Middle School Debate Team Scores a Big Victory
The New Roads Middle School Speech and Debate Team earned a phenomenal victory! In a four league tournament last weekend, New Roads placed FIRST out of seventeen Los Angeles independent schools. Our competition included teams from Harvard-Westlake, Polytechnic, Marlborough, Windward, Mirman, and Brentwood, which have longstanding Speech and Debate Programs. Since the leagues represented in the tournament include some of the most competitive leagues in the country, our second-year team’s victory is even more impressive.
The team’s outstanding performance yesterday is, in part, a testament to the dedication of our coaches and the quality of our program and our inspiring teachers. Special thanks to coaches Winston Chang and Mark Windham for their extraordinary leadership of this program.
Not only did the students learn a great deal about effective speaking and argumentation as well as demonstrate formidable skill, they became knowledgeable about contemporary topics, such as preventing football concussions and universal basic income.
Our first-year Upper School Debate Team is also making an impressive showing this season. In a recent National Circuit tournament, two New Roads debaters reached the novice finals, and one brought home a medal for impromptu speaking. We are very proud of how much this rookie team has accomplished already this year.
This recent article in the New York Times “Diversity Makes You Brighter,” helps to explain the success of our debate teams. In the article, Sheen Levine, a professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, and David Stark, a professor at Columbia University, found that an authentically diverse community stimulates cognitive friction in and out of the classroom, which “prompts better [sharper] critical thinking.” Our New Roads debaters’ performances seem to further substantiate the findings of Levine and Stark. The research seems to be confirming what we have always known: a diverse student and adult community fosters the nuanced, sophisticated critical thinking that is essential in a global, rapidly evolving world.
New Roads School is a college preparatory K-12 private independent school in Santa Monica, CA, serving over 515 elementary school, middle school and high school children from the greater Los Angeles area. New Roads School provides an inspired educational program from which an authentically diverse student population, mirroring the rich diversity of Los Angeles, develops a personal dedication to learning, a respect for independent thinking, and an expanding curiosity about the world and its people.
NOTICE OF NONDISCRIMINATORY POLICY AS TO STUDENTS New Roads School admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national and ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school-administered programs.