opinion. It triggers the students to have their own thought process. It allows them to help have their own opinions and to be brave enough to share them. Oftentimes, when we are taught solely one thing, we think that's the only right thing. Think about the ash conformity experiments we learn in our social studies curriculum. When we see that other people are only agreeing with one thing, when we only learn... one thing, we think that is the only right thing in the world to say. However, that is not the truth. History comes from different perspectives. We have different opinions, and we should be entitled to them. We should be allowed to have opinions. Furthermore, by history, we should be entitled to teachers teaching, not teaching, but sharing their own opinions on the things that they are teaching, it provides a voice for the marginalized people. It shows that history is not purely a fact, but it is a representation of different perspectives. It shows that people from different backgrounds will have different stories, and history is something that is quite opinionated, as we have learned in our history curriculum. It shows us that history is not what happens, not purely not what happens. but it is also how it affects people, it shapes people's mindsets, and many other things that history has to offer. The other speakers in the affirmative team will be developing on these points, and with that, I'd like to end my argument. Thank you. Scholars, let's give one huge round of applause for our first affirmative team speaker. Now, scholars, there will be 60 seconds for the negative team to prepare. Scholars, let's give a warm welcome for the first speaker of the negative team! Hello honorable judges and worthy opponents. My name is Maya Tharp, and I am the first speaker representing the team opposition. And I'm very proud to be representing team opposition as we strongly know that this motion will fall. I would first like to start by rebutting the first speaker on Team Affirmative's points. She had mentioned how the Ash Conformity Experiment would have helped with kids forming opinions as they are able to see many different perspectives as that is one main reason for Marginalization. She had mentioned how during the S-conformity experiments they are all listening to that one person's perspective. So if they're learning through these textbooks and watching everybody else do these things, they're going to have that one perspective. However, kids are... impressionable if that one teacher is telling them to do that one thing don't you think that it would be the opposite way that that teacher would be affecting them in that way and making them want to think that the way that their teachers do as much as we may dislike our teachers sometimes You cannot deny that they are a huge part and an impressionable part of our world. That is one perspective. You have one history teacher. You may have more, but still, that is not enough for one kid to determine what they're going to do and what form of stance that they're going to take in a certain piece of history. Kids listen to teachers more than they do to textbooks. I'm sure many of us in this room have experienced listening rather than reading the homework or reading up to a certain chapter that we needed to and not finishing the rest of the book. Would that not be the same? She also spoke about the diversity of perspectives. We on team opposition disagree so strongly because diversity of perspectives refers to abductive reasoning, having many different sources, many different opinions, reading many different articles. How are you getting that from this one person on a textbook? It does not work and these kids are not getting everything that they need. Which brings me to my first point. History needs to be based on facts to prevent the marginalization of already marginalized people. The definition of bias is the inclination or prejudice for or against a person group especially in a negative way. As students and future leaders of our new world we need to be able to form our opinions abductively making sure that we are getting every side of the story of every single person's marginalized perspective so that we are able to understand where people come from. Imagine that you are a member of the LGBTQ plus community and you have just learned to love yourself. You've been idolizing people like Keith Haring, Alex Dang, and Andrew Rannells, Cara Delevingne, the list goes on and on. And you've just learned to love yourself. But then you go to school and learn about the social movements in the 90s, 80s, and 70s. And your teacher voices their opinion that they don't really agree with homosexuals and people of LGBTQ plus. They have fairly heteronormative thoughts. How does that make that one kid feel? That puts us back, that puts that marginalized group of people back to where they were. Maybe they voice their opinions about how they don't. How they think that kids should go to those camps where they learn how to be straight, learn how to undo themselves. which is not what our progressive community has worked for. This can take us back many places depending on that one person's stance. That one person decides that one kid's opinion. How is that fair? We should be working as a community to learn every single perspective and to teach our kids how to look at one piece of view, one point of view, many different perspectives in many different ways so that one kid can be understanding and loving to our already so hateful world. And this is why on team opposition we know that this motion will fall. Thank you. Scholars give one more round of applause. And teams, you have 60 seconds. Would the second affirmative speaker please approach the front, introduce herself, and begin. Scholars give her a big round of applause.. Good afternoon. My name is Lizzie Kim and I am the second speaker for the affirmative team arguing for the motion that history teachers should have an opinion on the history that they teach. It was once said that history will be good to me for I intend to be good to you. to write it. With that being said, what about her story, their story, or our story? What I'm trying to say is, is there any type of history that is unbiased? For example, have you ever heard of the story of a woman who was a womanizer? of Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman whose cells created the polio vaccine. No, you only hear of the doctors from Johns Hopkins University who created a polio vaccine and are credit for it. And it is their story that is being... taught in universities to this day. However, some history teachers still teach about Henrietta Lacks and give their own opinions of her sacrifice and her courage to help save kids with polio. I would then like to rebut the first speaker of the negative team. She said that kids are impressionable and that if a history teacher gives their opinion, then they will change kids'impressions. However, the goal of a teacher is to be allowed to... to show perspectives and the goal of a teacher is to teach kids to think for themselves and to form their own opinions about the world. And that is extremely true for history teachers because history is not just written in paper and it's not just for us to read, it's for us to be a part of because we are all part of history. we are history. History is a story of mankind and we are man, we are human and it's our job to be part of it and to learn about the different perspectives in this world. I'd like to give a personal example of my history teacher who has given his opinion on history. He brought his 93 year old mother in to talk about her experience living in the Great Depression. She gave us her perspectives and her opinions of what it was like to live in the Great Depression and it was completely different. from what I read about in textbooks. My history teacher's mother's story was able to give me a new perspective and see the Great Depression in a new light and see how it affected America and the people living in it. When I read history in textbooks, I read what people want me to read. I do not read what really happened, or I do not read the untold stories of those who never made it into the textbooks. Thank you. With history teachers telling their opinions, even if it's just one perspective, they can maybe change us to think differently as well. Thank you. Alright scholars, one huge round of applause for our second speaker from the affirmative team. Scholars, you now have 60 seconds. And scholars, can we refrain from saying anything from the audience whilst the debater is speaking? Alright, and time! Scholars, let's give a huge round of applause for the second speaker of the negative team! Hello, honorable judges and wealthy opponents. I'm Maximilien Picard from France, from the Institution Notre-Dame. First of all, I would like to answer to some of the arguments of the affirmative side. So, she said that the teachers had to... Basically teach kids to pick their curiosity on our world so they don't have to give their own opinion on it because after the students will have, I would say, one idea in their head and they could not think about other opinions on one thing precisely. Also, you said that the teachers can, I would say... If you give only one perspective, it wouldn't change anything. But even if the teacher gives one perspective, it is much more than she would have to do. My main point is about historical negationism. I really believe that we do not have to give in temptation to it because we will have great dangers to practice it. The historical negationism is the reversal of other moral judgments with forged documents by manipulating statistics, theories to support the point of view. And there are plenty of examples according to countries. For example, we all know the Holocaust and Germany. have criminal, I would say, took criminal decisions against those who actually denies the fact that the Holocaust existed. And they are absolutely right. It is also the case with the Armenian genocide, because the Turkish government actually still does not recognize the fact that it happened. I mean... The teachers could say that they can't give their opinions because the crimes have been committed by past generations and sometimes they are unofficial like the Rwandan genocide. But it is, as I said, not their job. They are just the link between the national education and the students. As it seemed ridiculous. They just have to teach, not to arouse suspicion on past historical events. So, as I said, they are only the link. They are not a guru who pushes students towards unviable communities. Imagine a teacher in the USA who will belong to the Ku Klux Klan, for example. The consequences will be really disastrous because, as I say, he will give his opinion about esclavagism, about trade slave, and the consequences will be disastrous. Like in my country, France, my country recognized in 2011 esclavagism and it should have been done. since decades more, since centuries. And if the teacher gives his opinions, it will only result in a group of sheep following blindly their teacher. Thank you. Scholars, give it up one more time for that speech! And teams, you have 60 seconds and time. Scholars, please join me in giving a very warm welcome to the very passionate third speaker for the affirmative. Greetings, ladies and gentlemen, honorable judicators, opponents, and huge audience. My name is Mikhail Pamuk from the St. George's National School of Bulgaria, and today I will be the third speaker strongly suggesting that history teachers should... have their opinions about the history they teach. Now, I'd like to start by talking about some of the things which the other team said and rebutting it. Now, one of the main arguments which the other team focused on was the fact that teachers will force harmful opinions onto students, that teachers will force one opinion which will corrupt students'mind because kids are easily changed. And this is, to put it simply, not true. Opinions come from many places. You have the internet, you have books, you have stories. Teachers are only one of the places where you get their opinion. So saying that teachers are the only place where you get their opinion is simply incorrect. Another distinction we must make is the distinction between forcing your opinion onto someone and sharing your opinion with someone. What the other team is suggesting is that teachers will force their opinion onto students. They will say, this is my opinion, you have to follow it and you have no choice. But this is not true. They will just share their opinions and students will be able to choose where to follow it. Now, on to my main points. One of my main points, maybe my main point even, connects directly to what they said. They said that a teacher's job is to teach, nothing more. But this is not true. Yes, teachers have to teach, have to give facts to children, but teachers also have to inspire students. They have to make students think. If our teachers didn't make us think, none of us would be here today. If our teachers didn't push us to come to the World Scholars'Cup, why would we be here? If they just gave us blind facts without any opinions, without pushing us forward, none of us would be doing this today. It is important that teachers make students think, and one of the best ways to do it is by using opinions. When a teacher gives an opinion, a student can either agree with it or disagree with it, but either way, whatever happens, when a student hears an opinion, he will instantly be pulled into the history. This stops being just dry, boring facts and becomes an interesting personal story, which immediately makes the students interested in this. And what happens? The student starts researching. Drawing his own opinions. Yes, the teacher's opinion has some weight on what the students will be thinking, but in large part, all it does is inspire the student to think for himself. It helps provoke critical thinking, which we all need. And now, to elaborate on what the second speaker said, it is vital that students see many different viewpoints, because seeing history from boring facts and nothing more, well, to put it simply, It doesn't work. You can't just take a book, read 200 pages of dry, boring nothingness, and just facts, and expect to actually learn something, expect to be inspired and have opinions on what actually happened. You need to feel connected to the story, you need to have opinions, and in order to do that, you must hear opinions first. And teachers are a good way to do it. And one of the main reasons is because, to put it simply, they're reliable. Now this connects to another thing which the other team said. They said that teachers could be dangerous individuals, and so... promotes dangerous ideas in students'heads. This is simply not true. They mentioned an example of a teacher who is a member of the KKK and shares dangerous ideas with the students. But they forgot the fact that teachers are checked, are vigorously background checked. You can't just allow anyone to be a teacher. Teachers are special people who won't give harmful ideas to students. Not anyone can become a teacher. Teachers are reliable. And this is just one of the reasons... Why they should share their opinions. It promotes critical thinking. It makes the students feel. It makes the students go to competitions. It makes the students think about the history, about the people in front of them, the people before them. Because history stops being dry facts and starts becoming a personal journey, a personal journey of everyone who lived before us, a personal journey of the teacher, and ultimately a personal journey of the students. A journey which makes the student think. It makes the students... Question things which happened before and build an opinion. It is vitally important that history teachers do share their opinions with students. Thank you. Thank you so much scholars. One loss and now you have 60 seconds to prepare. And time. Scholars, let's give a huge warm welcome to the third speaker for the negative team. Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Today our motion is that history teachers should share their opinions about history they teach. Well, as a negative team, I believe that this motion must fall and here are the reasons. I think that the offer... The conservative side has failed to understand that we believe that teachers are not just teachers of our teenagers, they are also teachers of youngsters, like elementary schools. History teachers actually shape students'minds. So, do you know how, like, what's the critical thinking level of elementary school students? Like, they don't think that as well as our, like us do, because we're teenagers. We get a lot of, a lot of ways to reach the internet. We can see a lot of different opinions. But what about the youngsters? Which I'm going to explain it in my next point. But first, I'd like to throw some rebuttals. The affirmative side tried to say that we are telling the truth. telling you that teachers force harmful opinions on students. But we do not think that that is the case. We just think that students, we are kids, we spend most of our time at school. And of course there are other influences, other opinions on the internet, but teachers, they are the main contributors to the opinions that we listen to. Like our whole day, how many hours do we spend at school? Like maybe eight? I don't know. Their opinions really matter and really influence us. And that's why history as a subject that we all like, it should be straight up facts. They shouldn't by giving their opinions, they're actually robbing the experience of us. They're robbing the experience, robbing the students to form their own experience because the teachers may have experienced themself, but how about the students? They do not know about it. Now, also about... You have talked about how teachers are reliable and their background checks on teachers. We believe that that is completely true. But do you know, like there are many examples of bad teachers in the world. And you just need to know that if there's one example, your point is already invalid. Because you need to know that teachers may go through background checks, but do we really know who they are? So one teacher can actually influence a lot of students. There are a bunch of students that can be influenced. by just this one teacher and that's why their opinions really will influence the students. Now, let me talk about my point, how about, what about like young students, they look up to a teacher and how by the teacher interpreting their own opinions will influence their experience of the history. This is a quote from Roberson Davis, the eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. Teacher provide us with their opinions, we do not know. What is the proportion of the teacher, like in this motion, it doesn't mention proportion. What if the teacher just used a whole lesson talking about their own experience about the history, but not actually referring to his own textbook? Then would we actually have multiple perspectives? Is that what we want in this society that we just listen to our teacher and we believe that our teachers are always right because teachers are reliable, as you've said? We need to know that student minds are just like molds. Teacher. are the sculptors of these molds. We cannot just listen to our... We can listen to our teachers'opinions, but what if the opinions are really biased and, like, bad to history? Because history is straight-up fact. And, of course, there are different opinions and different perspectives of looking into history, but teachers, they're only one history teacher of my life, like, one student, so we only have one opinion. There's no multiple perspectives. then young children, they cannot interpret whether the teacher is right or wrong. And they do not know about critical thinking and they will just believe what the teacher says. That's why I believe that this motion must fall. Thank you. Thank you so much scholars. Let's give one more huge round of applause. And scholars, you have 60 seconds. And time. Scholars, please join us in welcoming the fourth and final affirmative speaker. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Annika, and I stand over here strongly and passionately believing in the motion that we should indeed be introducing opinions in history classes by the teachers. So first I'm going to be starting off by providing rebuttals to what the negative side of the team said and why the contentions fall and why we clearly win this debate. So their main point was essentially talking about how, you know, one person should not be the only one who is like influencing youngsters and especially children when it comes to history. But first of all, what we really believe is that a history teacher is only a part of a variety of sources and a variety of sources is always good. Secondly, whenever you're talking about a belief in something you usually have a story to share right you don't just happen to believe in something you don't just happen to you know for example say that uh Me Too movement is good or uh Black Lives Matter movement is good you have a story behind. why you're believing in that certain thing. And we, in this world, are encouraging stories to be shared. We are encouraging opinions, and not just, you know, certain standards set by the state to be told to people who will be the future of our society. We're talking about introducing opinions and engaging students into actually listening to what history is. If I'm sitting in a history classroom, and if you're talking about something like the American Revolution, What the opposition basically said is that history should be made of facts, but history is not facts History is a diverse set of opinions. You can never really say that this was what happened or this country won against this deal are always certain parameters to measure against, right? So we need to incorporate more stories in order to actually progress this kind of notion and engage students in critical thinking. When you're sharing stories, you're automatically helping people, and especially students, engage in the ideas. You're telling them, okay, so you share a story, you're asking them to provide their perspective on it and not just consider certain, certain parameters. Our first contention that we talked about is about was basically diversification of opinions and because of the contentions I provided right now I think the opposition's chance on this clearly falls. Our second contention was talking about engaging critical thinking. Again, I just talked about that right now. And our third contention was providing representation to the marginalized. So why are we talking about the marginalized? Why is slavery such an important topic to be discussed in general? So whenever you're talking about opinions being provided, you're obviously including people in discussions. You're obviously providing... diverse and more areas of perspective and this is extremely important because in our world we support a world in which more stories are shared a world in which our children learn that it is okay not to just follow the norm and not just like be okay with what the certain set parameters are it is okay to think differently it is okay to engage in engaging debates that actually improve your knowledge we believe that We believe in providing representation to the marginalized. We believe in sharing stories. We believe that we would be helping people in the marginalized community by sharing their stories because in a sense we are providing different sets of perspectives, right? That is what our entire debate is about. And the opposition clearly fails to acknowledge this point. And history, in a sense, is not based on facts. And that is why... we should be encouraging more opinions, more people to speak up for what they believe in, and not just abide by what a certain group of people, like the state, determines to be the accurate representation of history. I question the opposition. What do you deem is actually accurate in representing history? Do you really believe that textbooks are the only accurate version of how history should be presented to people who are going to be changing our world tomorrow? And that is why, as the final speaker of the opposition, I urge the ballot to be passed in the opposition side as we strongly and firmly do support this motion. Thank you Thank you so much scholars. Let's give them one more round of applause and now scholars you have 60 seconds to prepare Scholars let's welcome the final speaker for the negative team If anybody tries to penetrate the past with the knife of the present, it will always be in vain. Hello dear judges, respectful opponents, lovely teammates, and of course, amazing audience. My name is Maria Volevoordeva from the International School of Amsterdam here in the Netherlands. I am the last speaker of the negative team, and I am here to state why this motion is truly... and clearly flawed. First of all, I will begin with a rebuttal, with a couple rebuttals. So first of all, what the other team mentioned a lot is that history is just dry facts and textbooks when it really is not. History is an epic. History is a force. And history History should not be tampered with. That is why opinions should not be influencing it. Also, you kept on saying how teachers were also extra sources. A source should be verified. A source should be a valid piece of information and not simply an opinion. Also the opinion is coming from simply one teacher. What the other team has always avoided is the fact that the one teacher can hold bias, that opinions hold bias within history. And that is simply overlooked within their arguments. and this is what also my argument is going to be about. It is the fact that history teachers can bring in unnecessary bias and historical revisionism. Now, what if your history teacher was, for example, teaching you about a war, World War I, World War II, and your country participated in that war. And within telling these events, they said that, like, oh, what our country did wasn't that bad. it was okay and so you hear what the teacher says, you understand, you hear their opinion and you think oh and you think that oh yeah okay what we did wasn't that bad so you go home you continue on with your life thinking that what happened wasn't that bad that your country was okay. However it wasn't okay. what your country did. Your history teacher simply avoided that fact. Now your perception of history is altered. The way that you perceive the events is altered because a history teacher simply shared their opinion and that is not okay. That is not what should be happening. The thoughts of another should not influence your idea and perception of history, something so important and eternal within our lives. What will happen in the future 50, 100 years from now? How will our history look? How different will our history look? if opinions can simply just be carried within it. Yes, having opinions is good and is necessary, however, not when it alters our own perception of our world and our timeline. We, the future of our own planet, should be able to carry the past within us, unaltered, unchanged, raw within us to our future. Because making history opinionated is like ripping open the pages of time with a big sharpie and crossing straight through them. It is simply not acceptable. To some, it is like a book of books. summarize the points from our team and why we clearly win. It is because it would influence our perception of history, it would harm marginalized people, it would endorse nationalism, and it would simply contribute to historical revisionism, and it will alter our perception of our own world. Thank you. Scholars, give it up one more time for the fourth negative speaker! And, if we could, have one more big round of applause to all of our debaters up here on the stage! And so, next. Before we can progress to the forum where you will have a chance to add your voices to the conversation, we must ask that the judge panel stand up and follow Dylan to the special adjudicator deliberation dungeon, also known as the hallway. And next, we move on to a section that we like to call the forum, which is where you in the audience get to add your voice to the conversation, where you get to share your thoughts on the motion, things that you may have thought about during the debate, ideas that you may have had. If you would like to contribute, we have Olivia and Alice stationed at mics. Please come line up and we will bounce side to side. Starting with Olivia. Please introduce yourself and share what you'd like. Hello everyone, my name is Swati Anshu. I'm from NPS International School. And I have two points to make over here. One for the affirmative side and the other for the negative side. So for the affirmative side, one of the prime examples could be how the Indian textbooks published by a British publication, wherein the extent of damage and the numbers used is in fact completely reduced, and hence we will never know the truth of what actually happened. Now, for the negative side, one of the strong rebuttals could be commenting on the second speaker's point when she mentioned that students need to form their own opinions. By the way, I love the way the second speaker spoke. Your comments on the credibility and influence of teachers'opinions was done in an emphatic way. One of your examples could have been how Hitler's extremist thoughts were in