World Schools Workshop Debates Challenging Topics

Senior faculty members: Peejay Garcia, Korea National Coach, James Probert, Head of the Center for Speech and Debate at the English Speaking Union in London and Bojana Skrt, workshop director and Slovenia National Coach

As you may or may not know the World Schools Debate format uses a mixture of prepared topics and impromptu topics. Half of the topics are announced in advanced and it is assumed that the students will do substantial research and brainstorming in building their cases. For the impromptu topics they get a dictionary, one almanac and one hour to, among the team, decide what to argue and which strategies to employ.

The topics for this session are listed below, and they are picked day by day, and not all of them will be used.

IMPROMPTU
This house would ban the serving of junk food in the schools.
This house would lower the voting age to 16.
This house would introduce 21 years as minimum drinking age.
This house would ban elective cosmetic surgeries.
This house believes that current media portrayal of women does more harm than good.
TH would broadcast executions.
This house would have harsher sentences for celebrity criminals.
TH would ban religious symbols in state schools.
TH believes cultural artifacts should be returned to the countries of origin.
TH believes marriage is an outdated concept.

PREPARED
This house would negotiate with terrorists.
This house would apologize for colonialism.
This house would make reparations for slavery.
This house should abandon civilian use of nuclear power.
This house believes hate speech should become a crime.
This house believes that civil liberties must be restricted in the interests of security.
This house believes free trade harms more than helps developing countries
This house would substantially decrease agriculture subsidies.
This house would tie world bank aid to women's rights.
This house believes Jerusalem should become an independent city.
This house should send armed forces to stop Darfur crisis.
This house should support a Kurdish state.