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Episode 4- PS 204 Debate Team

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Welcome back to The Bear Cave Podcast, where student voices take the spotlight and school spirit runs deep!, and today we’ve got something special. We’re sitting down with the sharp minds, quick thinkers, and future leaders of the PS 204 Debate Team—a group of students who’ve been making waves with their powerful arguments, respectful discourse, and passion for critical thinking. Whether you're curious about what it takes to win a debate, how students prepare behind the scenes, or what drives their passion for tackling tough topics—this episode is for you. So sit back, get ready to be inspired, and let’s step into the arena of ideas with the PS 204 Debate Team!"

Show Transcript

good morning welcome to your PS2 4's best and only podcast we are your hosts Penelope Molina Jasmine cabero and the tech support Jake Cummings and I am your bear Noah Hernandez we are being joined by the ps204 debate team let's get started so our first question we asked all our guests what's your names and what grade are you guys in my name is Elise Vargas my name is Elisha Sante and I am from 2 my name is Dalia Perez and I am from the fifth grade also and I'm from the fourth grade my name is Muhammad and I'm from pway my name is Aaron media and I'm from fourth grade my name is Jace Polanco and I'm from fifth grade my name is Penelope Broad and I'm third grade I'm the Deep store for fifth grade my name is Elijah from fifth grade so our first question is can you please explain what is a what a debate is bait is where you go and talk about to other people such as like battling them I would say but not really you having a conversation to a debate is basically like let's say it's like a battlefield you got to swing at 1 person and that person is playing back so you say something bad about debate bad about the topic and like reasons why and then the next person that's in the good about it and why they should have it and then we have a crossfire with questions so basically so basically we just like battle against each other but that would like switch roles like 1 person says 1 person is like against the topic or the other person stands with the topic and then we just switch roles basically just 1 sided argument so it's just like take it turns and then we have to conclude why should we have this topic or why we should not have to stop it because it will lead to something bad later on okay our next next question is what would what was the debate about and what topics did you guys have to talk about the bait was about Congressional tournament it's rather like Congress people you know how presidents switch out if Congress people should switch out too in our last topic was about zoos and if we should keep the animals in zoos or not yeah so for the first tournament we had the zoos like if we should have zoos in our community and why we should not second tournament we had the Congressional term limits which is the term limits between Congress men and Congress women so are the big this um time where we were debating about um it should Congress members have term limits or not okay so our second question is were you nervous to be in front of all those people I was nervous because there was about 250 people to 300 people there was a lot of people so it's like really like nerve-wracking to like debate in front of all those people for like the first part of like training it was actually pretty easy but like for the tournament I just wanted to quit to be honest um the tournament wasn't that stressful like a lot of people in this um in this debate team I no a lot of people have thought that the debate would have been more stress more stressful than it seems but to me it it feels easier like instead of thinking about all the people that are in thinking about the people who are at that table cuz you're not debating about you're not debating with everyone that's inside of the gym so debate with about 6 or 7 people so I wasn't really that nervous because you know I had eye contact and stuff and I really thought positive of doing things that I could yeah kind of spent like all that time training so you really be worried also we still we've done up a debate about Zoo so this is is this isn't really a false Rodeo doing it I was nervous because it was my first tournament and it my first year being in the debate team but but but it wasn't as nervous when I sat down because it was different than what I thought it was going to be I didn't think that we were going to be sitting down reading our speeches because half the kids at my table were like this I was Miss Simpson said but other but other than that if I didn't live like right next to the building if I didn't feel comfortable where I was in the gym I I would have been scared to death how did you choose choose the side that you like you argued like was it your choice to pick or did they assign you 1 they want to practicing uh we were just like studying like half the half hour practice would be on like the pro side and the other half would be when we actually went to the tournament they would give us cards and each like it was 2 side sided 1 like 1 side would be like oh Pro 4 and the other side would be gone too that's where each balance so we really did have the choice to pick we just had handed the cards as Jay said and yeah we just had to battle there's like 2 separate session you the the card at the top the part that's on the top like it says then you're going to be on the con side and then for the second session you're going to flip it and then you'll be on the pro yeah so you have to do like both of the sessions you you can't pick if you're like Pro or economy you have to do both yeah basically like once you get the code you you guys just do this first thing you see but sometimes it's like Pro 2 you talk after Pro 1 you talk first and then like maybe like con 7 you're going to be the seventh 1 to move can you ask questions throughout