Speech and Debate Benefits for Kids

Speaker 1 0:38

Hey there, i'm Elizabeth Green, founder of Green Communications, and I'm here with our lead coach, bill Thompson, speaker, extraordinaire national winner, coach, all the things. And Bill if you haven't met Bill before, we have a whole episode with Bill's buyers so you have to go check that out. But Bill teaches several different aspects of speech and debate on our team and has for years and has an immense background in this And knows all the ins and outs of the benefits of speech and debate, and this goes across the gamut. So today we're going to talk about the five short-term benefits for kids for participating in speech and debate, the five long-term benefits they will get from it and the five benefits that here we will get from having our kids participate in speech and debate too. So, bill, thank you for being here, as always.

Speaker 2 1:28

Thanks for having me. I always love getting a chance to talk about speech and debate. It's a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 1:34

And we know it is very, very helpful to the students who learn this at an early age, so let's dive right in. So what are your top five benefits that kids learn from speech and debate in the short-term?

Speaker 2 1:45

So for sure, the short-term. There are five distinct ones. The first is it's a very impressionable time, and so when you put kids into an activity where everyone is competing to learn more, to speak more clearly, to study, to understand the world around them, then you're putting them into a situation where they're being positively peer pressured, right, they're not being drugged to the side. The kids who are successful are putting in good habits, they're putting in good work ethic, and so the pressure they will feel is to do their best, to prove themselves and to work hard. And so for me, that's the first thing. It's a good benefit, because kids are going to have peer pressure and they're going to give in to peer pressure. They just do That's what kids do, and to have them have good peer pressure can help them to feel better about themselves and not have to hide what they're doing from their peers, which a lot of times for kids is a huge thing, and for me that would definitely be why it would be the number five, But there's many others, four more in fact, think.

Speaker 2 2:48

Another one is kids are really opinionated, right, and so sometimes they don't know how to agree, to disagree or agree to just say well, that's an interesting perspective you have, but I think I'm okay with mine. Debate teaches you to challenge your own thoughts, but also when you research something to be able to say I appreciate that's your belief and that's okay for you to believe that, but I believe differently. This is what I believe. Can I share a little bit of that with you? And so, on one hand, it's teaching kids to listen to divergent opinions, but on the other hand, it's teaching them to stand their ground once they've done the due diligence to figure out what it is they believe and then to articulate that message so that either they persuade other people that hey, maybe you should consider my perspective, or to reassure themselves that they have a valid point and they don't need to be pressured into believing something that you don't believe. I think that's an excellent quality for kids to have.

Speaker 1 3:46

I think that is and just to chime in there, i think that is such a huge quality because in the kids that we've worked with, you can see how everybody has different personalities, but kids have one of those traits or the other. either they're too likely to give in to a differing opinion or they're willing to listen at all, and I think as adults we can very often be like that as well. And so learning how to learning the importance of being able to do those things stand by what you believe, but also listen to the other side at an early age and do it without becoming overly emotional is such a core benefit that obviously that's short-term and long-term benefits as well.

Speaker 2 4:25

Absolutely. I'll never forget I had a 12-year-old when I was teaching him board of and he told a girl one time in the debate he goes that's great, that's your view, you can stand your ground. You just can't stand on mine. If I get to the determined mine, you stand your ground, but don't try and trample over my ground, because I have the right to believe what I believe to. And I was like, wow, you really do get it, kid. Yeah, love it.

Speaker 2 4:49

The third one I think people would really just not be being genuine if they'd said their kids weren't on the internet all the time. And so they're being exposed to a lot of information. So the debate teaches you how to quality information and fake information. You start to know what are reputable sources, what are not reputable sources or even within that which lean certain sources have. So you're like, oh, make sense, that's because it's this publication. Maybe I should move into a more neutral publication and see what their spin is on it. And so We spoke in the other podcast about how there's sort of a dearth of knowledge when we were kids, so like you had to go to the library, you had to actively seek information.

