Inter-school Debate

As a creative activity, I participated in an inter-school debate competition held at Vishwashanti Gurukul International School, Pune. The competition consisted of seven international schools from Pune and Bombay. I attended the competition, representing Sharad Pawar International School, Pune. This activity had me debate two topics: "Behind every succesful man is a woman," for which I was against, and "Cabbages are better than roses," for which I was for.

I participated in this activity because I wanted to improve my public speaking and debating skills. I also wanted to represent my school positively. My expectations, however, were not met. I did not speak as well as I would have liked to, and our school did not perform too well, grabbing fourth position.

The activity was also lined with difficulties. We were informed of our topics weeks in advance, and my teammates along with myself, had prepared and practiced our speeches. We went to the venue, confident of our speeches when we were informed that we had produced speeches on the wrong topics. As a result, we were forced to make two new speeches five minutes before the competition start time! This great difficulty was not really overcome, as we did not perform incredibly well, but my teammates and Mr. Devendra Kumar, our supervisor, kept my attitude positive and cheered me on with the "just go out there and give it your best shot" attitude.

I learnt that even in the most adverse conditions, I can perform well if I put my mind to it. This activity was helpful, as it helped my teammates and myself by giving us the opportunity to compete against many people from a number of different schools. We represented our school well, but if I could redo the activity, I would try to be more powerful on the podium.

This was a very fulfilling activity. Being given the responsibility to represent my school was a great honor. This activity also greatly improved my oratory skills and it boosted my self confidence, as I competed on a large scale inter-scholastic competition, making it truly enriching.

My accomplished learning outcomes were:
1: Increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth
2: Shown perseverance and commitment in their activities