my third question is what is the most challenging thing for you about being on a debate team doing the work like typing the pro and con arguments cuz you know you have to find the strongest evidence you have to have a good claim yeah your inferences have to be good your conclusion also has to be really good or else you know you won't do as good as the other kids in there and remind you there's 300 kids so there's a lot of training to do here in the tournament you have like a limited time to like say your speech so you might want to like you might want to like take some time to like pronounce your words but it might but it also might want to go a little faster because they only they only let us speak for like 2 2 minutes so I don't think it's kind of hard about the whole thing but it's kind of memorizing because Miss Simpson told us long time memorizing speeches guys so you could maintain full contact but a strategy that most of us used was that road memorize what we're going to say again we'll clamp down our paper for a second but keep on speaking wrench and repeat it's hard to it's hard to memorize your speech so it was kind of hard for me even though I have good memory cuz if cuz I have 2 things to remember so then if I'm constantly having to go back and forth with my questions it's going to be hard to memorize everything that's written down know challenging part is actually going there cuz then you you know like it now is the time that you're going to do this to like all those times we've been training now is the time sixth question is how did we we do as a school and how do they make you feel like like what place like how you got like if you if you got like first place how did you how did it make you feel I believe we did pretty good as a school it's not just about how we got most like we got old second third fourth it's about how we maybe most most of us got medals and me I got for the second tournament I got third place I I feel pretty good about myself for me I thought first place but it's in ranking still so that's why I didn't get it medal but hey it's still good because like at least I feel like honored the first session I got fourth place up with us like the 1 I got 29 28th please but even though for the second session I didn't do as well I'm still proud of myself because I actually was able to be in debate and actually be able to train for it and I'm so happy I got a because if you think about it 28th Place is actually really good for about 300 people I mean Ninth Place on the in the second tournament honored and proud of myself because I went out there set my argument and got a model you know we all do well we trained hard even if you guys didn't get a medal it's still good cuz we represent our school and it's not all about winning and getting medals and stuff I didn't get a medal I take a obstacles as a opportunity to grow higher so any um failures that I encounter is just um a something that will motivate me to try to work harder and then until I finally are currently um get a medal and achieve my goal uh I feel I feel really honored to be in the debate team and even if you didn't get a medal I I still think as a as a school as a team we did really good because each and every 1 of you still went into the debate and you debated you did what you tried to do I still I I feel I feel good because I got second place even though I I had slack back because I didn't have I I couldn't do my work at home I didn't have a computer he was dead but other than that I still got a metal I did really good how like how did this experience of debate impact like your student life or something on like the days we did the tournament cuz I had to wake up really early I had to practice so it really took tiredness and stuff so that's how it impacted it like impact will just represent ourselves as students like just normal students but now that we are in the debate team and we did it it makes us feel more proud of ourselves it impacted my um student life it's because of gave me extra work and it had like made major dead ones so I had to complete this by another day and I haven't started so I had to pull off all nighter to just get it done it's actually since I finally got to like try something new for like and so I kind of feel like I want to stay here though mostly because of the trips but because I because I got to meet new people though but sadly you have to see sadly I have to say goodbye but yeah by the way most of y'all who don't know I've been a debate for 3 years I think it kind of packed my student life like now if I leave to you know the bait it feels like I'm actually making an impact to doing work since I've been to a couple tournaments and I got a high score on them it feels like I'm an athlete doing something it actually made me less nervous about other things because you know now that I have experienced debate I wouldn't know that it wouldn't have been less nervous than I then I would have thought and so yeah perfect maybe because when I first entered I didn't know what how to do it how hard or how they had to work but then like what I was leaving since we did our last tournament I realized that in order to like grow like get achievement just to work hard cuz I got Ninth Place um last year because I was still getting used but like this is my second year and I understood how most of it works and I got fourth place as my last tournament basically this made a real impact on my on my life because most of the time when I was in this school I was like I just myself as a regular student I'm like all the other students in this school but now since I'm in the base I feel like I have a whole another type of roles for my life so I just made a real impact because it changed a lot of stuff I thought I I mean I did in my life so thanks for joining us before we end we have a special question we ask all our guests can you give us your best Roar

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Episode 4- PS 204 Debate Team

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