Speaker 2 5:35

That's not the case today. Kids are, in a way, almost being water-boiled with information. It's like constantly coming in. They don't know what to do with it, and so debate gives them the capacity to set up filters so they can start to get the junk off to the sides and only take in the good information, and that is a quality. Honestly, their grandparents probably could have a little better. My mom's in her 80s and she sends me email worries all the time And I'm like Mom, that's a hack, don't do that, don't touch that information. And so when people were raised on the internet, they really don't know how to differentiate it, and a lot of times kids don't either. But when you push them into an activity like speech and debate, they formulate those skills pretty quickly and it's a lifelong thing that'll benefit them.

Speaker 1 6:16

Absolutely, and, like you said, there's so much information out there now. It's a whole different challenge for the kids growing up today than we had, and my background is in broadcast journalism and one of the courses I took in college was how to identify credible sources and things like that. I didn't really learn about that, though To all was in college. We can't let our kids wait until that time to learn how to differentiate between quality sources and neutral sources when there is so much information in front of them all the time. So I think that's an excellent point, great benefit.

Speaker 2 6:48

I think it's also important. If you're a journalism major, sure you get that information. If you're a communications major, sure you get taught that class in college. Engineers they don't really get that class. Doctors, if it's not in JAMA, probably don't want to read it. You know, like maybe you have to figure they don't really get that information how to process social things that are on the internet. So I just think it's really important and it's a good skill to learn. The second one is one I think it's parents we take for granted, but the kids will get it quickly.

Speaker 2 7:19

We live in a society where you get participation trophies for everything and that's not debate Right Debate. You get harsh feedback. It is a one-on-one competition. They were better than you specifically on this issue, specifically in this way. And so debate teaches kids to get a little thicker skin and to get better at processing critical feedback. And instead of hearing you're a bad person. Hearing you could have won, but you did these things wrong. So then you get the opportunity next week to better yourself, improve on that line of communication and maybe win the next time.

Speaker 2 7:54

I don't think many kids in school settings get the honest, unfiltered feedback that you get on the other end of a debate ballot, they might get a red ink that says incorrect. What does that tell me? It just tells me I didn't get it right. How do I get it right? Give me feedback that possibly tells me if you would have done it this way, if you would have gone for this argument, if you would have edited this argument, you could have won.

Speaker 2 8:19

Debate teaches kids to interpret critical feedback and to know what questions to ask if they're uncertain about the feedback they receive. And to me that serves an immediate benefit, but also certainly a lifelong benefit. I don't think anybody's ever going to get a performance review and be like, oh, that was awesome. Because they have to tell you you did things wrong, you know, because otherwise they're giving big races, but something they're just not going to do. That That's not corporate America, that's not how it's structured, and you need to engage and say because sometimes people will give blank feedback in debate and that's the worst because they just say I didn't like it As a debater I get to say no, why?

Speaker 2 8:57

What did you not like? I'm not saying your decision is wrong, just help me understand how I'm not on this side of the ballot again. And so then it also empowers them to, when feedback is nebulous or doesn't give you a positive way to improve upon it, to challenge the person giving them the feedback. So what do I need to do to make this work for you? You say this is not adequate. Now How do I meet this expectation? What are positive corrective steps I can take? become better in this area, and to me that's really good to learn as a kid, because if you learn it as a kid, then when you get to me, an adult, you're not afraid of feedback, not afraid of criticism. You see it as an opportunity for growth And then you can hold them accountable for giving you the opportunity for growth by giving you the outline of what it is they do want you to do. So to me that's just a big benefit.

Speaker 1 9:45

Absolutely. The only way we can get better right is to improve it Absolutely.

Speaker 2 9:49

I can't think of what I'm not aware of.

Speaker 1 9:51

The only thing we can get better is by knowing what we need to do to get better. Absolutely, you're right. That's a great point.

