You can’t argue with that
Woonsocket team represents RI at Debate Nationals in Chicago
WOONSOCKET — A successful season of arguing their viewpoints has given the high school’s Urban Debate League Team a berth in the National Urban Debate League Tournament at Loyola University in Chicago from April 21 to April 23.
The Woonsocket team will be representing Rhode Island in the tournament featuring 23 competing urban debate organizations as a result of team members Dominique DiSpirito and Kahlyl Roberson’s second-place finish in the National Urban Debate League qualifying tournament at the Rhode Island Urban Debate League Tournament in March.
The Woonsocket team will represent the state in Chicago for the second year in a row as result of this year’s competition success.
Roberson and DiSpirito had won all of their regular season team competitions before entering the state finals, the team’s advisor, Phillippe Simonini, noted as the team was getting ready for its upcoming trip last week.
The students will be traveling to Chicago at the end of the April vacation week, starting on Friday.
The team’s representatives in the National competition will be Kahlyl and DiSpirito, both juniors, as well as novice team members Mary Ann Carr and James Simonini, Phillippe’s son.
The team’s success gained them praise from High School Principal Carnell Henderson before the close of school on Thursday.
“I just think it is a great accomplishment for the kids, they are very committed,” Henderson said.
On the other hand, Henderson said he knows the team’s members and actually is not that surprised that they are good at arguing their views. “They are very wellspoken and very intelligent,” he said. No, the team members are not prone to taking positions in discussions with their school administration, but Henderson said he is aware that they “are very good at defending what they believe in.”
Although it helps to be going to the National finals with some prior experience, the team members will actually rely on what they have learned during their meets with other Rhode Island teams in their league to maintain their competitive edge.
“Debating is essentially arguing but with rules,” DiSpirito explained. “There are things that you say and things that you don’t say,” she said.
The team members are given a focus to take in their debate, either in favor of the topic or opposed to it, but then must win over the judge to their point of view with their presentation of the facts and persuasive strategies.
“The idea is to convince the judge that we should win the round because we have the more compelling argument,” DiSpirito said.
The style of the team members’ delivery can also affect their success and Roberson said he learned that fact from his early competitions. “I lost a lot in the beginning because you really need to develop your skills,” he said. There are certain phrasings and a special vocabulary that can help in presenting a debate argument and even the pacing of how a person talks, he noted.
“There is spreading, where you speak at a rate of 250 words a minute because that allows you to present more facts,” he explained. Roberson said he learned that he could speak fast and it helped him in winning competitions.
“You are able to get to more topics in making your argument,” he said.
James Simonini, also a junior, said he was able to adapt his ability to argue points generally to the format of the debate team and found that it works.
“You have to have a little bit of an ability to argue and then you have to have enough control to debate,” he said.
“It’s fun, but there are times when the anxiety kicks in,” he said. “I know both me and my partner Mary Ann are little nervous because this is our first year debating but we are ready to take the next step and compete at the nationals,” he said.
The theme of the debate finals will follow the theme that the students have had in their local competition, United States and China relations, but there is bound to be more challenging debates given all the teams that will be participating. But as the students now know, being on the Debate Team means tak- ing on new challenges and learning about how to overcome them.
“It is a fantastic experience because you get a lot of exposure to new things and you even win sometimes,” Bradley Doiron, another member of the team, said. He too has learned a few techniques to help the team win along the way. “I’m definitely more of a facts person,” Doiron said.
The team’s advisor, Simonini, said the students have learned how to present their cases based on solving a problem, a skill that can be applied to many situations.
There is actually a term for it in debating, solvency, which is a requirement to have a plan to resolve an issue. Both sides may have a plan for solvency, but the one that does it best is the point winner.
“So in a sense they are supposed to do what our politicians are supposed to do in Washington but never do,” he said. The student debaters, at least, “do it all with a sense of civility,” Simonini said.
The Urban Debate League in Rhode Island is made up of nine public schools located in the urban cities including Providence, Pawtucket, and Woonsocket.