fact sparked by his own passionate teachers. Do we want history to be repeated? Thank you. And now we will jump to Alice's side. Hi, I'm Sneha and I'm from the same school, NPS International. So I have two points that the affirmative side could have used. Firstly, contributing to Swati's point, history is almost always... written by the victors and when the negative keeps bringing up that the teacher could be opinionated they're ignoring the fact that history textbooks are already opinionated at the same goes for when we speak of when America when colonizers went to America The Trial of Tears and the Native American Genocide are often ignored in American history textbooks and colonizers are portrayed as just people who wanted land so the natives moved away. Another important point is when you bring up... anti-LGBT teachers or anti-black teachers. The thing about the human race is that there will always be multiple opinions. And if students are always only exposed to progressive and... well, liberal or left ideas, when they actually encounter conservatism, they may not know how to respond. It's important that from a young age, students are taught that there are different ends to the political spectrum, and they're allowed to choose where they want to fall. By not exposing them to extremism, you're not allowing them to learn how to deal with it in the future. Thank you. Thank you so much for those thoughts. Scholars, very briefly before we continue, we would implore you to just share. one or two of the thoughts that you have so that we can get as many contributions as possible in this limited time. With that said, back to this side. Hi, I'm Julieta, I'm from Canada, Montreal, at St. George's School of Montreal, and I just thought of an idea that the affirmative side could use, that even if a teacher's opinion is extreme and terrible, they should still share it, and here is why. So let's say you had someone from the KKK who horrible white supremacy bad times, right? And they straight up say these horrible things. The kids may go home, tell their parents about it, and that opinion can be known and dealt with. That teacher can be taken away, thrown out. The administration may say that's not fair. But if not, that bias may come through in how they teach the history from the books. They may subtly share it and be shaping minds. in this negative way, and it's not obvious. You can't say, hey, that's wrong because it's so subtle, and I find that could be extremely dangerous. So, yeah. Thank you very much. We'll now go back to Alice's side. Hi, I'm Carla Dormeo from the Philippine Global School, so I will be sharing a point that could have been used by the affirmative team. So the affirmative team was talking about the diversity of perspectives. What is a perspective? that you could get from opinions. So one piece of evidence that could have strongly contributed to their argument was Bloom's Taxonomy, which is, it is used to classify educational learning levels and when followed ensures effective learning. So two of the most important... things in education is apparently evaluation and understanding. So evaluation is the ability of a child to defend, support, and great knowledge about the things they learn. And understanding is the ability to explain what they learn, to comprehend and define and discuss the things they've learned. So the affirmative team could have said that the opinions shared by these teachers would allow children to further understand and evaluate the things they learn by forming their own. their own thoughts and understanding them from a different perspective. So thank you. And now, back to the other side. Hello, my name is Richard from Footprint School in Cambodia. And I would like to say that I agree with the fact that teachers should give their opinions because if you stop your opinions, what's next? What else do you stop? Do you stop? your opinions? Do you stop your freedom of choice? What else would you stop once you stop these opinions? Because you need to get these thoughts out because you need to get these ideas out of your head and you cannot just keep them in. You need to get these opinions out. That is my opinion. And now to the other side for one more opinion. Hello, I'm Ruzgar Erdem from Izmir Mayor's School. And I'd just like to say that I've seen nobody talk about the fact that most teachers already provide opinions in history classes. At least from where I come from in Turkey, most teachers already give opinions to people. And the thing is, the students that already possess the ability to critically think improve their ability to critically think, but those who don't know that ideas can be different go lower and lower. Thank you. And now... Hello, my name is Meher Suri from the International School of Amsterdam. So first, I felt that I really resonated with the affirmative team. But however, I feel that the negative team truly swayed my beliefs. And in doing so, I found that these opinions are really uncalled for. And whilst opinions are really valid in our society, not in a learning environment, because they do contribute to... ...do things like prejudice and preconceived notions which can truly impact these students, this youth that has a really large impact on the future, a really large potential youth, potential effect on the future. And I feel, well, something that I found out just now is that this influence actually has quite a detrimental effect on their own beliefs because they're not able to create new statements and ideas for themselves rather than having to apprehend to someone else's. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I understand. And now we'll jump back to the other side. Hello, my name is Vidya and I have two points. The first point is that younger children also have access to the internet. They watch a lot of stuff on Twitter, whatever social. media they use and they get a lot of opinions from there. So it's not as if they are only exposed to one opinion by the teacher. More people get opinions watching their favorite YouTubers play whatever video game they want. And the second point is that sometimes we trust the people, we believe the people we place trust in more than news sources. So that's a point I thought the negative could use. Thank you. Thank you very much for that. Scholars, we have time for about three more contributions from each side. So, back to Olivia's. Um, alright, so I have a point for the negative team of the debate. And I feel like a point overlooked by the negative team... was that the motion stated that it wasn't that the teachers'opinions were bad, but it wasn't that they should be shared. So I felt like the negative team could have said that students should form their own opinions based on objective facts. and not on subjective opinions as what a good opinion is or what a bad opinion is, is not a fact. It depends on who you're talking to. It lies in the eye of the beholder, meaning that the negative team could have just said, instead of giving any opinion or a subjective fact, just give an objective fact which everyone can agree upon, and then a student can build their own opinion based on that objective fact, which is simply a fact and unfalsifiable. Thank you. So some ideas about the differentiation between subjectivity and objectivity. Now we will objectively go back to the side. My name is Hendrix Hancock from the International School of Amsterdam, and I thought that with the affirmative team... with freedom of speech and how most, well not most, but a lot of countries have freedom of speech implemented in them already, when teachers share their opinions, whether they're radicalist or not, it lets the student discuss with that teacher and debate with that teacher on said opinion because discussion breeds knowledge and school is for knowledge. And now, back to Olivia's side, for a scholar who's involved in this debate on several levels. Hey, what's up? I'm Shari, I was one of your judges. I just want to, well, thank you for the clapping. I just wanted to point out that one... extremely important point that the affirmative was talking about was that history is a lot more engaging when you're telling it in terms of stories and the negative could have easily argued the fact that history in and of itself is not given as a story it's given as a founder for understanding certain concepts. So for example, the Great Depression is used as understanding, sorry, the Treaty of Versailles is used as an example of why we shouldn't punish countries in a certain way, right? So the narratives that we already use in our history textbooks can be challenged by the opinions a history teacher gives, but it can also be endorsed. The question there is that if your students are also encouraged to give their opinions, the narratives that are given in your history textbooks will firstly be enforced, and secondly, they'll be questioned. That means that the actual focus of the academic curriculum, which the negative is focusing on, because they're supporting the status quo, is going to be enforced. Because, like I said, once again, firstly, the points you have in your textbook are going to be supported better. And secondly, if they're not supported, you're going to have to understand them better to criticize them anyway. So the point of your curriculum is also going to be helped if this motion was not passed. Thank you very, very much. We will now jump back to Alice's side for our PENultimate's contribution. Hi, my name is Swastik and from my journey to middle school to high school, I have been to four different schools in four different countries. And in these four different countries... none of my history test questions were like this that what is your opinion about who was the ultimate culprit behind World War I or World War II? The question was, who is the culprit behind World War I? So in this... this debate, my point is, everybody of you were talking about that children should have their own opinion. But the problem is, our curriculum has made our thought process so limited that we have to think the way they want us to think. So if the teachers are adding their opinion to our minds, it is just for our good, so that we actually know what is happening in the world and what didn't happen. Secondly, if you consider from your point, from the proposition point of view, point that students around the world not always think about a particular topic. A UNICEF study from 2014 has said in a particular class only 30% of the students actually listen to the teacher and then give a second thought about it. So what are the extra 70% students? So what if a Republican teacher comes and teaches about Watergate? He will obviously say that Watergate was not Nixon's mistake. If those 70% students carry on that thought that Nixon was not behind Watergate, what is going to happen to the country? Or if somebody says that not Germany, instead England was the victim of World War I, then the 70% students would be carrying on that same process that England was the actual culprit and not Germany. This is my point. Thank you very, very much. And now we will go to our final contributor. Scholars, give her a big round of applause. So, hi, I'm Kirtna and I'm from Sacred Heart School and I would like to help with the affirmative team saying that history is a set of stories and stories has many twists and turns and not everything is black and white and with that being black and white when you have opinions given in classes it simply just teaches you how to tolerate opinions whether it's biased or it's politically correct in the real world because the real world is full of opinions even in actual like justice crimes they're filled with things that are so horrible you can't seem to understand them but that's why we should have opinions in classrooms so that you're able to tolerate these opinions and be able to deal with it in the real world after all isn't that what school is for and that's why I strongly believe with the affirmative team Thank you very, very much to everyone who contributed to this discussion. Scholars, we think that discussions like these are of the utmost importance, that we as a community can breed discourse that ends divisiveness, and we encourage you to have discussions like these as often and as frequently as you can. With that said, this discussion in particular is coming to an end, and I would now like to invite the adjudication panel. On to the stage. Scholars, give them a warm welcome. They have come to a decision, it seems. While the affirmative team's points were slightly contradictory, the adjudication panel really felt that the personal touch and the structure of their entire team was really constructive and respectful to the other team, yet their rebuttals were really great and they had a strong voice and passion, and overall we really enjoyed their structure. Thank you. Hi everybody, my name is Miron and I'm from Ukraine. We just want to say that history is the teacher of our life. A famous ancient Rome's leader and orator, Cicero, said that history is the teacher of our life. That is why it is impossible to speak about history, about historical motion without historic examples. It is generally agreed throughout the world. That is why negative team, managed to mention really substantial historical examples. Two world wars, which were really crimes of the entire mankind. Examples which are dedicated to France, Turkey, the USA, which are located throughout the world. These examples were quite substantial. However, just want to reach the negative team to emphasize on teamwork. To put the stress on logical process of thoughts. As it's generally acknowledged throughout the WSCA tournament, that without teamwork, the entire WSCA tournament can't exist. Thank you. And now, before we announce the results, we would like to ask you guys for your opinion. If you vote for the affirmative, raise your hands, or show us a clap. Clap for them. Clap for the affirmative. And if you think the negative should win, clap again. Before we announce, oh yeah, we already done that. So are you ready you guys? Can you give us a drumroll? And the winner is... A primitive team! The affirmative team won the debate, guys. Scholars, give it up one more time for everyone who is involved. Debaters, please cross the threshold, shake hands, mingle with the panelists. And I will turn it over to Dylan. Thank you, Robert. Scholars, with the debate showcase complete, what comes next? Okay, you guys need some energy. It is indeed the Scholars Show. Please allow us 10 minutes to set up. If you checked in with me earlier, please come back on stage to check in with me again. All the performers from earlier today, please come check in with me. For everyone else, get comfortable, take a moment.

