Although speech and debate have been present here at Mountain Lakes High School for many years, in the past few years the team has made great strides. Starting in 2017, Dr. Hittinger started teaching Latin and History at MLHS. At the same time, he took up the mantle of debate coach, having done Lincoln Douglas himself in high school. At that time, the debate team consisted of a small group of passionate individuals. In the past two years, it has grown tremendously to encompass a large number of students that have accomplished great achievements.
Before talking about the accomplishments of our team, it is necessary to clarify what high school debate actually is. In high school, there are two primary forms of debate: Lincoln-Douglass and public forum, known as LD and PF respectively (there exists policy debate, parliamentary debate, and congressional debate, but MLHS is mainly involved in LD and PF). In LD debate, two individual debaters face each other to argue about issues like universal basic income and predictive policing, with a large focus on the philosophical backing behind arguments. In PF debate, two teams of two argue over more specific policies like price caps on the pharmaceutical industry and universal background checks for gun purchases. Debate meets around once per week, and students work hard to prepare cases for one or two tournaments per month on weekends, with topics rotating every month or two. On the local New Jersey Speech and Debate League (NJSDL) circuit, if students place in the top 6 for their event, they qualify for the state tournament, held in March.
The debate team this year has seen massive improvement. In previous years, our debate program has been fairly successful, with around four or five teams competing regularly. However, this year saw the arrival of four new PF teams in the freshman class alone. Along with three upperclassmen teams, including my own, we had seven PF teams that attended tournaments. At the same time, the LD team also doubled in size. These new additions proved to be invaluable to the development of our team. Within the first few tournaments, Leela Amarasiri and Priyanka Iyer, competing in the novice division, qualified for the state tournament. Following them, our students began to qualify one-by-one. Leon Xie and Jason Ding became the first PF team competing in the varsity division to qualify for NJSDL states. Alexander Chen, a sophomore LD debater, won first prize at a tournament in the varsity division, usually dominated by juniors and seniors. All in all, 26 students from MLHS would have attended the NJ state tournament had it not been cancelled in March.
Our team has proved to be very adaptable. In one tournament, near the end of February, the tournament organizers decided to use the March topics. Our debaters had not yet written March cases, but were able to quickly adapt and instead participated in Parliamentary debate, which was entirely based in on-the-spot improvisation.
Due to the development of the COVID-19 pandemic and its spread into the NY/NJ area, all tournaments starting in the middle of March onwards were cancelled. This was incredibly disappointing to our debaters that worked so hard to qualify for the state tournament. Had we attended, it would have been a great opportunity to meet fellow debaters from other schools as well as to compete at a high level. Nevertheless, the team is excited for the upcoming school year of 2020-2021. A number of JV teams will move up to the varsity division, and many novice debaters with a year of experience under their belt can begin to compete at a higher level. With everything going on in the world, our debaters have gained invaluable experience with politics. Next year, with the addition of incoming freshmen and the presence of experienced members to guide them, there is no doubt that our debate team will go far.
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