The Benefits of Speech and Debate

Speaker 2 9:58

And I think the last benefit is really the one that you can get better is the most beneficial to kids. There's nothing kids want more than to belong, nothing. And so for smart kids who like to read the news, you're a weirdo, okay, like I was a weirdo at 12. I was a little kid in the fall of 1979 who had come into my kindergarten class and told my teacher about Jimmy Carter and why I loved him and why he was gonna be the best president ever. It turns out I was wrong about that part. He might've been the best person to ever be president, but I loved it. So she was like what do you wanna tell the class about the news every morning when they come in? And so I got to do the news every morning to my kindergarten class. So she really is the reason why I love speech, and she always encouraged me to talk in class to tell the class about things I was learning, because I was that weird kid who loved the news and Walter Cronkite was my hero at five.

Speaker 2 10:52

But then I came to speech and debate and I was like, wait, you guys read the news too. That's awesome. You mean we can talk about like the midterms and you're not gonna call me a freak for wanting to talk about the midterms at 13?. Or you have really creative kids who, like have every, they have every Broadway musical ever memorized, right, and they sitting it back and forth each other. This is pre-Hamilton Now. it's kind of mainstream For a lot of kids. they've never fit in until they step inside of a debate space or inside of a presentation space or speaking space or a performance space, because especially in rural America, we don't necessarily always value those qualities or skills. but you can find kids from all across the country who think you're pretty cool and you're pretty awesome for liking the things you like and you don't get called words that are offensive or make you feel other than And so the really big benefit of speech and debate is that you find a poem with like-minded kids who make you feel like you don't have to be somebody you're not.

Speaker 1 11:50

And then feeling a belonging. I mean, as a parent of a young teenager right now, i can absolutely see how important that is to him to have a place where he feels like he belongs as he's navigating growing up. And just to clarify too, like you've talked about, you were obviously not a shy kid. You got up in front of your kindergarten class and talked to them. But even if you're listening to this and you're like, well, my kid wouldn't talk in front of anybody, speech and debate is still for them and can absolutely make a huge difference in their life. Because that was me. I was the one that fried before I had to give my first speech and speech class that ultimately transformed my life So-.

Speaker 2 12:28

I got sick before every final round. In cry, i just got nerves. I'm an anxious person sometimes. I can tell you, though, from coaching for 30 years kids on the spectrum love speech and debate. They love the precision of finding facts and knowing really weird and odd details to some, but to them they're like amazing, just as love that stuff.

Speaker 2 12:48

LGBTQIA kids, kids who are maybe not just cisgender, heteronormative kids, find their space, and it's a lot easier to tell someone else's story than to tell your own at that age.

Speaker 2 13:01

So being able to get into roles or characters and the interpretive events, it's say everything you wanted to say, but it doesn't have to be as scary as me saying. It is liberating for a lot of kids. And finally and this might sound weird to some, it's dyslexic kids love speech, love it because you don't have to write it down, you don't have to worry about your spelling, you don't have to worry about your penmanship, just speak your truth. Dyslexic kids love it, like I can think of so many kids who have reading abilities, be it dyslexia or dysgraphia or any of those things. But they feel free, as they can be, when they're speaking, because nobody's looking and making sure they got every word precise, or they spelled it right. Well, we don't care how you spell it, that's why we do it. My punctuation was terrible on my ACT because I just put comments where I would take a pause when I was giving a speech. Turns out I can always write.

Speaker 1 13:53

Or mine's always dot, dot, dot. There's no periods, it's just dot, dot, dot. Praise to praise to praise.

Speaker 2 14:00

Absolutely, but to me those are the short term benefits for kids and I think they're really helpful.

Speaker 1 14:06

Those are huge, All right. so obviously we want things that our kids are learning now to help them as they advance in their life and in their careers and future relationships and all that. So what do you think are the long term benefits that kids get for participating in speech and debate?

