TBSHS Debaters Triumph at the Oxford Union
Above: Former TBSHS students.William Worthy & Elliot Wood welcome Fin Macfie & Semir Emara to Oxford
Year 10 students Fin Macfie & Semir Emara travelled to the world-famous Oxford University Union to take on teams from all over the UK as well as qualifiers from nine other countries, including Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and Kazakhstan, at Finals’ Day of the International Competition for Young Debaters. Greeted by former TBSHS student Elliot Wood, who now debates for Oxford and was one of the organisers, their first task was to open the Opposition to the idea that, in secondary schools, holistic education models are better than systems based on student choice. Fin challenged his opponents from South Korea to define what they meant by better education and went on to argue that students’ results and their attitude to education improve when they can choose to study the subjects that they enjoy. Semir backed him up well, pointing out that some subjects, especially the performing arts, tend to be marginalised in holistic models, whereas specialisation gives greater depth of knowledge. In a high-quality debate, The TBSHS team was placed third, just behind a strong team from Highgate School, but ahead of one from St Paul’s Girls.
For the second round, we were joined by Will Worthy, another former TBSHS debater currently studying at Oxford, as the team took on opponents from Greece, Kenya and Berkhamsted to consider whether the environmental movement should advocate for incentive-based or punitive policies to tackle climate change. Speaking third for the latter approach, Semir produced some excellent arguments that were distinct from those made earlier on his side, emphasising the economic aspects of the motion and pointing out that, because punishments have a more immediate effect, they are more likely to provide the drastic changes in behaviour that are needed. Fin rounded off the debate with a well-ordered speech in which he reminded his opponents that climate change often has the most drastic effects on disadvantaged people and explained why Semir’s arguments had been the most important ones made. Will and I were impressed by structure and clarity of our team’s arguments and the judge agreed, awarding them first place and praising them for providing the best analysis of the ‘punishment vs reward’ clash that was central to this debate. This was an excellent result for such an inexperienced team.
FinMacfie
Rightly pleased with what they had achieved in the morning session, the boys took a short break for lunch before opening their third debate, “This House Believes that team-based sporting associations such as FIFA should abolish all individual awards (e.g. the Ballon d’Or) at all levels”. Fin argued that such prizes corrode the sense of unity that is fundamental to team sports and influence children to play in a more selfish fashion, to the detriment of the team as a whole. He also pointed out that ‘glamour players’ such as strikers in football are most likely to win the awards, rather than their team mates who often set up their goalscoring chances. Semir questioned the validity of the methods by which the winners are selected and pointed out that living up to, or striving to achieve, the receipt of an award heaps undue pressure on players, affecting their mental health. After very lively contributions from an Indian speaker and his Korean counterpart, it was not at all clear which team had spoken best, but in a very close call, Semir & Fin were perhaps a little unfortunate to be given fourth place.
The next debate, the last in which all teams would be involved, featured an ‘actor motion’, namely “This House, as the feminist movement, would actively discourage women from becoming housewives”, a somewhat daunting prospect for students from an all-male year group, especially when most of the speakers on the other side were female. The opening teams, from Belvedere College (Dublin) and Brighton College had focussed respectively on the need to address traditional gender stereotypes and the importance of offering women a choice. In response to the latter argument, Semir pointed out the difference between active discouragement and an outright ban, before going on to describe the workplace as the main battleground of feminism.
Semir Emara
He argued that the presence of women there is vital for economic as well as social reasons and dealt very well with questions raised by the Opposition. Skilfully summing up the case for the motion, Fin identified equality and personal choice as two of the main points of contention in the debate. He argued that the feminist movement should be seen to inform women and support their efforts to break stereotypes and drew attention to the importance of Semir’s remarks. As in the previous debate, it was hard to predict the placings, with very little to choose between the four teams. However, this time, after a long wait we found out that TBSHS had been placed first.
This excellent result propelled the team to 21st place overall out of 52 (the second best placing we have achieved in this competition) and also a top four finish among ‘novice’ pairs (those with less than a year’s experience of interschool competition. This put them into the Novices’ Final, alongside Brighton College, GSAL (the Grammar School at Leeds) and Kinderworld International School from Nairobi, all fee-paying institutions. Opening the case for releasing inmates from prison based solely on rehabilitation rather than predetermined length of sentence, Fin gave an authoritative performance, proposing a thorough system of assessment by trained individuals, including psychologists. He argued that both prisoners and society would benefit from this measure, because most prisoners would be more likely to want to reform and therefore become less likely to reoffend. The first Opposition speaker asked how we could be sure that, under this system, there would be no guarantee that inmates would behave better after release, without providing any evidence that this is the case under the status quo. Semir responded with some extremely effective rebuttal on this aspect of the motion before going on to point out that the motion, if enacted, would improve the nature of prisons, making them more positive in outlook and the inmates less embittered. He also challenged his opponents to justify detaining prisoners once they are ready to retake their place in society. The judges’ verdict was not announced until the very end of the whole event, by which time we were on our way home, but we were delighted to hear that Semir and Fin had won and were therefore ICYD NOVICE CHAMPIONS.
Debating coach, retired teacher Tony Fraser commented, “This was a fantastic achievement on the part of Fin and Semir. In an extremely demanding competition, they really rose to the challenge. They have made great progress in the past year and debated superbly throughout the day, earning plaudits for the clarity of arguments in their extremely well-structured speeches. It was a real pleasure to see how Elliot and Will are flourishing at Oxford. Like them, Semir and Fin are doing themselves and the school proud”
Headteacher, Dale Reeve, added:
“This is another great achievement for our students on the national and international debating circuit. Huge congratulations to Fin and Semir for being crowned novice champions after competing against teams from around the world. We have such a proud tradition of developing our students’ public speaking and debating skills, invaluable tools whatever their future endeavours. We’re indebted to the great work of Mr Fraser and our current staff for all the time they give to prepare the students for competition.”
