The 3rd annual THIS-NHSDLC debate tournament was held on November 9th and 10th, welcoming more than 240 students from 36 different schools.
As the hosting school, THIS saw many familiar faces from past years, but there was a group that seemed to stand out. These students were from the Waring School in the US, and were part of an exchange program with our Speech and Debate Club. It was their first time competing in a tournament in Asia.
“This is by far the best trip I have ever been on. The entire THIS community has been extremely kind and welcoming to me.”
-Thomas Davis, Waring School
The tournament kicked off with a breathtaking performance from the Chinese band! This year, all tournament-related carbon emissions, from food and transportation to flow paper and ballots, were accounted for with payments to environmental organizations. There were no longer paper room signs, and boxes from the recycling club were scattered around the school to collect any paper produced during the debates. Thanks to the many debaters who decided to pay an additional 50 RMB, parent council, and our Community Service Club, we were able to pay off a total of 16800 RMB to offset the carbon released from the tournament.
“It was a great lesson for everyone out there…gaining experiences, learning about how to be carbon-neutral and protecting our environment all at once in a single debate tournament. Truly life changing.”
-Chelsea Wang, Community Service Club
We hope everyone can join our campaign to take action in combating the effects of climate change instead of only talking about it in debate tournaments. (Scan the QR Code below to calculate your carbon footprint!)
As the first day drew to a close, the moment everyone had been waiting for arrived – break announcements. To relieve debaters of the stress of a full day of competition, we began with performances from our A Capella club, the THIS music community and another wonderful dance from MGnet. The show also featured improvisations from our head photographer from Studio 35 and talented debaters, successfully transitioning everyone from the excitement of the performances to the bittersweet moment of break announcements.
The first day was fruitful day, with a total of 22 teams advancing into the Open Elimination rounds, the Traditional Division Elimination rounds, and the Middle School Elimination rounds. Our Waring school buddies also performed outstandingly, having five out of six teams break into Open Division.
On breakout day, we were awarded a multitude of speaker awards and took home the certificate for the highest achieving school. Through fierce battles with the Waring students and debaters from other schools, we secured the champions for the open division along with two second places in the middle school and traditional division.
This tournament was made possible because of the continuing support of the THIS family. A special thanks to Mr. Spatzierath, Mr. Brocard, Mr. Chatzimanolis, Ms. Sarr, Mr. Weil, and Grace Chen (Middle School Debate Coach) for giving up their weekends to judge at our tournament! It was no simple task sitting through a full day of debates, and your dedication is greatly appreciated.
Thank you to Ms. Klimasara for supporting us during the planning of the event. Thank you to those from NHSDLC for working with us once again. Thank you to Baking Club, Student Council, Scinex, ArtShop and the THIS Art community for joining us in this school-wide event.
Thank you to Studio 35 for taking the wonderful pictures included in this post. (For more pictures, please click the link below)
https://www.xxpie.com/console/album?shootTaskId=5dcd8e9c0d74f8246742490e&nowatermark=NWRjZDhlOWMwZDc0ZjgyNDY3NDI0OTBlJDA%3D
Thank you to Mr.Tim Averill, who led the Waring School debate team to join this humble adventure. Tim has been so kind to offer support to the THIS debate program long before he visited and opened up the possibility of a debate exchange. It was an honor to have him judge four debate rounds throughout the weekend, including two finals.
Finally, a huge thank you goes to Mr. Cusack and the debate executive team (Celine Lee, Randy Gu, Ben Yang, Rubin Wong, Jessica Zhan, James Wang, Kevin Hou, Tianyi Wang, Oscar Tsui, Tina Cui) for organizing the event and ensuring the tournament ran smoothly!
我们明年见！
See you next year!