Scholars, welcome back from lunch! Scholars, how was lunch? Did anyone sample pasta?

Was lunch pasta? I don't know how they sampled pasta if lunch was not pasta, but regardless there is one passionate scholar out there. With that said, scholars, it's time to move on to the next event of the day as some of you are finding your seats. What is that event? It's not like you can't see it already.

It is the debate showcase! Scholars, who wants to be in the debate showcase? Who is afraid of being in the Debate Showcase? Who wants their teammate to be in the Debate Showcase? Okay, some support for scholars.

Well, from your regional rounds, you might remember what the Debate Showcase is. But we thought we'd go over it very shortly just to make sure that everyone has the right idea. You all remember your debates from yesterday, or at least I hope you remember your debates from yesterday. And your debates from yesterday took place where three of you on your team would debate another team of three. You'd have a judge in the back of the room, there'd be a decision at the end, and one team would win.

The debate showcased today is a lot like that, but there are a few key differences. Namely, that first, the debaters that we will call up to the podium are two new teams of nominated speakers. And instead of two teams of three, we will have two teams of four.

That is why there are eight chairs here, not because we want extra chairs for the team. Another difference is that yesterday, or two days ago, you were judged by one judge. Today, because there are so many nominator speakers from your debate day, we will have a panel of judges that will sit in this VIP front row.

And for this reason, I will kindly have to ask you, for all the people sitting in the front row, if you could kindly get up and choose a different seat. Please. Bye.

After the debate showcase, we will turn over the microphones to you all in the audience. Because this is a debate by the scholars, judged by the scholars, and for you as scholars. So throughout the debate, be thinking about what you'd like to add to the conversation.

what thoughts that you'd like to share that maybe have not been talked about earlier on stage. Remember though that when you are giving your thoughts at the end this is not a chance for you to give feedback. but rather a chance for you to add to the conversation, not subtract from what was already said.

And scholars, lastly, we'd like to just remind you about the spirit of the debate. Always remember to be kind, respectful, and constructive. Yeah, so it's a lot like the feedback session from yesterday, except you won't be giving feedback. With that said, scholars, it is our great pleasure to welcome the first of our... two teams to the stage.

This will be the affirmative team for a myriad of reasons, namely that A comes before N. And if you see your name here, scholars, you should give them applause. But also, if you see your name, you should join us on this side of the table. Olivia, who is our first affirmative speaker?

The first affirmative speaker is from Indonesia, from Sekolah Paleta Harapan, Sentul City. Thank you. Scholars, thank you for showing your supports.

Even if we can't always pronounce names. Yeah, sorry for that. Our second affirmative speaker comes to us from the country of Bulgaria.

From St. George International School, please give a warm welcome to Mihail Palmov. Our third speaker joins us from the United States, from Branham High School, Lizzy Kim. And rounding out the affirmative team is a scholar from India. From Pathways World School, Aravalli, give a warm welcome to Anika Sharma. And as our final affirmative speakers make their way down to the stage, scholars, please give it up one more time for the affirmative team!

But in life, as in debates, where there is an affirmative, so too is there a negative. And our negative team has four more nominated speakers. Why does it have four? Well, because it'd be weird if it didn't. Nonetheless, our first negative speaker comes to us from...

The Netherlands. From the country that we're in. From the International School of Amsterdam.

Please give a very warm welcome to Maria Volovojdova. Our second speaker joins us from Hong Kong. From... St. Stephan's Girls College Apple Chang Adding on to the negative team is a scholar from another nearby country, from the country of France, and the institution Notre Dame. Give a big round of applause to Maximilian Picard!

And our last speaker for the negative team joins us from Canada, from Heritage Woods Secondary School, Maya Tharp. And scholars, once more, please give a huge round of applause to all of the speakers who are joining us on stage. And the two that are walking across here. Scholars, because of the enormous talents, the skills, and the discourse that you have brought, these are not the only nominated speakers that we have. In fact, there were so many nominations that choose...

just eight of you was very, very difficult. With that said, though, it gives us great pleasure to announce the next group of scholars, the panel, who will be presenting. joining us in the front row as special VIPs and who will be assisting in adjudicating the debates.

Our panel is made up of scholars from many, many different countries and those scholars are, first, from NPS International School, it is Aditya Kalra. Next up from Dominican International School, Evan Chang. They are joined by a scholar from Pearling Season International School. Please give it up for Basma al-Shalmi. Next from Tamra School for Gifted and Talented, Ramzi Matanez.

Followed by a scholar from Greensteads International School, it is Whitney Buluma! Next, from Modern School, Barakamba Road, Shivang Soni! And from Yengon International School in Myanmar, it is Hien Tsar Nee!

But these are not our only panelists. They are joined by five more scholars. Starting with, from Strathcona Tweedsmere School in Canada, it is Andrew Bingesser!

From Rumorah Road International School, Nikatorntankuptanon! They're joined by a scholar coming all the way from Vietnam, from Vinh School Central Park. It is Phuong Don Nuc Yen! From Aldiava High School, Shara Trandravanshi. They are joined by a scholar from Peterhouse Boys School.

It is Tadi Vanshi. Tara! And from the Philippine School Bahrain, Grant Abriel Amandi! Followed by a scholar from Specialized School number 57, it is Miran Golovachev!

Scholars, please give a big round of applause to every scholar on the panel! And, without further ado... Now that we have our affirmative team, our negative team, and the panel, it becomes time to reveal the motion.

And once the motion is revealed, these scholars up here on the stage will have... 15 minutes to prepare. That motion is resolved. That history teachers should share their opinions about the history that they teach.

Scholars, you have 15 minutes. Your time starts now. And time.

Scholars, please give a very warm welcome to the first affirmative speaker. Please approach the front, introduce yourself, and start whenever you're ready. Good morning fellow scholars in the WSC team. My name is Suhshian and I represent Indonesia in today's debate.

Today the affirmative team will be debating for the motion that history teachers should share their opinion about the history that they teach. Now before we begin... this debate and taking this motion any further, we would like to start by defining a few terms.

First, our take on the word opinion is that it is a personal stance on a subject matter at hand. Now, while we say this, we mean that history... teachers should not purely teach from their opinion. We are saying that they are entitled to sharing their opinion, yet they should still teach based on fact and based on what is already in the school's curriculum. We would also like to define history as a representation of perspectives that shape our world today, whether they be things that happened in the past, things that are still shaping our future.

Now, for our debate today, the affirmative team will like to talk about three different points. The first one is... is diversity of perspectives.

By allowing teachers to share their perspective on the history that they are currently teaching, it allows people to understand more views, more perspectives about the things that they are learning. It teaches students that there is more than one side to a story. It teaches them that different people look at things in different ways. It reminds students that history is still in the making.

Nothing is set and you are allowed to have your own opinion. Now that That brings me to my next point, critical thinking. By allowing history teachers to share their own opinion, it invokes the students'critical thinking. By the teachers expressing their own opinions, it allows the students to share their own opinion.

It triggers the students to have their own thought process. It allows them to help have their own opinions and to be brave enough to share them. Oftentimes, when we are taught solely one thing, we think that's the only right thing.

Think about the ash conformity experiments we learn in our social studies curriculum. When we see that other people are only agreeing with one thing, when we only learn... one thing, we think that is the only right thing in the world to say.

However, that is not the truth. History comes from different perspectives. We have different opinions, and we should be entitled to them. We should be allowed to have opinions.

Furthermore, by history, we should be entitled to teachers teaching, not teaching, but sharing their own opinions on the things that they are teaching, it provides a voice for the marginalized people. It shows that history is not purely a fact, but it is a representation of different perspectives. It shows that people from different backgrounds will have different stories, and history is something that is quite opinionated, as we have learned in our history curriculum.

It shows us that history is not what happens, not purely not what happens. but it is also how it affects people, it shapes people's mindsets, and many other things that history has to offer. The other speakers in the affirmative team will be developing on these points, and with that, I'd like to end my argument. Thank you. Scholars, let's give one huge round of applause for our first affirmative team speaker.

Now, scholars, there will be 60 seconds for the negative team to prepare. Scholars, let's give a warm welcome for the first speaker of the negative team! Hello honorable judges and worthy opponents.

My name is Maya Tharp, and I am the first speaker representing the team opposition. And I'm very proud to be representing team opposition as we strongly know that this motion will fall. I would first like to start by rebutting the first speaker on Team Affirmative's points.

She had mentioned how the Ash Conformity Experiment would have helped with kids forming opinions as they are able to see many different perspectives as that is one main reason for Marginalization. She had mentioned how during the S-conformity experiments they are all listening to that one person's perspective. So if they're learning through these textbooks and watching everybody else do these things, they're going to have that one perspective.

However, kids are... impressionable if that one teacher is telling them to do that one thing don't you think that it would be the opposite way that that teacher would be affecting them in that way and making them want to think that the way that their teachers do as much as we may dislike our teachers sometimes You cannot deny that they are a huge part and an impressionable part of our world. That is one perspective. You have one history teacher. You may have more, but still, that is not enough for one kid to determine what they're going to do and what form of stance that they're going to take in a certain piece of history.

Kids listen to teachers more than they do to textbooks. I'm sure many of us in this room have experienced listening rather than reading the homework or reading up to a certain chapter that we needed to and not finishing the rest of the book. Would that not be the same? She also spoke about the diversity of perspectives. We on team opposition disagree so strongly because diversity of perspectives refers to abductive reasoning, having many different sources, many different opinions, reading many different articles.

How are you getting that from this one person on a textbook? It does not work and these kids are not getting everything that they need. Which brings me to my first point.

History needs to be based on facts to prevent the marginalization of already marginalized people. The definition of bias is the inclination or prejudice for or against a person group especially in a negative way. As students and future leaders of our new world we need to be able to form our opinions abductively making sure that we are getting every side of the story of every single person's marginalized perspective so that we are able to understand where people come from. Imagine that you are a member of the LGBTQ plus community and you have just learned to love yourself.

You've been idolizing people like Keith Haring, Alex Dang, and Andrew Rannells, Cara Delevingne, the list goes on and on. And you've just learned to love yourself. But then you go to school and learn about the social movements in the 90s, 80s, and 70s. And your teacher voices their opinion that they don't really agree with homosexuals and people of LGBTQ plus. They have fairly heteronormative thoughts.

How does that make that one kid feel? That puts us back, that puts that marginalized group of people back to where they were. Maybe they voice their opinions about how they don't.

How they think that kids should go to those camps where they learn how to be straight, learn how to undo themselves. which is not what our progressive community has worked for. This can take us back many places depending on that one person's stance. That one person decides that one kid's opinion. How is that fair?

We should be working as a community to learn every single perspective and to teach our kids how to look at one piece of view, one point of view, many different perspectives in many different ways so that one kid can be understanding and loving to our already so hateful world. And this is why on team opposition we know that this motion will fall. Thank you.

Scholars give one more round of applause. And teams, you have 60 seconds. Would the second affirmative speaker please approach the front, introduce herself, and begin. Scholars give her a big round of applause..

Good afternoon. My name is Lizzie Kim and I am the second speaker for the affirmative team arguing for the motion that history teachers should have an opinion on the history that they teach. It was once said that history will be good to me for I intend to be good to you.

to write it. With that being said, what about her story, their story, or our story? What I'm trying to say is, is there any type of history that is unbiased?

For example, have you ever heard of the story of a woman who was a womanizer? of Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman whose cells created the polio vaccine. No, you only hear of the doctors from Johns Hopkins University who created a polio vaccine and are credit for it. And it is their story that is being... taught in universities to this day.

However, some history teachers still teach about Henrietta Lacks and give their own opinions of her sacrifice and her courage to help save kids with polio. I would then like to rebut the first speaker of the negative team. She said that kids are impressionable and that if a history teacher gives their opinion, then they will change kids'impressions.

However, the goal of a teacher is to be allowed to... to show perspectives and the goal of a teacher is to teach kids to think for themselves and to form their own opinions about the world. And that is extremely true for history teachers because history is not just written in paper and it's not just for us to read, it's for us to be a part of because we are all part of history.

we are history. History is a story of mankind and we are man, we are human and it's our job to be part of it and to learn about the different perspectives in this world. I'd like to give a personal example of my history teacher who has given his opinion on history.

He brought his 93 year old mother in to talk about her experience living in the Great Depression. She gave us her perspectives and her opinions of what it was like to live in the Great Depression and it was completely different. from what I read about in textbooks. My history teacher's mother's story was able to give me a new perspective and see the Great Depression in a new light and see how it affected America and the people living in it.

