|
|
|
4 PRESIDENTIAL HONORS IN AUGUST
FOR NYC GREAT DEBATERS!
GREAT DEBATERS WEEKLY NEWSLETTER (8/25/13)
|
|
Dear Tuna,
This
month our Great Debaters were recognized with 4 different presidential
honors! In fact, as we write we are on our way to Washington D.C! We
also travel to Washington to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" Speech and March on
Washington. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was also a former debater in
school and used his advocacy skills to change the world. And that is
our mission to provide the best public speaking and debate education
opportunities for ALL students and ALL ages so that everyone can use the
power of words to make the world a better place. And so in this edition
we recognize several of our teachers and high school seniors who have
received national honors in the past month for using the power of speech
and debate to make the world a better place. And I would also like to
shout out every one of our NYC Great Debaters and our entire Debate
League Family for impacting your schools and communities and nation
every day by speaking, researching, learning, questioning, and
advocating on critical current public policy issues every single day. -
Erik
|
|
The
White House Teaching Ambassador Fellowship is designed to improve
education for students by involving teachers in the development and
implementation of national education policy. Over a 1000 candidates are
nominated and considered every year, and only 8 are selected. This
year the NYC Urban Debate League is so proud of KIPP Debate Coach and
Special Education Teacher, Jonathon McIntosh who has served as one of
our longest and most successful middle school debate coaches at KIPP AMP
Academy! He has led his debate team to city, state, regional and
national honors. And not to worry - he will continue as Debate Coach!
But this year he will also work full time for the United States
Department of Education on impacting national education policy with his
expertise in debate education and special education. Congratulations
Jonathon! And on a personal note, I've known Jonathon since he started
as a debate coach and for all these years I am so inspired to see his
dedication to his students at every single tournament - as well as his
dedication and passion to scholastic debate by not simply teaching his
own students but volunteering to teach workshops to any new student and
any new teacher at our Saturday Tournaments. The White House could not
of selected a better Ambassador for educators! Congratulations!
For more about Mr. McIntosh's White House Honors, click here for the full article at the United States Department of Education website.
|
ACORN
Community HS Debater and National Debate Champion Invited to the White
House... and the Supreme Court... and the US Congress!!!!!!!
This
week is going to be an incredible week for High School Senior Tyler
Anderson from ACORN Community HS in Brooklyn, New York. It all started
several months ago when Tyler was honored as 1st Place Top Speaker at
the National Association of Urban Debate League's National Championship.
Last month Tyler and other top speakers from the Tournament were
invited to meet with President Obama, Supreme Court Justices, House and
Senate Leaders and other Cabinet Officials including experts on next
year's Policy Debate Resolution: The United States federal
government should substantially increase its economic engagement toward
Cuba, Mexico or Venezuela. Much more on Tyler's trip in next week's
edition! And a huge shout Tyler for your incredible debate achievements
and also a shout out to the National Association for Urban Debate Leagues for making this trip possible!
|
Bronx Law's Geordano Liriano & Charles Athanasopolous Win Presidential Debate!
Geordano
and Charles have been debating since they stepped foot at Bronx Law in
the 7th grade and their accomplishments grow every single year. This
year they won top awards at nearly every single tournament including
Georgetown, Harvard, Lakeland, the National Debate Coaches Championship,
and one of the most prestigious national championships - The Tournament
of Championships. This summer they both received full scholarships to
the Dartmouth University Debate Institute where they went undefeated
after over 10 rounds of competition. Also, Dartmouth sponsors the
regional qualifying tournament of the George Bush Institute Economic
Debate Program, which Charles and Geo also won 1st Place and are invited
to the Institute for the Final Debate where they have the opportunity
to meet and debate former President George Bush! And so huge shout outs
to Charles and Geo and huge shout outs to the Dartmouth Debate Institute and Nicole Serrano and the wonderful staff for your support!