Speaker 2 14:20

Overall. Long term, you're going to be a more creative thinker. Companies are always looking for people who can take what they know and make it something different, better, evolutionary, and debate teaches you how to take the same premise and see it in a way that other people can't prepare for, and to circumvent the challenges that other people might provide for you with arguments. It makes you a problem solver, because debate is chess right just spoken, so you can't worry about the initial argument. You're like what is this trap? when it develops two speeches down the road, where's the gotcha moment where this becomes a turn? and suddenly I'm fighting for my life because they're ahead on magnitude, probability and time frame, because they turn something in the nuance of how they ask a question and I didn't cash it. So it makes you be creative and it makes you anticipate challenges, which I think any employer would love that quality in an employee.

Speaker 2 15:16

The next thing is is it gives you a clear comparison against other students and academics? If I'm rich, i can study for my SAT or ACT, which are also not getting used as much anymore, right? So, like people used to say, oh, my ACT score was a 35. Well, so are a lot of people, so are a lot of people not everybody. But like when you're talking about getting into MIT or Harvard, everybody's got a good score, everybody's got good ACT, but what everybody doesn't have is a national championship against other kids with 35s and really good grade point averages.

Speaker 2 15:49

And so when you look at Ivy's, they disproportionately look at how you competed in speech and debate as a clear comparison between candidates, because they know when they have a winning champion, they're not smart, just smart. They're also competitive. They're also hardworking. They're also disciplined. They're also adaptive to the judge who's in the back of the rink. They also are able to adapt in terms of inside of a round without coaching telling them how to do it, and those are skills that all colleges want. So it gives you a clear comparative advantage over the people who don't participate.

Speaker 1 16:21

That's really interesting And I read something just recently I believe it was a recruiter from Yale saying that on a college application, the number one thing that you could have would be to be an Eagle Scout. The number two thing is to participate in speech and debate. So Ivy Lee colleges are looking at that, like you just said, in expecting to see things like that. But that is what can absolutely set you apart. So to be the only thing, the only thing, ahead of the qualities that they're looking for to be an Eagle Scout.

Speaker 2 16:49

That's amazing, and I've only known a couple Eagle Scouts and they are tireless in their pursuit of that Eagle. So if they're first, i'll let that slide, because they work real well.

Speaker 1 16:59

Absolutely. That takes years and years and years and years, But that's really. that says a lot, though, about how much speech and debate is valued at the heart.

Speaker 2 17:06

The third skill and I think anybody who's been in corporate America has had this experience You're given a presentation and one of the people the big wigs, as it were ask a question that nobody else on your team was anticipating. You have to answer it in the moment, in real time, with everybody glaring at you. That's the same as debate, right? When somebody makes an argument you've never considered and you have that oh my God moment in your head. You can't let it show on your face And you had to be like, oh, that's easy, you just do it this way, right. And so the ability to adapt on the fly and not seem pressured or stressed, and to give a quality answer is certainly a skill set that debate teaches, and it's a skill set you'll need when you go in for that college interview, when you go in for that first job interview, when you give your dissertation defense, when you give your first presentation to the boss. Right, they're going to have questions. They're not dumb people. They have good insights and they know what they're looking for.

Speaker 2 18:04

You have to adapt in the moment, based on the way they're asking questions, to see what the right answer is. It's the same way as if you're cross-examining me and around and I'm watching the judges face and I start an answer and they're like shutting down with their body language. I have to change my tone, i have to change my approach a momentally And the moment they lean in or I see the start of a smile where their eyebrows start to perk up, i know I got them listening And so now I just give them more of what that was, because I'm paying attention to them and I'm adapting to their cues because ultimately it's their decision. People say they give a presentation to the board, but you're really just trying to convince the ultimate decision-maker. So you watch them when you give your speech, make eye contact with everybody else, but you adapt to their feedback when you're giving your speech, and to me that's a lifelong skill that debate teaches you very early on.

Speaker 1 18:48

It's true, it's a good one.

Benefits of Speech and Debate

Speaker 2 18:51

The next one is time management. I'm a firm believer that probably 70% of the kids who don't finish college it's not because they're not intelligent, it's just because they didn't figure out a way to make the time management work for them. And some people have more difficulties. They're a single parent, they have to work full-time, they have to do many different things. I'm not putting blame on them or saying they're less than. It's just that people who best figure out how to manage their time are most likely to succeed in college. They're most likely to succeed in the business world, they're most likely to succeed in life, and if you can maintain AP classes and do competitive debate on a national circuit, then you're ready for law school, like you're going to do. Just fine, figure it out right, because top level debaters are probably researching six hours a day. So they're researching at lunch, they're researching in the car while they're riding home with mom and dad, they're giving practice speeches while they're in the shower. They figure out how to multitask and make the most of their time. These are the qualities that will get you through grad school or your masters or any of those other things that take a lot of time management and dedication. But the final thing I think that really debate gives you long term is a lot of times it's not what you know, it's who you know, and the people you compete with every weekend are going to be the most successful people you know. I love what I do and I just never was wanting to be a lawyer, but of the seven people in my college debate team, six are very successful lawyers and one of them runs a political action committee. So if I need to get the ear of somebody, or if I need help with a legal issue, or if I need help with a legal issue or I know someone who has help, need help with the legal issue, then I can go to them. I have other friends here speech writers, who are press secretaries, who are running campaigns for governors and lieutenant governors. You meet really successful people.

Speaker 2 20:44

One of my favorite people to compete against in college her name is Amy Webb. I didn't even think I'd talk about her. She's amazing. She runs. Basically she got her master's of journalism from Columbia and then she worked for Horn Press and Wall Street Journal in Japan. She speaks Japanese fluently and she basically predicts what's going to happen in terms of digital communications, and so she's one of the people that influences the way that it moves forward. And she's given TED Talks and she's written New York Times bestsellers and she does performances at South by Southwest and she talks to. She gave the commencement address for West Virginia BVU a couple of years ago But those are the types of people that you meet on your way through speech and debate And it's always good to have smart people with good job offerings in your corner And I think that's one of the best things.

Speaker 2 21:35

Because We talked a little bit about positive peer pressure. But it's also nice to have a positive safety net. When you get older And you know life changes and maybe you're not happy in your career. For a while, when I was figuring out what I wanted to do, my college debate partner who is one of the best lawyers in the state of Kentucky he had me do voir dire for him. So I would go through and I would look at potential jurors and I'd be like nope, that one, you want that one. Because he knows that whenever we debated I could read judges.

Speaker 2 22:04

I could say they look like they're not buying a word. You say Do not want that judge strike I mean that person on your jury strike them, or when he has final closing arguments, i would always be the devil's advocate and be like why don't you say this, why did you make this argument? Why did you even put that thought in their mind? And so we trusted each other to give you that kind of feedback, and it was something to do while I was figuring out what I wanted to do. So it was nice to have that type of luxury, because you meet just really successful people and you make really impactful impacts on each other's lives, and so it's nice to know that you have those types of professional contacts.

Speaker 1 22:42

I guess Absolutely, and you have the confidence in yourself to be able to talk to anybody, right, whether it's somebody in your network or not. I think that's I mean, that's an overarching theme. I think of a lot of the benefits you've talked about today, is that the self-confidence that you gain from it gives you the ability to do all of the things that you retire him out and have networks of people that you know and trust and can help you in your life, or to talk to the boss of the company that you've never met before and answer hard questions. So I think that's a big overarching theme and something that is obviously a huge part of our mission at Green Communications is to build that self-confidence, because it all really starts there.

