On the weekend of 12/10 to 12/12, GA students ranging from freshmen to seniors competed in the La Salle Forum Invitational. The competition was held virtually on the platform Tabroom and marked GA’s first virtual debate tournament of the year, so competitors had to navigate technology over the course of the day.
Leading up to the event, numerous novice teams competing in both speech and debate said that the experience was rewarding and enjoyable, while different from what they expected. A freshman mentioned that the speech leader, Rachel Roth, was very supportive and helped novice competitors get the hang of it. Freshmen competing in the debate category said they found pre-competition prep to be a lot of work, as forming complete cases required numerous sources and provable impacts for each contention, or point being made.
For the four public forum competitors, December’s topic was whether or not the United States government should adopt a No First Use policy regarding the use of nuclear weapons. (No First Use refers to a pledge or a policy by a nuclear power not to use nuclear weapons as a means of warfare unless first attacked by an adversary using nuclear weapons.) Students said that it was difficult to write cases about No First Use as there are not many examples in today’s world, so a lot of the evidence merely served as hypothetical predictions. However, putting the challenges aside, those in Public Forum said it was a relief to have a partner so they wouldn’t have to do all the work alone. The online competition was an experience in and of itself – such a format has never been done before this year. Fortunately, no major tech issues were experienced throughout the entirety of the tournament.
Post-event, teams who competed were happy to have participated and felt that the event was a learning experience, and something they would be willing to do again. Even though not everyone received the results they might have been hoping for, this was the first competition for a number of teams, and most importantly, they enjoyed it.
Unfortunately, no GA teams made it to the semifinals or finals, but some students in various speech categories did place well. Aisosa Idahosa ’23 placed 3rd overall in Program Oral Interpretation, a sub speech category. Also, Finn Lukens, Joey Petko, and Andreas Moeller placed 15th, 16th, and 17th overall in Varsity Congressional, respectively. Congratulations to all those who participated; this event was a first for everyone, and it’s amazing to have seen so many wonderful teams come out and be a part of it!