For more information on the George Bush Institute Economic Debate Program click here or read the Institute's article on the importance of High School Debate here!
|
The
New York City Urban Debate League Celebrates 1st Anniversary of the
National Arts and Humanities Award for top after school program in the
arts and humanities!
This month marks our win last
summer as one of the top programs in the arts and humanities. Every
year the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the
Humanities, Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the White
House select the top after school programs in the arts and humanities.
Last summer we were honored to be the recipient as well as one of our
debaters, Starr Arroyo was invited to the White House to receive the
award and deliver a speech. As a result, one of our community
partners and sponsor of the Awards, Louis Vuitton has invited us for a
public debate on the arts and humanities! Thank you LV for your support and thank you to the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities for your support
For more, click here for Starr's speech or here for the news article!
|
The New York Mets invites all Summer Debaters to the Ballpark this Thursday!
Thank
you to the New York Mets for providing all our summer debaters and
their families with tickets to the Mets Game this Thursday! We are so
proud to partner up with the Mets this year to recognize all the
incredible work our debaters did this summer at the Bronx, Brooklyn,
Manhattan, Harlem, and Queens Debate Institutes! In education reform,
there is talk of the "summer slide," and the "summer learning gap" where
students "unlearn" what they learn during the school year. But you
can't say that to any of our summer debaters who devoted the summer to
public speaking, research, writing, current events, cross examination,
and summer debate tournaments!
|
The Queens Debate Institute Begins Monday!
This
Monday marks history in the borough of Queens as we begin the borough's
first debate institute for all! The Queens Debate Institute (QDI) is
open to all middle school and high school debaters. We thank so many
people for making this possible! We thank Coaches Tommye Weddington and
Frank Zhou and our Teaching Assistants, Starr Arroyo and Yaira Brito.
We also thank all the students and families who signed up for QDI!
Finally, we thank all our supporters for making free debate camps
available for all - The New York Council for the Humanities, The Patrina
Foundation, Brown Rudnick, the West Harlem Development Corporation, and
so many of our community partners!
The Queens Debate Institute (QDI)
When: August 26th - August 30th, 9am-1pm
Where: World Journalism Prep School
What: Debate Camp! Public Forum Debate, Policy Debate, and Public Speaking
Contact: Erik Fogel, nycudl@gmail.com, 917-455-1078
|
The Summer of Debate Ends and the School Debate Season Now Begins!
While
we will miss all our summer debaters, we will see you soon at
Tournament #1 coming soon! Our first official date is our annual
September Workshop on the last Saturday of September (9/28) at
Achievement First High School in Brooklyn, New York. This workshop is
for all grade levels and all levels of debate and is a great
introduction to new debaters. The following Saturday we have a joint
workshop with the Metro Hudson Debate League at Bronx Science and our HS
Travel Team competes at the Monticello Tournament. HS debaters will
also be competing at the Yale University, Georgetown University and Wake
Forest University debate tournaments through September. And that's
just the beginning!.... we
have debate tournaments EVERY weekend until the end of the school year!
So stay tuned to our weekly newsletters, and you can always find
tournament information and schedules on our website - www.nycdebate.org, or feel free to contact us at nycudl@gmail.com or 917-455-1079. Thanks and see you soon!
For more information on our school year programs and debate tournament calendars, visit our website at www.nycdebate.org.
|
Calling all New Schools Interested in Starting a Debate Team!
The
New York City Urban Debate League is the city's scholastic debate
league for all schools and all grade levels. We have elementary, middle
school, and high school divisions. We also have all debate formats
available including policy debate, public forum debate, parliamentary
debate, Lincoln Douglas debate, and the nation's first all girls debate
league. How do you start? Send us an email at nycudl@gmail.com, call
us at 917-455-1079, or complete our Contact Form by clicking here
and we can visit your school, provide any training, resources and
curriculum you need for new debate coaches, and provide anything you
need to start and sustain a successful debate team, after school program
or debate class! All our programs are free to all NYC schools. Every
day we offer debate practices, every weekend debate tournaments, every
month debate workshops, every summer we have debate camps from the first
day of summer to the last day of summer. |
|
Dear Tuna,
President Obama stated in his speech to students that "Maybe
you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you
might not know that until you join student government or the debate
team." His first appointment for the Supreme Court was a former South
Bronx high school debater, Sonya Sotomayor. His former Secretary of
State, Hillary Clinton was a former high school debater (and her husband
and former President Bill Clinton, also a high school debater).
Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, had this to say about debate, "Competitive
debate is one of the great equalizers of educational opportunity. In a
number of respects, competitive urban debate is almost uniquely suited
to building what's been called the 'Four C's' of 21st century
skills-critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity.
And to that list I might add a fifth 'C'- for civic awareness and
engagement." Several members of his Cabinet and other staff are also
former high school debaters!
Indeed, a survey of US Congress members found that over 60% were
members of their school's speech and debate team! And so this month when
our NYC Debaters were recognized with not 1, not 2, not 3 but 4
DIFFERENT PRESIDENTIAL AWARDS - it actually comes to no surprise. Every
single one of our Great Debaters is more than capable of becoming the
next President.
For the past eight weeks during our summer debate camps, I
have been in total awe learning from everyone! I've seen 4th graders
teach 2nd graders about evidence and supporting one's arguments, middle
school debaters completely out argue me in practice rounds, high school
debaters learning about subjects that most students wont learn until
graduate school, college students interested in bringing back debate to
their colleges, and adults, parents and families sitting side by side
middle school and elementary students to learn debate skills and
strategies.
I've also been in total awe at all our amazing summer debate camp instructors! Incredible
teachers like Coach DiCo who devoted three weeks to ensuring that any
student in Brooklyn has the best opportunities in debate education and
teaching middle school students Gandhi, Thoreau, and theories of civil
disobedience! The so many volunteers we had at the Manhattan Debate
Institute which was the only way we could support 100+ debaters! Huge
shout outs to our staff at our Manhattan Debate Institute - Emily,
Betty, Jessica, Isabella, Jeslyn, Loretta, Laila, Leighton, Max, Mikhai,
Sadie, William, Tommye and apologies for missing anyone there - it was
an awesome 2 weeks together at MDI and thank you for everything you did
from the classroom to 20 minute treks for breakfast and lunch! Thank you
to all our interns and volunteers especially Starr and Yaira for always
being there for the debate league! Thank you to our founding
staff of Tommye, Frank, Aylin, Laurie at our Bronx, Harlem, and Queens
Camps for making history with BXDI, BKDI, and QDI!
As we travel to commemorate the March on Washington, Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream Speech" and for our national
champion debaters to meet the first African American President of the
United States in the Oval Office, I cannot describe how honored and
privileged I am to be able to listen and learn every day from the
arguments, speeches, and passion and advocacy of our students. That
advocacy is the future for our schools and the future for our world. As
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stated, "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
So congratulations and thank you
everyone for an incredible summer. There is no summer break for debate!
And thank you everyone for making this possible - our parents, our
students, our volunteers, our alumni, our teachers, our supporters, our
schools, our principals, our community partners, our Board members, our
Foundations and donors - everyone with a passion for providing access to
one of the oldest and most rigorous academic programs since Ancient
Greece - debate. Thank You.
And finally another congratulations
for not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 different national presidential honors
and the students and teachers mentioned above! And if interested in
supporting our Great Debaters this school year, please consider donating
to the NYC Debate League! Click here for more information!
THANK YOU!
PS - We still have 1 more week of debate camp to go! So see you at our Queens Debate Camp on Monday! :)
| 
 |
|
|
BE GREAT! BE A GREAT DEBATER!
Sincerely,
Erik Fogel, Director
The New York City Urban Debate League
Email: nycudl@gmail.com
Phone: 917-455-1079
Twitter: #nycdebateleague
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment