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St. John's School's Debate Team

By Eli Maierson, St. John's School, School Buzz Reporter | October 17, 2017

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Sophomore debaters (from left) Pranav Konduri and Asher Moll.

St. John’s most popular electives include The Review (our student publication), choir and yearbook. Yet the school’s debate team has been quietly growing in recognition and success for the past two years.

Debate has existed at St. John’s in the past, but the team has been competing in tournaments only for the last two years. However, the recent competitions have led many students to participate in debate, greatly increasing class size.

“Lots of people have joined since we started to be competitive,” said sophomore debater Asher Moll.

Now, debate meets four times per rotation, twice during the DaVinci period and twice before school. While roughly 10 kids attend each tournament, the class has nearly 30 students.

The team’s coaches include English teacher Clay Guinn and Andrew Stubbs. Stubbs, a former debate coach at Kingwood High School, helps the students prepare for tournaments with activities such as practice rounds, discussing arguments for certain topics and debate drills.

“The coaching has really helped me break down each topic and pick out strong arguments for my partner and me,” sophomore debater Will Heilmann said.

The team has been successful in its early tournaments this school year. Moll and his partner Pranav Konduri recently placed first in public forum debate at a tournament at Elkins High School. Students Robert Garza and Matthew Yekell made it to the semi-finals, also in public forum debate.

The team’s success is especially notable because most of the team consists of novices. In order to give inexperienced debaters exposure to a formal debate setting, the team sends at least one group of novice debaters to each tournament.

Moll acknowledged how debate has improved his public speaking, and praised the skills debate has given him.

“I’ve found that school presentations this year come more naturally to me,” Moll said. “I’m not as nervous speaking in front of my peers because that’s all you do in debate. Debate is a great activity to be involved in; you make a lot of friends, and it helps you in life in general."