When I read history in textbooks, I read what people want me to read. I do not read what really happened, or I do not read the untold stories of those who never made it into the textbooks. Thank you.

With history teachers telling their opinions, even if it's just one perspective, they can maybe change us to think differently as well. Thank you. Alright scholars, one huge round of applause for our second speaker from the affirmative team.

Scholars, you now have 60 seconds. And scholars, can we refrain from saying anything from the audience whilst the debater is speaking? Alright, and time! Scholars, let's give a huge round of applause for the second speaker of the negative team! Hello, honorable judges and wealthy opponents.

I'm Maximilien Picard from France, from the Institution Notre-Dame. First of all, I would like to answer to some of the arguments of the affirmative side. So, she said that the teachers had to...

Basically teach kids to pick their curiosity on our world so they don't have to give their own opinion on it because after the students will have, I would say, one idea in their head and they could not think about other opinions on one thing precisely. Also, you said that the teachers can, I would say... If you give only one perspective, it wouldn't change anything.

But even if the teacher gives one perspective, it is much more than she would have to do. My main point is about historical negationism. I really believe that we do not have to give in temptation to it because we will have great dangers to practice it. The historical negationism is the reversal of other moral judgments with forged documents by manipulating statistics, theories to support the point of view.

And there are plenty of examples according to countries. For example, we all know the Holocaust and Germany. have criminal, I would say, took criminal decisions against those who actually denies the fact that the Holocaust existed.

And they are absolutely right. It is also the case with the Armenian genocide, because the Turkish government actually still does not recognize the fact that it happened. I mean... The teachers could say that they can't give their opinions because the crimes have been committed by past generations and sometimes they are unofficial like the Rwandan genocide. But it is, as I said, not their job.

They are just the link between the national education and the students. As it seemed ridiculous. They just have to teach, not to arouse suspicion on past historical events. So, as I said, they are only the link. They are not a guru who pushes students towards unviable communities.

Imagine a teacher in the USA who will belong to the Ku Klux Klan, for example. The consequences will be really disastrous because, as I say, he will give his opinion about esclavagism, about trade slave, and the consequences will be disastrous. Like in my country, France, my country recognized in 2011 esclavagism and it should have been done. since decades more, since centuries.

And if the teacher gives his opinions, it will only result in a group of sheep following blindly their teacher. Thank you. Scholars, give it up one more time for that speech!

And teams, you have 60 seconds and time. Scholars, please join me in giving a very warm welcome to the very passionate third speaker for the affirmative. Greetings, ladies and gentlemen, honorable judicators, opponents, and huge audience.

My name is Mikhail Pamuk from the St. George's National School of Bulgaria, and today I will be the third speaker strongly suggesting that history teachers should... have their opinions about the history they teach. Now, I'd like to start by talking about some of the things which the other team said and rebutting it.

Now, one of the main arguments which the other team focused on was the fact that teachers will force harmful opinions onto students, that teachers will force one opinion which will corrupt students'mind because kids are easily changed. And this is, to put it simply, not true. Opinions come from many places. You have the internet, you have books, you have stories.

Teachers are only one of the places where you get their opinion. So saying that teachers are the only place where you get their opinion is simply incorrect. Another distinction we must make is the distinction between forcing your opinion onto someone and sharing your opinion with someone.

What the other team is suggesting is that teachers will force their opinion onto students. They will say, this is my opinion, you have to follow it and you have no choice. But this is not true. They will just share their opinions and students will be able to choose where to follow it. Now, on to my main points.

One of my main points, maybe my main point even, connects directly to what they said. They said that a teacher's job is to teach, nothing more. But this is not true. Yes, teachers have to teach, have to give facts to children, but teachers also have to inspire students.

They have to make students think. If our teachers didn't make us think, none of us would be here today. If our teachers didn't push us to come to the World Scholars'Cup, why would we be here?

If they just gave us blind facts without any opinions, without pushing us forward, none of us would be doing this today. It is important that teachers make students think, and one of the best ways to do it is by using opinions. When a teacher gives an opinion, a student can either agree with it or disagree with it, but either way, whatever happens, when a student hears an opinion, he will instantly be pulled into the history. This stops being just dry, boring facts and becomes an interesting personal story, which immediately makes the students interested in this.

And what happens? The student starts researching. Drawing his own opinions. Yes, the teacher's opinion has some weight on what the students will be thinking, but in large part, all it does is inspire the student to think for himself. It helps provoke critical thinking, which we all need.

And now, to elaborate on what the second speaker said, it is vital that students see many different viewpoints, because seeing history from boring facts and nothing more, well, to put it simply, It doesn't work. You can't just take a book, read 200 pages of dry, boring nothingness, and just facts, and expect to actually learn something, expect to be inspired and have opinions on what actually happened. You need to feel connected to the story, you need to have opinions, and in order to do that, you must hear opinions first.

And teachers are a good way to do it. And one of the main reasons is because, to put it simply, they're reliable. Now this connects to another thing which the other team said.

They said that teachers could be dangerous individuals, and so... promotes dangerous ideas in students'heads. This is simply not true.

They mentioned an example of a teacher who is a member of the KKK and shares dangerous ideas with the students. But they forgot the fact that teachers are checked, are vigorously background checked. You can't just allow anyone to be a teacher. Teachers are special people who won't give harmful ideas to students.

Not anyone can become a teacher. Teachers are reliable. And this is just one of the reasons...

Why they should share their opinions. It promotes critical thinking. It makes the students feel. It makes the students go to competitions. It makes the students think about the history, about the people in front of them, the people before them.

Because history stops being dry facts and starts becoming a personal journey, a personal journey of everyone who lived before us, a personal journey of the teacher, and ultimately a personal journey of the students. A journey which makes the student think. It makes the students... Question things which happened before and build an opinion. It is vitally important that history teachers do share their opinions with students.

Thank you. Thank you so much scholars. One loss and now you have 60 seconds to prepare.

And time. Scholars, let's give a huge warm welcome to the third speaker for the negative team. Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Today our motion is that history teachers should share their opinions about history they teach.

Well, as a negative team, I believe that this motion must fall and here are the reasons. I think that the offer... The conservative side has failed to understand that we believe that teachers are not just teachers of our teenagers, they are also teachers of youngsters, like elementary schools.

History teachers actually shape students'minds. So, do you know how, like, what's the critical thinking level of elementary school students? Like, they don't think that as well as our, like us do, because we're teenagers.

We get a lot of, a lot of ways to reach the internet. We can see a lot of different opinions. But what about the youngsters? Which I'm going to explain it in my next point.

But first, I'd like to throw some rebuttals. The affirmative side tried to say that we are telling the truth. telling you that teachers force harmful opinions on students. But we do not think that that is the case. We just think that students, we are kids, we spend most of our time at school.

And of course there are other influences, other opinions on the internet, but teachers, they are the main contributors to the opinions that we listen to. Like our whole day, how many hours do we spend at school? Like maybe eight?

I don't know. Their opinions really matter and really influence us. And that's why history as a subject that we all like, it should be straight up facts. They shouldn't by giving their opinions, they're actually robbing the experience of us.

They're robbing the experience, robbing the students to form their own experience because the teachers may have experienced themself, but how about the students? They do not know about it. Now, also about... You have talked about how teachers are reliable and their background checks on teachers. We believe that that is completely true.

But do you know, like there are many examples of bad teachers in the world. And you just need to know that if there's one example, your point is already invalid. Because you need to know that teachers may go through background checks, but do we really know who they are? So one teacher can actually influence a lot of students. There are a bunch of students that can be influenced.

by just this one teacher and that's why their opinions really will influence the students. Now, let me talk about my point, how about, what about like young students, they look up to a teacher and how by the teacher interpreting their own opinions will influence their experience of the history. This is a quote from Roberson Davis, the eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.

Teacher provide us with their opinions, we do not know. What is the proportion of the teacher, like in this motion, it doesn't mention proportion. What if the teacher just used a whole lesson talking about their own experience about the history, but not actually referring to his own textbook? Then would we actually have multiple perspectives? Is that what we want in this society that we just listen to our teacher and we believe that our teachers are always right because teachers are reliable, as you've said?

We need to know that student minds are just like molds. Teacher. are the sculptors of these molds.

We cannot just listen to our... We can listen to our teachers'opinions, but what if the opinions are really biased and, like, bad to history? Because history is straight-up fact. And, of course, there are different opinions and different perspectives of looking into history, but teachers, they're only one history teacher of my life, like, one student, so we only have one opinion. There's no multiple perspectives.

then young children, they cannot interpret whether the teacher is right or wrong. And they do not know about critical thinking and they will just believe what the teacher says. That's why I believe that this motion must fall. Thank you.

