Part of the Transition Year 08/09 Updates
Debating is alive and kicking in Hazelwood College!
Confidence in oneself is what most people aspire to gain throughout their lifetime, and in Hazelwood College we witness young students blossom into confident young adults through the medium of public speaking and debating. We are proud of our healthy debating culture which is both admired and respected by both the staff and the student community. Last year brought outstanding success to Hazelwood when our VEC Debating team brought the Jim Mc Carthy Perpetual Trophy home after coveting the success of winning the final of the County Limerick VEC Debating Final. Our “Concern” Debating team also coveted outstanding success when they were a hare’s breath away of securing a quarter final place in the National final!
This year’s Concern Debating team are following the trend of previous years by defeating CBS Charleville with the motion “Genetically Modified Food is essential in the fight against World Hunger”. The next challenge was when Hazelwood met The Patrician Academy, Mallow with the motion “The Bebo Generation Cares Little for the Developing World”.
Once a student catches the “debating bug” they soon learn that it is much more than just meeting a team and refuting facts. All students involved in debating are in fact preparing themselves for 25% of the Leaving Cert English exam. What better way to study essay writing!
Heather Coffey a senior student in Hazelwood shares her experiences of debating:
“Starting out in third year and the last thing you expect happens! You become second speaker in the VEC debating team! I was never one for sports and the fact I could be involved in an extra curricular activity was a great achievement in my opinion! In the beginning I attended a debating meeting as I was interested in it due to the previous years debaters saying their speechs during our classes! The competition was high as loads of students applied and i was surprised to be picked as one of the four!
Little did i know 7months after this achievement we would have won the VEC competition!
This year I was part of the Concern debating team as the captain! We first went against Charville CBS and successfully beat them 3/0 this was a great success, then we went against Patrician Academy 2/0 which was a very difficult debate on the bebo generation cares little for the developing world. In the second term we changed captains and Donal O Callaghan took over. Unfortunately we were narrowly beaten by Colaiste Mhuire Buttervant who were a more experienced team! We then managed to get into the knock out phase where we yet again were beaten by Mercy Mount Hawk who just about succeeded in defeating the motion! This was a very sad and difficult night for the team as we had thought we had the victory in the bag but unfortunately we were wrong! This did not slow us down as we are now sending in our application to the legal debating society in Griffiths College and hopefully we will be heading up to Dublin in the end of March!
Debating is a great experience, it helps you to become more confident and it truely helps you speech! I would recommend it to all Junior and Senior students!