One might assume that Meztli Santa Maria’s background–she comes from an immigrant working-class family and attends a low-income school where most students fail state exams–puts her at a disadvantage when it comes to competitive academic debate.
But the 15-year-old freshman at Chicago’s Kelly High School, 4136 S. California Ave., takes a different view.
“People underestimate us,” Santa Maria said about her Kelly debate team. “Sometimes, teams look down on us or stereotype us, thinking we are not as good as them because we are Latino or not from a prestigious school. But we use that to our advantage and surprise them.”
Santa Maria is one of the thousands of urban students changing the face of high school debate.
From the infusion of racism, poverty and gang warfare as debate topics, to a new “hip-hop” performance style of arguing, to the use of rap music as supporting evidence, a flood of urban debaters is dramatically changing the complexion of a sport historically dominated by privileged, white–mostly male–teenagers.
Twenty years ago, about 45 students in three urban high schools competed on the national high school debate circuit. Today, 4,000 students in 311 urban schools participate.
And Chicago has the country’s largest urban debate program, with more than 1,000 students in 48 high schools.
“The inclusion of urban debate leagues has added diversity to high school public debating, and that not only is positive, but crucial, for students in today’s world,” said J. Scott Wunn, who heads the National Forensic League, which oversees the national high school debate competitions.
“The more interaction students have with other races, cultures and genders, the better understanding they will have of each other and the more communicative they will be with each other in the future. It’s a vital part of their growth.”
No urban debate team has ever won a national championship, but more and more of them are beating suburban teams in regional competitions. Two years ago, two members of the Kelly team won the right to attend the national competition in Philadelphia, but they didn’t have the money to go.
In Illinois, the interaction between urban and suburban teams is unparalleled in the nation.
Home to best teams
Illinois is not only home to the largest urban debate league, but it also lays claim to the best debate teams in the country.
New Trier, Niles, and Glenbrook South High Schools have powerhouse programs. Glenbrook North High School has won 5 of the last 10 national Forensic League tournaments and is widely considered to have the best debate program in the country.
This geography has allowed Chicago students–when they can afford it–to travel to suburban tournaments and engage in esoteric and complicated linguistic battles against the country’s top teenage debaters. This year, a formal circuit that pits the city’s five best teams, including Kelly, against top suburban teams was established.
Scott Dodsworth, director of debate at Kelly, said competing against suburban teams has exposed his students to higher level thinking skills and given them a firsthand view of the academic rigor in the suburban schools.
“Going up against the suburban teams allows my students to get pulled away from that urban mindset of being able to just `get by,'” Dodsworth said. “It forces them to push themselves to the peak of their ability.”
The Kelly team is particularly good at a form of debate known as “policy” debate, in which students from across the country argue the same topic.
Unlike the “Lincoln-Douglas” style of debate, in which one student stands at a lectern and argues against another student, policy debate pits two-member teams against each other. In the last decade, a new form of policy debate has taken hold, in which students speed read their arguments into the record in an attempt to score as many points as possible.
To the uninitiated, a policy debate can sound like a jumble of indiscernible words.
To hone their skills, students on the 28-member Kelly team practice twice a week at 6 a.m. and then again after school about four times a week. To help defray the cost of team expenses, many debaters tutor other Kelly students and then donate that money toward attending debate workshops at out-of-state colleges.
Financial disparity
The Kelly High School team, like most urban teams, does not have the money suburban squads do: Chicago teams get about $6,500 annually, which pays for coaches, travel, meals and judges. Some suburban teams get 10 times that much, allowing them to hire top-notch, college-level coaches and to attend the most competitive out-of-state tournaments.
Kelly students have used the unfair playing field to fuel a sense of camaraderie.
That closeness was on display at a recent tournament, where during a break in the action, Kelly debaters gathered around a lunch table and shared their results. When the team heard that a debating duo had won, they hugged each other. When they heard about a loss, they blamed the judges for not understanding their refined arguments.
“You become a family,” said Andrea Rodriguez, a 15-year-old sophomore on the Kelly team. “You realize you are stronger as a whole.”
A few days after the competition, the team gathered in a classroom at Kelly and pored over their scorecards to help each other find the holes in their arguments.
Kelly’s best debater, senior John Connor, 18, agreed to take freshman Carl Jiang, 13, as his partner. Connor,considered one of the city’s top debaters, could have picked a more seasoned partner.
Winning’s not everything
“It’s not always about winning–even though I pretty much think I can always win no matter who my partner is–it’s about helping the future Kelly team,” he said.
Coaches say debate helps teenagers develop critical thinking skills, master research on complicated topics, build strong arguments and learn the art of persuasion. The students must be prepared to debate everything from nuclear arms buildup to Friedrich Nietzsche’s arguments on morality.
Debate is even more beneficial to urban teenagers who often are not exposed to the academic rigor and critical thinking skills of their suburban peers, the coaches say.
Linda Collier, former director of debate at University of Missouri-Kansas City, conducted a national study three years ago to quantify the benefits of urban debate. Collier found that urban debaters showed significantly more improvement on a national reading exam than non-debating peers.
They also were less likely to be truant and participate in “risky behaviors” such as shoplifting and reckless driving.
“What urban debaters say about their lives previous to debate and after debate is that debate gives them a place to focus that is not nearly as nihilistic as a lot of their world,” Collier said.
Nancy Sacalxot, 14, a freshman at Kelly, said joining the debate team gives her a sense of pride. “It reminds me that I can be just as smart as the suburban students if I put my mind to it,” she said. “Then I think maybe I can even go to a really good college just like they do.”
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sbanchero@tribune.com
