That was the Nordic Debate Academy 2018
The Nordic Debate Academy was the first in a series of trainings co-ordinated by the Athens EUDC and Thailand WUDC. This training was hosted by the Danish Debate Association in conjunction with FINDA – Finnish Debating Association, Stockholm Debate Society, and Lund Debate Society / Lunds Debattsällskap at the Copenhagen Business School. The NDA featured two and a half days of workshops and a four round tournament with a break to finals. 10 countries were represented at the training with debaters coming from the US, Spain, and Serbia, as well as Nordic countries, to participate.
EUDC CAs Sharmila Parmanand (Oxford), Clíodhna Ní Ch (Harvard), Brian Wong (Oxford), Milos Marjanovic (Belgrade), and Benji Kalman (Hebrew) worked with local trainers Milla Huuskonen (Finland), Joona Suhonen (Finland), Jonas No Sjølund (Denmark), Matti Bryder (Sweden), and Johan Allen (Sweden). More information on the Athens EUDC outreach program and trainings is available here.
Training Program:
On arrivals day, debaters participated in and judged practice rounds with randomly assigned partnerships and received feedback on debating and judging. The participants had the opportunity to incorporate a variety of training exercises into their debating. Milos, Jonas, and Johan ran this portion of the workshops. Motions for the arrivals day were as follows:
Round 1: THW allow people to sue partners that cheat on them
Round 2: THBT it is not legitimate to shame public figures for non-criminal actions they engaged in when they were younger (eg, legal hard drugs, adultery)
Round 3: THW sell the right to govern bankrupt cities to corporations
The training program featured three streams for novice, intermediate, and advanced debaters:
For the novice class:
Format introduction, argument introduction, context / argumentation, rebuttal, opening half (role fulfillment / strategies), preparation time & matter generation, closing half (role fulfillment / strategy), and points of information.
There were also matter lectures on Economy (first principles), International Relations, and Social Movements.
For the intermediate class:
Choosing an extension & case building in 2nd half, Framing & Context, What to do when you know nothing, Adjudication, and Structure within Arguments and Speeches.
There were matter lectures on Ethics & Philosophy, Social Movements, International Relations, & Economics.
For the advanced class:
Constructing & prioritising arguments, Clarity & note taking, Prep time & opening half strategy, Extensions & closing half strategy, Framing & case building, Engaging effectively, Judging
After the first day of training sessions, participants watched a show debate by the trainers on the EUDC 2016 final motion that:
This House Would prefer the narrative of dead soldiers as regrettable losses of life rather than as heroes.
In Opening Government was the team of Benji Kalman and Joona Suhonen; in Opening Opposition was the team of Clíodhna Ní Ch and Jonas No Sjølund; in Closing Government was the team of Milla Huuskonen and Sharmila Parmanand; and in Closing Opposition was the team of Milos Marjanovic and Johan Allen. A trainer delivered an analysis of the round to the audience.
At the close of the second day of training, debaters participated in a group discussion that covered organizing events and accessing training materials for developing clubs and regions. More information on the training is available here.
Speaker Points:
A new speaker point system featuring five categories for speaker point rankings was debuted, with judges marking both the total speaker point for a speaker and their speaker points in each category (Time Management, Structure, Strategy, Engagement, Argument Construction). These speaker points theoretically were arrived at using the same breadth of scale as the other (general) speaker points. These were not used to determine tab rankings but collected as a supplement to the regular ballots.
The Tournament:
The tournament champions were Amanda Liang (Rochester) and Nikola Michaylov (Amsterdam, Leiden) in Opening Government, competing as Shitposters. Chairing the final round was Jonas No Sjølund, with Johan Allen, Brian Wong, Cliodhna Ni Ch, and Milos Marjanovic as panelists.
The novice champions were Florian Schweitzer and Kai Zhang in Closing Government, competing as Copenhagen to be decided. Chairing the novice final was Joona Suhonen, with Sharmila Parmanand and redacted as panelists.
The top speaker was Triin Toimetaja with a total of 319 speaker points; the top novice speaker was Mohit Singh with a total of 302 speaker points. The complete tab is available here.
The open break for the tournament was as follows:
1. C u l8r Alextriinator (Alexander Chen, Triin Toimetaja), 12 points
2. Shitposters (Nikola Michaylov, Amanda Liang), 9 points
3. Icy Queens (Abigail Robbins, Hannah Lefevre)
4. Adsku and Ansku (Anna Vilen, Adnan Abdi), 8 points
The novice break for the tournament was as follows:
1. Jönköping Barcelona (Mohit Singh, Mariona Gabarro Rivera), 7 points
2. Sorry we’re late (Manuel Ribeiro, Jon Roca), 6 points
3. No Name Team (Sarah Boutiba, Marianne Davies)
4. Copenhagen to be decided (Florian Schweitzer, Kai Zhang) 5 points
We have no friends (Lok Hang Ryan Yuen, Ella Jonninen) was the top team on 8 points and would have broken 3rd in the open break, but was recused from finals because one member of the partnership was not present.
Debaters in the tournament debated the following motions:
Round 1: THBT hookup-focused apps (e.g., Tinder, Grindr, etc) have done more harm than good.
Round 2: THW ban ethnicity-based political parties in post-conflict states
Round 3: Info Slide: In the US, since the mid term elections in November 2018, the Democratic party holds the majority of the house of representatives while the Republican party holds the majority of the senate and controls the White House (presidency). The control of the house of representatives allows the Democratic party to launch official, congress lead investigations to the affairs of the president. Most political policy decision (passing laws etc) requires approval of numerous branches of the government (the house of representatives, senate and president)
TH as the Democratic Party would prioritize attempts to co-operate with the Republicans regarding policy over investigating the background and actions of Donald Trump (eg. taxes, collusion with Russia)
Round 4: THBT developing countries should heavily disincentivize young professionals (e.g. doctors, lawyers, IT experts) from migrating to the west/developed countries
Novice Final: THP a World in Which Children are Raised by Communes Rather Than by Traditional Nuclear Families.
Final: THBT the international community should provide asylum to high-ranking Venezuelan governmental officials in exchange for them stepping down from office
ae./jm.