Mr. Smith and The Cambridge School’s First Competitive Speech and Debate Team
9th Graders Josh K. and Tristan W. took 8th place
The 2014-2015 academic year has started as a bench mark year for The Cambridge School. Aside from the school bravely launching its Rhetoric School (a huge step in and of itself) in 2014 Cambridge has also debuted an ambitious new competitive team: The Speech and Debate Team. Far from a club meeting once a week to practice rhetoric in friendly debate (though, of course, 2014 has seen this addition as well), the Speech and Debate Team is comprised of six 9th graders who practice public forum debate twice a week in order to prepare for the monthly tournaments. The first of these tournaments was on September 20th, and the school is pleased to announce that its participation met with huge success.[quote align=”left” color=”#999999″]While most freshly established teams would probably have only attended the year’s first tournament as spectators, Cambridge finished the long day of competition in the novice division with Tristan W. and Joshua K. holding 8th place team medals and Haley H. earning First place for individual speaking. The tournament hosted some 400 competitors in all.[/quote] This is not to say the competition was all easy or fun. When a tournament runs 15 hours and the opposition is comprised of established teams full of varsity contributors and schools which draw their teams from massive student bodies, challenges are bound to arise. And to be sure, Cambridge experienced intense emotions as many debate rounds were lost, lessons were learned, and valuable experience gained. In the end, the team’s perseverance paid off. While most freshly established teams would probably have only attended the year’s first tournament as spectators, Cambridge finished the long day of competition in the novice division with Tristan W. and Joshua K. holding 8th place team medals and Haley H. earning First place for individual speaking. The tournament hosted some 400 competitors in all.
Following the impressive success of this competition, The Cambridge School is excited to see the team continue to develop in the following month and years to come. With this first year of challenge under their belts and varsity members to bolster next year’s team (which will more than double in size), who knows what the Lord will work for this striking new addition The Cambridge School has seen in the benchmark year of 2014?