Rise & Shine Debating confesses.

For YEARS now.............Rise and Shine Debating has been shamelessly using debating to allow junior and middle school students to have their say!

We've taken a formal, traditional activity used by senior students and played around with it.

And we discovered that by taking it less seriously and giving everyone a chance to see how it works, whole classrooms of students have formed teams, choosen topics they wanted to argue about and produced a debate.

Quiet students, LOUD talkative students, quirky students, sports stars and the musically gifted have all delivered a debate of upto 3.5 minutes.

And, because they need to use their own thoughts to gain the gold from this experience, we helped each person say what they wanted to say. Here are some more tips:

• For some, we wrote their thoughts down for them, if they couldn't manage it all themselves. Everyone had palm cards with a ring to keep them all in order.

  
  

• We helped each person use their own words and keep "their" voice and expression, so their passion could come through. We let go of editing to dull teacherly perfection.

  
  

• By working in small teams, each person had the support of others when they spoke up publicly for the first time. (Students argued with each other to decide who would deliver each point.)

  
  

• Facing an audience is a real challenge. Many adults remain daunted by the prospect. When we meet this kind of challenge earlier in life with support, everyone can do it.

  
  

• Finding good evidence to support your idea has a purpose when you are planning to speak in public. You begin to understand how facts and examples add strength to what you say.

  
  

• In the 17 + years Rise and Shine has been delivering junior debating, we can count on 1(one) hand the number of times when a student could not deliver their debate. On a few occassions, someone else read it for them.

  
  

• Often, students are so keen once they have prepared, they need help to stop on time.

  
  

• We have discovered that the best way to develop each person's confidence with debating is to insist on their own thinking. When we are learning to think and speak, it can't always be perfect, so you need to discuss this.

  
  

• Create respect and safety in your group to "have a go". Of course you are going to rehearse, but facing the challenge and possibility of making mistakes creates a real challenge. The task is worth putting time in, and a bit scary!

  
  

• Believe they can. Help them be realistic. The key to surviving mistakes is support for each other. Encourage spotting what the speaker did well, sharing an idea for improving.

  
  

• Teasing is not helpful in this learning space. Call it out, discuss why its not useful. If you give students a chance to listen and offer positive noticing and 1 idea suggestions, this urge to have a say has a positive channel. Don't forget to thank them for their great ideas. They are closer to the level of their peers than we are.