• A good rule of thumb in cooking is that if your guests ask for more, the recipe was a hit 

That was exactly the atmosphere at the 1st in person ES Debate tournament this year, hosted by Stuart Hobson. The students and coaches were having so much fun that they’d already asked for more before lunchtime!

ES Debate came about a few years ago thanks to Coach Kip Plaisted (Stuart Hobson). He  wasn’t satisfied that he had one of the largest and most successful Middle School debate teams in the country. He wasn’t satisfied that they’d just won the Sweepstakes Cup for the Best Overall Team in the greater Washington Region, the first time a Middle School has ever won it. He wasn’t satisfied with a team with a strong team culture that was set up for long term success. And he wasn’t satisfied that he’d won all of the Coaching Awards we provide!

Many schools try to work with their feeder patterns, trying to get incoming students excited and ready for the next step in their academic journey. Coach Plaisted wanted to work with his school’s elementary school students and get them excited to join the Hobson debate team the following Fall. We’ve supported him with a great pilot program in his feeder pattern during the COVID era. 

This year, we decided to do a few things differently. We’d have the first in person Elementary School tournament, and also go a bit bigger, bringing in charter and DCPS schools not in the Stuart Hobson feeder pattern. 

That tournament came together May 13th (hosted at Stuart Hobson, of course!). ES students debated about AI Personhood after reading “The Wild Robot,” a youngster oriented book with a plot eerily similar Robinson Caruso or Tom Hank’s ‘Castaway.’ The tournament was judged by existing WUDL debaters, middle and high school students getting their first opportunity to get behind the table and judge instead of being the competitors themselves. 

3rd year ES Debate Coach at Ludlow Taylor, Spanish Teacher Miranda Metheny, was confident coming in, but was excited to have more competition to keep her students excited and challenged. Her students, Emma and Catherine, did win the competition, going undefeated, passing another Ludlow team, Felipe and Lev on the 2nd tiebreaker. 3rd place was Victoria, debating alone. 

It wasn’t all Ludlow Taylor dominance though, as Neval Thomas, a first time participant school from Ward 7, had the top individual speaker, Aliyah, and the 6th, 9th, and 11th teams (all Neval Thomas teams had a winning record). Not to be outdone, Yu Ying’s Delina and Joel were the 4th place team. 

We expect to further expand the program with more schools and maybe even a fall tournament in the coming school year. 

Great job to the debaters, and welcome to the WUDL family!