They’re not stubborn; they stick to their guns
City students flourish with debate team
“Right now I am still a very awkward and shy person. But I feel being on the debate team gives ME THE SELF CONfidence to speak my opinions.” —Sophomore Julie DeAlencar
WOONSOCKET — A group of students at the high school and the Woonsocket Area Career & Technical Center have learned it can be beneficial to pick a side on a topic and argue it until your heart’s content.
Of course they haven’t been engaging in random arguments with their peers or teachers, they have been trying to score their talking points in competition for their school as members of its Urban Debate League team.
The Woonsocket team has just wrapped up another debate season and once again is sending a member to the National Urban Debate League competition in Washington, D.C. during the upcoming April school vacation.
This year, Kyle Roberts, a senior, will be heading to Washington with his Rhode Island league teammate, Fio Alonzo of the Blackstone Academy in Pawtucket, to see if he can keep the Villa Novan debating reputation growing.
Last year, Woonsocket seniors Dominique DiSpirito and Khalil Roberson, won three of their six competitions during their third trip to the national debate event.
But for Roberts and the rest of the Villa Novan team, being debaters is not just about winning competitions and bringing home awards and trophies.
They are taking away more than that from their participation.
“When I joined as a junior, I didn’t have a lot of confidence as a public speaker,” Roberts explained, “but that is something that is a lot easier for me now.”
“I had senior presentations for my portfolio yesterday and that was nothing compared to a debate,” Roberts said.
Debating is confrontational, he noted, and the speaker has to be sure of themselves while making their points.
It helps that the debaters have teammates who are rooting for them from the sidelines but it still takes a feeling of self confidence to score the points needed for a win, according to Roberts.
“I definitely didn’t have it when I came in as a junior, but through debating, I have been able to project confidence in and out of the debate space.”
The debate space, Roberts said, is a mental state the competitor uses to think through an argument as part of their debating skills.
As he leaves high school, Roberts said his time on the debate team will be very useful as he goes through college and later takes on job interviews while entering the work force.
“I think there is a lot to be said about a person’s psyche from the arguments they make, and how good they are at making those arguments,” Roberts said.
Another of the team’s members, junior Hillary Thilavong, had actually qualified for Washington with her teammate, senior Dulce Nunez, but had to pass the opportunity on to Roberts and Alonzo, when Nunez couldn’t miss a mandatory registration visit to the University of Chicago during the April vacation.
Like Roberts, Thilavong said there was plenty for her to take away from the debate season regardless of the final outcome.
“I would definitely say I gained confidence as well as building a family through the group,” she said. She also found competing with her teammates to be lots of fun even through it also required lots of preparation and study.
Thilavong was a bit nervous when she started attending the high school and found getting around to all the places she had to be “nerve wracking” at first. But over time and through her involvement in school activities like the debate team, Thilavong said she became more adjusted to high school life and learned things that now help her in many of her school challenges.
“Being a team captain and the public speaking has definitely helped,” she said. Team members have to do research on their topics and practice their arguments and that builds the confidence they need when they go to a debate meet.
“It becomes a very comfortable experience when you realize it’s not a judgment zone,” she said. “You also learn from your mistakes,” Thilavong said.
The preparation work involves learning about something new and becoming very well versed in a topic and that too becomes a take away for the competitors.
“You have to practice for the debate and build a case, and that makes it a very comfortable experience,” she said.
“When you are building your case and going through all the facts, you gain something from that experience,” she said. “Being on the team is very educational.”
The varsity team, captained by Thilavong, collected three wins in competition, four second-place, and two thirdplace finishes this year while turning in another successful season, according to the team’s adviser, Phil Simonini.
Team members Magda Wahby and Julie DeAlencar, both sophomores, also had a great season with the Junior Varsity team which took four first place wins, two second places, and two third place finishes, Simonini noted. Wahby and DeAlencar went undefeated in five debate rounds in the Rhode Island qualifier for the National Debate League Competition and took home the junior varsity award.
“Woonsocket has made a name for itself in the Urban Debate League and we are definitely one of the dominate schools, if not the dominate school in the league,’’ he said. As the hybrid team of Roberts and Alonzo shows, a team created to allow two similarly talented debaters to participate, Blackstone Academy is also a league leader, he added.
Wahby said she didn’t know what being on the debate team would involve when she joined beyond thinking it would include a lot of study and learning about things.
It turned out to be all that and more. Putting on an argument is not an easy thing to do, she explained. “It is like a courtroom. You have to be prepared,” Wahby said.
“And obviously it’s scary every time you go up there because you don’t know what it is going to be like,” she said. “But each time you go, you gain more confidence because you learn about the material you are putting out and everyone is helpful,” she said.
“Now I feel more confident about saying what I feel and sticking up for myself,” she said.
DeAlencar feels that being on the team has given her a voice to use in expressing herself.
“Right now I am still a very awkward and shy person. But I feel being on the debate team gives me the self confidence to speak my opinions,” DeAlencar said. What that might mean for her in the future is something she is still learning about. But DeAlencar said she is looking ahead to college, maybe, and hopes to join the Summer at Brown program when the school year ends to find out more about it. “I’m going for “The Power of Political Ideas,” DeAlencar said. It’s a course that will probably consider some of the same issues her fellow debaters raised during their competitions, she noted.