For the John Templeton Foundation, I wrote about how high school debaters are tackling the profound intersections of science and philosophy.
More than 9,000 students, coaches, and parents converged in Birmingham, Ala., the last week of June for the National Speech and Debate Association’s national tournament. On Friday afternoon, in one of the tournament’s climactic events, high school students from South Dakota and Missouri faced off in the 1,000-seat BJCC Theatre to debate whether science leaves room for free will. It was a profound enough topic on its own, but the event was also noteworthy as the national championship debut of a new kind of high school debate, centered on the “Big Questions.”
More than 150,000 high school students from 3,200 schools participate in debate programs affiliated with the NSDA. High school debate comes in many forms: Lincoln-Douglas is probably the best known format, but the NSDA administers debates in more than a half-dozen varieties. Aided by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation, the NSDA has just completed the first year of a three-year project to introduce a new “Big Questions” format. It gives thousands of high school debaters and coaches the tools and motivation to delve into topics that reach further than the domestic and foreign policy issues that frame much competitive debate.