青少年每週辯論俱樂部 - 持續課程

The course is designed to allow teenagers to continue developing their abilities by engaging in Public Forum, Policy and Parliamentary debate rounds. Lessons will occasionally include elements from other activities to allow learners to focus on developing specific skills (e.g. learners may practice delivering Mock Trial litanies to help them improve their performance in cross examination). 

Learners will be assigned teams and the topic for each week's debate round prior to the lesson. Depending on each week's debate format, learners will usually be given time in breakout rooms to collaborate with teammates ahead of the round. Most importantly, this debate club is designed for learners to have fun while engaging with complex debate topics inside of teams. 

This course is formatted for learners between the ages of 13-17 and will include topics that are commonly found at the high school and university level (e.g. universal basic income, policy resolutions requiring learners to define and then capture different notions of justice, UN peacekeeping plans). Learners will be actively coached, challenged & guided throughout each lesson through the Socratic teaching method.

Because each lesson will move quickly and involve an active debate, learners are required to have some previous experience performing in Public Forum, Parliamentary, Lincoln Douglas or Policy debate. 

Lessons are not sequential, so learners are able to join at any point throughout the course. 

Each lesson will function as a standalone class that begins by reviewing the judging rationale from the previous class (which allows new enrollees to develop a sense of how an audience and judge will evaluate a debate round). 

An example outline of the topics included over 8 weeks is included below:

Week of February 20th: Public Forum Debate on criminal justice

Week of February 27th: Policy Debate on K12 education

Week of March 6th: Public Forum Debate on freedom of speech

Week of March 13th : Parliamentary Debate on international relations

Week of March 20th: Public Forum debate on nuclear energy

Week of March 27th: Public Forum debate on immigration reform

Week of April 3rd: Public Forum debate on healthcare

Week of April 10th: Parliamentary Debate on democracy