Speaker 2 23:21

Every voice matters, but not every voice is heard, and no voices are heard if you don't speak up. So if we don't create spaces for kids to articulate their beliefs, their thoughts, their visions, not only do we ruin the opportunity for us to find out what they think and believe, but oftentimes, until we say it out loud, we don't realize always what we think or believe. That's part of the reason why people go to therapy You always knew what you thought all along, but until you say it out loud it doesn't really feel real Right. It's a thing There's so much power in that You put a name to something when you speak it out into the universe, and so it allows kids to speak their convictions, which is invaluable, in my opinion honestly, absolutely So.

Speaker 1 24:00

Lots of benefits that participating in speech and debate can help our kids with now, as they are growing up and as they venture into adulthood. But what about me as a parent? There's so many things my kids can be involved in, and I could be shuffling them from place to place every single day, every single evening, and spending my hard-earned money on all kinds of activities. Why is speech and debate beneficial for me as a parent?

Benefits of Debate for Kids' Skills

Speaker 2 24:24

Absolutely Well. The first reason is and it doesn't always feel like the best benefit First, but you have kids who are in sheep right, they don't blindly follow, and so, while sometimes you just want them to go to bed and answering why I have to go to bed might not be the best thing for anybody in that moment The fact that your kids have an honest, questioning stance about how the world around them is shaped is a good thing for you as a parent. They're not going to be blindly led. They're going to make their own ways forward And also, within that, they all get a chance to make their way forward. You can do a lot of activities but honestly, in most activities, if you're not one of the two or three best kids on the team or in that area, you're not going to get much playing. You're not going to get a chance. Every kid on the team gets a chance to have six rounds of debate. When you go to a tournament, normally Every kid has the same amount of time to say their piece. Now, some are going to be a way more successful than others, but you're not paying for your kid to sit on a bench and watch other kids have fun and learn skills, it's true, right. So, like your kids are going to get a chance to go to tournaments and actively participate and actively progress to the rate that one they're capable but two, they're willing to put in the effort to. Because I always tell kids that hard workers beat smart kids every day, because smart kids are lazy most of the time In elementary and middle school. If it comes easy to you, then teachers are just happy that you're a float and they go back to save the ones that are drowning and they never really push you much above the tide In debate. That's not true. Everybody wants your spot. So you might be smart and you might have the great argument, but if you give me a week to figure it out, i'm going to get you. You might have figured it out in 20 minutes, but you give me a week, i'll be ready for you next week when I see you, and if you're lazy and you don't improve your argument, i'm going to beat you next week. So that is an invaluable skill for kids to learn, because it teaches them to move forward and to choose their own adventure, as it were. Don't let any people, buddy, tell you what you can or can't do. You're the one that determines how many rounds you win. Your work ethic determines that. So that kind of leads into the fourth quality.

Speaker 2 26:39

For parents. You develop kids who are better studyers. Right, they learn how to study, how to be efficient when they study, how to get the most result for their efforts. And so, whereas you used to probably get concerned when you hadn't heard your kid for a while, what are they up to in there? If you're a debate parent, then what they are up to in there is making their 1AC or the developing frontlines for their rebuttals. And so having kids who value studying and learn how to study efficiently is a true benefit to any parent.

Speaker 2 27:12

It depends on how old your kids are, but once they start in the high school, most of the really good tournaments are on college campuses, so it's really like a free college visit for your kids almost every weekend when they go to tournaments. To me that's invaluable as a parent. I think about when I was coached in last and South Florida during the year. Kids went to Yale, northwestern Cornell, they went to University of Pennsylvania, upenn, philadelphia. They went to University of Florida. They went to George Mason. They would normally go to Vandy or see Vandy when we were in Nashville for a tournament And occasionally we went to UC Berkeley, and so they're going to all and Harvard, yeah.

Speaker 2 27:59

So they were going to all these different schools and it's a chance to know Harvard's campus, to know Yale's campus, to know Cornell's campus, to know Emory's campus. We went to Emory a lot And so that's really invaluable for kids If they can have positive memories associated with a place or to know what they think of a university or its culture or its atmosphere. That's very helpful for them a lot of the time, i think.