Thank you so much scholars. Let's give one more huge round of applause. And scholars, you have 60 seconds. And time. Scholars, please join us in welcoming the fourth and final affirmative speaker.

Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Annika, and I stand over here strongly and passionately believing in the motion that we should indeed be introducing opinions in history classes by the teachers. So first I'm going to be starting off by providing rebuttals to what the negative side of the team said and why the contentions fall and why we clearly win this debate.

So their main point was essentially talking about how, you know, one person should not be the only one who is like influencing youngsters and especially children when it comes to history. But first of all, what we really believe is that a history teacher is only a part of a variety of sources and a variety of sources is always good. Secondly, whenever you're talking about a belief in something you usually have a story to share right you don't just happen to believe in something you don't just happen to you know for example say that uh Me Too movement is good or uh Black Lives Matter movement is good you have a story behind. why you're believing in that certain thing.

And we, in this world, are encouraging stories to be shared. We are encouraging opinions, and not just, you know, certain standards set by the state to be told to people who will be the future of our society. We're talking about introducing opinions and engaging students into actually listening to what history is. If I'm sitting in a history classroom, and if you're talking about something like the American Revolution, What the opposition basically said is that history should be made of facts, but history is not facts History is a diverse set of opinions.

You can never really say that this was what happened or this country won against this deal are always certain parameters to measure against, right? So we need to incorporate more stories in order to actually progress this kind of notion and engage students in critical thinking. When you're sharing stories, you're automatically helping people, and especially students, engage in the ideas. You're telling them, okay, so you share a story, you're asking them to provide their perspective on it and not just consider certain, certain parameters.

Our first contention that we talked about is about was basically diversification of opinions and because of the contentions I provided right now I think the opposition's chance on this clearly falls. Our second contention was talking about engaging critical thinking. Again, I just talked about that right now.

And our third contention was providing representation to the marginalized. So why are we talking about the marginalized? Why is slavery such an important topic to be discussed in general? So whenever you're talking about opinions being provided, you're obviously including people in discussions.

You're obviously providing... diverse and more areas of perspective and this is extremely important because in our world we support a world in which more stories are shared a world in which our children learn that it is okay not to just follow the norm and not just like be okay with what the certain set parameters are it is okay to think differently it is okay to engage in engaging debates that actually improve your knowledge we believe that We believe in providing representation to the marginalized. We believe in sharing stories. We believe that we would be helping people in the marginalized community by sharing their stories because in a sense we are providing different sets of perspectives, right? That is what our entire debate is about.

And the opposition clearly fails to acknowledge this point. And history, in a sense, is not based on facts. And that is why...

we should be encouraging more opinions, more people to speak up for what they believe in, and not just abide by what a certain group of people, like the state, determines to be the accurate representation of history. I question the opposition. What do you deem is actually accurate in representing history?

Do you really believe that textbooks are the only accurate version of how history should be presented to people who are going to be changing our world tomorrow? And that is why, as the final speaker of the opposition, I urge the ballot to be passed in the opposition side as we strongly and firmly do support this motion. Thank you Thank you so much scholars.

Let's give them one more round of applause and now scholars you have 60 seconds to prepare Scholars let's welcome the final speaker for the negative team If anybody tries to penetrate the past with the knife of the present, it will always be in vain. Hello dear judges, respectful opponents, lovely teammates, and of course, amazing audience. My name is Maria Volevoordeva from the International School of Amsterdam here in the Netherlands. I am the last speaker of the negative team, and I am here to state why this motion is truly...

and clearly flawed. First of all, I will begin with a rebuttal, with a couple rebuttals. So first of all, what the other team mentioned a lot is that history is just dry facts and textbooks when it really is not. History is an epic. History is a force.

And history History should not be tampered with. That is why opinions should not be influencing it. Also, you kept on saying how teachers were also extra sources.

A source should be verified. A source should be a valid piece of information and not simply an opinion. Also the opinion is coming from simply one teacher.

What the other team has always avoided is the fact that the one teacher can hold bias, that opinions hold bias within history. And that is simply overlooked within their arguments. and this is what also my argument is going to be about.

It is the fact that history teachers can bring in unnecessary bias and historical revisionism. Now, what if your history teacher was, for example, teaching you about a war, World War I, World War II, and your country participated in that war. And within telling these events, they said that, like, oh, what our country did wasn't that bad. it was okay and so you hear what the teacher says, you understand, you hear their opinion and you think oh and you think that oh yeah okay what we did wasn't that bad so you go home you continue on with your life thinking that what happened wasn't that bad that your country was okay. However it wasn't okay.

what your country did. Your history teacher simply avoided that fact. Now your perception of history is altered. The way that you perceive the events is altered because a history teacher simply shared their opinion and that is not okay.

That is not what should be happening. The thoughts of another should not influence your idea and perception of history, something so important and eternal within our lives. What will happen in the future 50, 100 years from now?

How will our history look? How different will our history look? if opinions can simply just be carried within it.

Yes, having opinions is good and is necessary, however, not when it alters our own perception of our world and our timeline. We, the future of our own planet, should be able to carry the past within us, unaltered, unchanged, raw within us to our future. Because making history opinionated is like ripping open the pages of time with a big sharpie and crossing straight through them. It is simply not acceptable. To some, it is like a book of books.

summarize the points from our team and why we clearly win. It is because it would influence our perception of history, it would harm marginalized people, it would endorse nationalism, and it would simply contribute to historical revisionism, and it will alter our perception of our own world. Thank you.

Scholars, give it up one more time for the fourth negative speaker! And, if we could, have one more big round of applause to all of our debaters up here on the stage! And so, next. Before we can progress to the forum where you will have a chance to add your voices to the conversation, we must ask that the judge panel stand up and follow Dylan to the special adjudicator deliberation dungeon, also known as the hallway.

And next, we move on to a section that we like to call the forum, which is where you in the audience get to add your voice to the conversation, where you get to share your thoughts on the motion, things that you may have thought about during the debate, ideas that you may have had. If you would like to contribute, we have Olivia and Alice stationed at mics. Please come line up and we will bounce side to side.

Starting with Olivia. Please introduce yourself and share what you'd like. Hello everyone, my name is Swati Anshu. I'm from NPS International School.

And I have two points to make over here. One for the affirmative side and the other for the negative side. So for the affirmative side, one of the prime examples could be how the Indian textbooks published by a British publication, wherein the extent of damage and the numbers used is in fact completely reduced, and hence we will never know the truth of what actually happened. Now, for the negative side, one of the strong rebuttals could be commenting on the second speaker's point when she mentioned that students need to form their own opinions.

By the way, I love the way the second speaker spoke. Your comments on the credibility and influence of teachers'opinions was done in an emphatic way. One of your examples could have been how Hitler's extremist thoughts were in fact sparked by his own passionate teachers. Do we want history to be repeated? Thank you.

And now we will jump to Alice's side. Hi, I'm Sneha and I'm from the same school, NPS International. So I have two points that the affirmative side could have used. Firstly, contributing to Swati's point, history is almost always... written by the victors and when the negative keeps bringing up that the teacher could be opinionated they're ignoring the fact that history textbooks are already opinionated at the same goes for when we speak of when America when colonizers went to America The Trial of Tears and the Native American Genocide are often ignored in American history textbooks and colonizers are portrayed as just people who wanted land so the natives moved away.

Another important point is when you bring up... anti-LGBT teachers or anti-black teachers. The thing about the human race is that there will always be multiple opinions. And if students are always only exposed to progressive and... well, liberal or left ideas, when they actually encounter conservatism, they may not know how to respond.

It's important that from a young age, students are taught that there are different ends to the political spectrum, and they're allowed to choose where they want to fall. By not exposing them to extremism, you're not allowing them to learn how to deal with it in the future. Thank you. Thank you so much for those thoughts.

Scholars, very briefly before we continue, we would implore you to just share. one or two of the thoughts that you have so that we can get as many contributions as possible in this limited time. With that said, back to this side.

Hi, I'm Julieta, I'm from Canada, Montreal, at St. George's School of Montreal, and I just thought of an idea that the affirmative side could use, that even if a teacher's opinion is extreme and terrible, they should still share it, and here is why. So let's say you had someone from the KKK who horrible white supremacy bad times, right? And they straight up say these horrible things. The kids may go home, tell their parents about it, and that opinion can be known and dealt with. That teacher can be taken away, thrown out.

The administration may say that's not fair. But if not, that bias may come through in how they teach the history from the books. They may subtly share it and be shaping minds. in this negative way, and it's not obvious.

You can't say, hey, that's wrong because it's so subtle, and I find that could be extremely dangerous. So, yeah. Thank you very much. We'll now go back to Alice's side.

Hi, I'm Carla Dormeo from the Philippine Global School, so I will be sharing a point that could have been used by the affirmative team. So the affirmative team was talking about the diversity of perspectives. What is a perspective? that you could get from opinions.

