My First Sir Winston Churchill European Debate Competition

by David Kiiovsch, Year 12

The goal of high school debate competitions is to examine all sides of important and divisive issues in a setting of logical argument and civil discourse. For me it was my first debate competition and I have to say that the great effort students put forth to succeed in this intellectually stimulating activity is simply inspiring. Weekends are spent practicing and competing, and they devote a lot of time to their research, discussions, case writing, and competition preparation. As a result of their diligent work, students benefit in many ways, such as expanding their general knowledge, sharpening their critical thinking skills, and accelerating their personal developmentdebate practice also help with exam preparation as you are effectively writing exam styled expository essays under exam type pressure, with the clock ticking.

On the 14th of November, two IBSB teams had the chance to compete in the Sir Winston Churchill European Debating Championships against ten schools from various European countries. It is a highly prestigious event, where we got the chance to show off our academic capabilities and learn about current topics. The IBSB Red Team was composed of Vlad Mocanu, Ana-Maria Mihăescu, Haidar Mrad, and myself; we commenced our journey in the world of debating with this competition and managed to win two of the four debates we were involved in. Personally, I believe that it is unfair to say that the other two debates were lost, since we acquired precious debating skills from more experienced teams and most importantly…had a lot of fun!

On the other hand, the IBSB Blue Team, which was formed by Head Girl Maria Sticlea, Head Boy Andrei Vernon, Deputy Head Girl Alexia Verdeș Thea Bostan, and Sara Iosiper made it all the way to the final of the competition, where they debated against the English International College of Marbella, Spain, on the following motion: ‘This house believes that it is immoral for billionaires to exist. After fortyfive minutes of intense preparation and a fruitful debate, IBSB Blue triumphed, bringing another gold cup to the IBSB hall of fame and carrying on the perennial debating legacy of our school. The mixture of satisfaction, fulfillment’, and fatigue formed a unique feeling which makes all of the effort, sweat, and tears put in well worth it.

Overall, I think we would all agree that it was a successful event in which we all learned something and thoroughly improved our debating skills, sure to be useful on many occasions in life. Sadly, the IBSB Blue team will be graduating at the end of this year in order to pursue their study of choice and who knows…maybe even carry on debating at a university level, and as such, those in the Red Team look forward to filling their shoes next year in brining another batch of trophies home to fill our debating cabinets yet further. I wholeheartedly wish all of those leaving us at the end of the year the very best in their future studies and careers and hope to see their vivid passion for debating in the younger generations to come!