Speaker 1 28:23

Absolutely Yeah.

Speaker 2 28:24

The next one is healthy competition and responsibility. We talked a little bit earlier about kids receiving critical feedback. Debate, more than anything, teaches you the responsibility for your own outcomes. Right, like you have to say. Well, maybe they didn't understand it, but it's my job to make them understand. So, ultimately, if they didn't understand, that responsibility lies back with me.

Speaker 1 28:47

Oh man, that's huge. That's it. Let me just stop you there and say that is huge. You sold me as a parent. Right You can't accept the responsibility where anything can be very challenging. So that's huge Yeah.

Speaker 2 29:02

Because that's the thing. And they always told kids, because sometimes kids are human, they're going to complain about their judge, but you have to ask them. So if it's just the judges reactions that matter, then why do you even prepare? Because I have to convince them. Okay, i think you can convince them. Who's fault is that? I guess, okay.

Speaker 2 29:22

So now maybe we need to learn how people value things, or we need to take the time to read that judge's philosophy for the round so we don't run the exact argument they said on line four of their philosophy they don't like. Why did you do that? You wasted three minutes of a round arguing something they told you at the beginning they don't like. Why would you do that? Take the time, read their philosophy. I mean that communication is more about what's heard than what's said. You can say really pretty things, but if people don't hear it in a pretty way or not in a way that their brain processes it, you just wasted your time. You had to figure out how to make the message receptive to them.

Speaker 2 30:04

What do they care about? And I always tell kids you have three types of judges. You're going to have parent judges who are there because they love their kids. Well, guess what You're going to make impacts about kids and what matters to kids, because ultimately, that's where they care. Right, if you have a teacher in the back of the room, you're going to make sure that your English, your subject verbal agreement, is very good, that your historical facts are very good, because, disproportionately, you're either going to get an English teacher or a history teacher in the back of the room.

Speaker 2 30:27

When it's a teacher, when it's a coach, you're going to make sure that you're technically clean, that you're making smart arguments, that you're doing all of the little minutiae that I get on you every week, because that's what they care about. They're debate coach, they care about the craft. They don't care how you say it, they care that you say it in the right way, right. So that alone, if you just know who your judge is. All of them are smart, but they care about different things. So give them what they care about and you're going to win a lot more. But that's on you to take responsibility for understanding what's asked of you in a round and then meeting the expectation.

Speaker 1 31:00

Because it can be very subjective right.

Speaker 2 31:02

Right, it is very subjective Very subjective.

Speaker 1 31:05

It's not like you shoot a basket and you make the basket, you score two points, you miss it, you get zero. It's not as simple as that that. You have multiple different ideas and opinions and, like you said, judging criteria basically right Based on the person, the judge themselves. So figuring that out ahead of time is important.

Speaker 2 31:21

I think the last thing is I took karate for seven years when I was a kid, and, knock on wood, i haven't had to use it in my adult life ever, and I don't think I could give a kata if I wanted to these days. And I took hundreds of free trays in my backyard when I was a kid because I was convinced that one day I would wow the NBA. But I never got over six feet, and so that's really not probably going to happen, and so I think we push kids into activities which our bodies age. We get older. The athletic prowess we work so hard to develop when we're a team doesn't always come to fruition, and even if it does, if you're an NBA player, your average career is four years.

Speaker 1 32:00

Yeah.

Speaker 2 32:00

Make it in the NBA. If you're in the NFL, your average career is like six years, so you're preparing a whole life for six years of your life. And then what Debates you're always going to talk. You're always going to need to proceed to lead people. You're always going to walk into like weird situations like car dealerships or negotiating real estate or trying to get a promotion, where you're going to have to know persuasion skills and be able to express yourself in a cognizant way that shows that you have at least some monocle of understanding of what you're talking about. Even though they're the expert, those are skills that are portable for your whole life. So when you invest in debate, you're giving your kids skills that they're going to use throughout their life.