So one piece of evidence that could have strongly contributed to their argument was Bloom's Taxonomy, which is, it is used to classify educational learning levels and when followed ensures effective learning. So two of the most important... things in education is apparently evaluation and understanding.

So evaluation is the ability of a child to defend, support, and great knowledge about the things they learn. And understanding is the ability to explain what they learn, to comprehend and define and discuss the things they've learned. So the affirmative team could have said that the opinions shared by these teachers would allow children to further understand and evaluate the things they learn by forming their own. their own thoughts and understanding them from a different perspective. So thank you.

And now, back to the other side. Hello, my name is Richard from Footprint School in Cambodia. And I would like to say that I agree with the fact that teachers should give their opinions because if you stop your opinions, what's next?

What else do you stop? Do you stop? your opinions? Do you stop your freedom of choice? What else would you stop once you stop these opinions?

Because you need to get these thoughts out because you need to get these ideas out of your head and you cannot just keep them in. You need to get these opinions out. That is my opinion.

And now to the other side for one more opinion. Hello, I'm Ruzgar Erdem from Izmir Mayor's School. And I'd just like to say that I've seen nobody talk about the fact that most teachers already provide opinions in history classes.

At least from where I come from in Turkey, most teachers already give opinions to people. And the thing is, the students that already possess the ability to critically think improve their ability to critically think, but those who don't know that ideas can be different go lower and lower. Thank you.

And now... Hello, my name is Meher Suri from the International School of Amsterdam. So first, I felt that I really resonated with the affirmative team.

But however, I feel that the negative team truly swayed my beliefs. And in doing so, I found that these opinions are really uncalled for. And whilst opinions are really valid in our society, not in a learning environment, because they do contribute to... ...do things like prejudice and preconceived notions which can truly impact these students, this youth that has a really large impact on the future, a really large potential youth, potential effect on the future.

And I feel, well, something that I found out just now is that this influence actually has quite a detrimental effect on their own beliefs because they're not able to create new statements and ideas for themselves rather than having to apprehend to someone else's. Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah, I understand. And now we'll jump back to the other side. Hello, my name is Vidya and I have two points.

The first point is that younger children also have access to the internet. They watch a lot of stuff on Twitter, whatever social. media they use and they get a lot of opinions from there.

So it's not as if they are only exposed to one opinion by the teacher. More people get opinions watching their favorite YouTubers play whatever video game they want. And the second point is that sometimes we trust the people, we believe the people we place trust in more than news sources.

So that's a point I thought the negative could use. Thank you. Thank you very much for that. Scholars, we have time for about three more contributions from each side.

So, back to Olivia's. Um, alright, so I have a point for the negative team of the debate. And I feel like a point overlooked by the negative team...

was that the motion stated that it wasn't that the teachers'opinions were bad, but it wasn't that they should be shared. So I felt like the negative team could have said that students should form their own opinions based on objective facts. and not on subjective opinions as what a good opinion is or what a bad opinion is, is not a fact. It depends on who you're talking to. It lies in the eye of the beholder, meaning that the negative team could have just said, instead of giving any opinion or a subjective fact, just give an objective fact which everyone can agree upon, and then a student can build their own opinion based on that objective fact, which is simply a fact and unfalsifiable.

Thank you. So some ideas about the differentiation between subjectivity and objectivity. Now we will objectively go back to the side. My name is Hendrix Hancock from the International School of Amsterdam, and I thought that with the affirmative team... with freedom of speech and how most, well not most, but a lot of countries have freedom of speech implemented in them already, when teachers share their opinions, whether they're radicalist or not, it lets the student discuss with that teacher and debate with that teacher on said opinion because discussion breeds knowledge and school is for knowledge.

And now, back to Olivia's side, for a scholar who's involved in this debate on several levels. Hey, what's up? I'm Shari, I was one of your judges. I just want to, well, thank you for the clapping. I just wanted to point out that one...

extremely important point that the affirmative was talking about was that history is a lot more engaging when you're telling it in terms of stories and the negative could have easily argued the fact that history in and of itself is not given as a story it's given as a founder for understanding certain concepts. So for example, the Great Depression is used as understanding, sorry, the Treaty of Versailles is used as an example of why we shouldn't punish countries in a certain way, right? So the narratives that we already use in our history textbooks can be challenged by the opinions a history teacher gives, but it can also be endorsed.

The question there is that if your students are also encouraged to give their opinions, the narratives that are given in your history textbooks will firstly be enforced, and secondly, they'll be questioned. That means that the actual focus of the academic curriculum, which the negative is focusing on, because they're supporting the status quo, is going to be enforced. Because, like I said, once again, firstly, the points you have in your textbook are going to be supported better. And secondly, if they're not supported, you're going to have to understand them better to criticize them anyway.

So the point of your curriculum is also going to be helped if this motion was not passed. Thank you very, very much. We will now jump back to Alice's side for our PENultimate's contribution. Hi, my name is Swastik and from my journey to middle school to high school, I have been to four different schools in four different countries.

And in these four different countries... none of my history test questions were like this that what is your opinion about who was the ultimate culprit behind World War I or World War II? The question was, who is the culprit behind World War I? So in this...

this debate, my point is, everybody of you were talking about that children should have their own opinion. But the problem is, our curriculum has made our thought process so limited that we have to think the way they want us to think. So if the teachers are adding their opinion to our minds, it is just for our good, so that we actually know what is happening in the world and what didn't happen.

Secondly, if you consider from your point, from the proposition point of view, point that students around the world not always think about a particular topic. A UNICEF study from 2014 has said in a particular class only 30% of the students actually listen to the teacher and then give a second thought about it. So what are the extra 70% students?

So what if a Republican teacher comes and teaches about Watergate? He will obviously say that Watergate was not Nixon's mistake. If those 70% students carry on that thought that Nixon was not behind Watergate, what is going to happen to the country?

Or if somebody says that not Germany, instead England was the victim of World War I, then the 70% students would be carrying on that same process that England was the actual culprit and not Germany. This is my point. Thank you very, very much. And now we will go to our final contributor. Scholars, give her a big round of applause.

So, hi, I'm Kirtna and I'm from Sacred Heart School and I would like to help with the affirmative team saying that history is a set of stories and stories has many twists and turns and not everything is black and white and with that being black and white when you have opinions given in classes it simply just teaches you how to tolerate opinions whether it's biased or it's politically correct in the real world because the real world is full of opinions even in actual like justice crimes they're filled with things that are so horrible you can't seem to understand them but that's why we should have opinions in classrooms so that you're able to tolerate these opinions and be able to deal with it in the real world after all isn't that what school is for and that's why I strongly believe with the affirmative team Thank you very, very much to everyone who contributed to this discussion. Scholars, we think that discussions like these are of the utmost importance, that we as a community can breed discourse that ends divisiveness, and we encourage you to have discussions like these as often and as frequently as you can. With that said, this discussion in particular is coming to an end, and I would now like to invite the adjudication panel. On to the stage.

Scholars, give them a warm welcome. They have come to a decision, it seems. While the affirmative team's points were slightly contradictory, the adjudication panel really felt that the personal touch and the structure of their entire team was really constructive and respectful to the other team, yet their rebuttals were really great and they had a strong voice and passion, and overall we really enjoyed their structure.

Thank you. Hi everybody, my name is Miron and I'm from Ukraine. We just want to say that history is the teacher of our life.

A famous ancient Rome's leader and orator, Cicero, said that history is the teacher of our life. That is why it is impossible to speak about history, about historical motion without historic examples. It is generally agreed throughout the world.

That is why negative team, managed to mention really substantial historical examples. Two world wars, which were really crimes of the entire mankind. Examples which are dedicated to France, Turkey, the USA, which are located throughout the world.

These examples were quite substantial. However, just want to reach the negative team to emphasize on teamwork. To put the stress on logical process of thoughts.

As it's generally acknowledged throughout the WSCA tournament, that without teamwork, the entire WSCA tournament can't exist. Thank you. And now, before we announce the results, we would like to ask you guys for your opinion. If you vote for the affirmative, raise your hands, or show us a clap. Clap for them.

Clap for the affirmative. And if you think the negative should win, clap again. Before we announce, oh yeah, we already done that. So are you ready you guys? Can you give us a drumroll?

And the winner is... A primitive team! The affirmative team won the debate, guys.

Scholars, give it up one more time for everyone who is involved. Debaters, please cross the threshold, shake hands, mingle with the panelists. And I will turn it over to Dylan. Thank you, Robert. Scholars, with the debate showcase complete, what comes next?

Okay, you guys need some energy. It is indeed the Scholars Show. Please allow us 10 minutes to set up. If you checked in with me earlier, please come back on stage to check in with me again.

All the performers from earlier today, please come check in with me. For everyone else, get comfortable, take a moment.

Transcript for:Highlights from Debate Showcase Event

Transcript for:
Highlights from Debate Showcase Event