Elementary School Debate is a new program that seeks to introduce younger scholars to the fundamentals of debate before they reach middle school, and to inspire them to join their middle school squads upon matriculation. 

The brainchild of Coach Plaisted at Stuart Hobson, this program has elementary school students (4th and 5th graders) work with a coach at their school to read books thematically related to that year’s debate topic for older students, work through some basics of argumentation, and then compete in a tournament at the end of each semester (see our schedule for details) against other Elementary School students, while current middle and high school students serve as judges (with a bit of training, of course!) 

We initially piloted this program with Kip in the Stuart Hobson feeder pattern, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive, so we’ve thrown open the doors to any public elementary school in the service area, AND added a Fall session in addition to the Spring session we did in the pilot.