Speaker 2 32:40

I thought for the longest time that I was going to be a college football player, and then I blew a knee out and broke my ankle my senior year and suddenly debate was full focus, what I was doing, because you can give a speech on crutches. You cannot tackle somebody on crutches. It's just not going to happen, and I've had three surgeries on the ankle. There's no way I was ever going to be a college athlete after that. And so so many different careers that kids push towards or pass, that kids invest so much time in. You step wrong walking off the sidewalk and that career and that dreams over. You get tackled wrong by somebody and that dream is over, and so debate barring like really bad wearing gydes. You're never going to really miss it when you're not actively sick.

Speaker 2 33:30

I have given speeches on crutches. I've given speeches on a knee scooter because I was convinced I was an athlete my whole life and really wasn't. I tried, but she can't do that in sports, she just can't. And so speech is something that you're going to use these skills your whole life. I mean honestly, like I think about my debate coach right to the very end, like he was in a nursing home for a little bit and he would convince them to give him what he wanted, even though it wasn't on his chart, because he was just persuasive And I was like, look at you using those skills right to the end.

Speaker 2 34:04

I see you coach Okay, but it is important. I don't know that there's any more portable skill than understanding what people like and understanding what people want from you and then being able to formulate a message in a way that they get that right. So like. It gets you better deals, it gets you better incentives, it gets you the chance to get a fair shake, sometimes when a fair shake is not in the cards. It allows you not to get scared when people ask you questions that are really tough and difficult. And all those skills there's no injury that's going to make that not an important skill or one that you can pull off. To me, the number one skill that kids learn from debate and the number one benefits to parents is you're going to have kids who have going to spend a lifetime using the skills you invested in when they were 12.

Speaker 2 34:51

I don't know that anything else does that.

Speaker 1 34:54

Right, right, yeah, i can't think of anything either. And I mean, athletics are fantastic. You know, my husband is a football coach, so I think athletics definitely have their place and they have so many benefits and teach kids so many skills. But if your kids participate in athletics, there can still be room for speech and debate, or if your kid is not athletic, and there's still options out there. Right, and unfortunately, the vast majority of public schools in America don't offer speech and debate programs, and so that's what we have seen. You know there's a severe need for that, and so we're really excited here at Green Communications to be able to offer that virtually, whether you have it in your area or not, but definitely something to consider in so many benefits. All along the way, i remember we were just talking the other day and you were talking about arguing with your parents And we're going to do a whole episode about the benefits of having an argumentative child.

Speaker 1 35:46

But that's the thing that speech and debate does right. It helps them to process what they want and understand that it's not about what they want, It's about what the parent wants. And having that conversation and having that communication And that's a whole other episode that we'll talk about But just so many, so many benefits that they can put the psychology hat on.

Speaker 2 36:07

It's an age-appropriate behavior. It's part of what Eric said and says you're doing, you're developing your identity right And one of the ways to do that is to figure out what you believe and why you believe it. So it's natural that they're going to challenge. So just engage the challenge and force them to do it in a way that's structured and manifold. That's the best thing. And to your point, sports are great. I always told the coaches, when one of your kids gets hurt and you don't think they're going to be through the season, send them my way, because I'm all about competitive kids. Bring them.

Speaker 1 36:35

Exactly, it's regenerate, absolutely. You can't think that that's not competitive, because it absolutely is Hands down.

Speaker 2 36:41

They're going to win to you. All right. No, there's all kinds of benefits And I hope that your kid will join up for one of our classes or private tutoring sessions, because I'd like to share those portable skills with them. It really is the best return on investment you can get, honestly.

Speaker 1 36:57

Agreed. All right. Bill Thompson, thank you so much for all that you do. Thank you for listening. Thank you And go check us out If you're interested in more information at Green Communications, educom.

Speaker 2 37:09

Very good Thanks.