friday, october 08, 2004
A different sort of debate
At my high school, we don’t have 32 pages of debate rules. The candidates shout at each other. They confront. They argue. They’re limited to 15 seconds by screams and hisses. The debate might not even have been planned — it seemed to arise spontaneously in the seniors’ favorite corner, during break today.
Forty seniors and some others crowded around as if it was a fight. After each statement, there were shouts of “Viva Venezuela!” and “Woo woo wooo” …really, really loud shouts. I heard them from across the sub-campus, two classroom-lengths away.
Three people ran for twelfth grade president. None of them are Venezuelan. One is suave and ambitious and smuggled frozen Hi-C and popsicles into an outdoor assembly (profit!). Another is the smart, soccer-playing debater. Last, you have the big wiseass who hangs out with the Yu-Gi-Oh boys and me.
And they were all shouting at each other, encircled three-deep by 2/3 of a very excited twelfth grade class. I hung around the edges, where all the meta-discussion happens: “It’s loud, huh” “Vote for me for historian!” “I can’t see their faces” “Peter is lame” “You! Write about this for the newspaper.” “I wish I brought my camera”. The organizer, leadership-class president, looked on from a distance with a clipboard.
The three candidates, along with two potential vice-presidents, discussed their plans for the year: “Listen to all their plans! Did they ask you about those plans? No! How do you they know what you want! They don’t!” — “So? You don’t have any plans!” — “I ask the people, the people tell me what they want!” — “But you don’t even have an outline! Our plans are just outlines!”. I got there too late to hear the other issues.
After the debate finished, the hurricane crowd loosened into a civilized gathering. We discussed the arguments, they collected vote-promises, we weighed options, and all of us gossiped. Voting was in seventh period and not particularly anonymous.
comments (1)
did flora vote wrong? better get rosey o'donald to do the recount
– kyle on 10/8/2004 09:51:00
comments are off. for new comments, my email address is brittag@gmail.com.
