In an age of social media echo chambers and polarized political debate, two Burnaby students have spent the last few years learning how to argue both sides.
And they’ve gotten pretty good at it.
In March, Burnaby Mountain Secondary students Miranda Collett and Carolyn Chen travel to Oxford, England for the Oxford Schools’ Finals Day international debating competition.
They’re the only debaters from Western Canada to qualify, winning the UBC 2017 High School Tournament earlier this season and coming in third at a qualifier in Montreal.
“I still can’t believe that we made it there,” Collett said. “I’m shook to the core that we made it to a tournament in England.”
The results are the culmination of years of work, according to the Grade 12 student.
Besides the pair preparing hard for tournaments, Collett said she had to save money from her part-time job at McDonald’s for more than a year to afford her share of tournament costs and the cost of hiring a debate coach for her last year of high school.
Collett and Chen first joined their school’s debate team for very different reasons.
“I started partially because, in elementary school, I hated public speaking with my entire heart and soul, so I ended up doing debating so I’d be less uncomfortable with it,” said Chen, who is still in Grade 11.
It was a different story for Collett.
“I really liked arguing,” she said.
It’s a yin-and-yang dynamic that works well for the pair.
“She’s better at taking down arguments,” Chen said, “and I prefer building our arguments and presenting them, so that’s usually how we tend to split our roles.”
While Chen has gained confidence as a speaker over the years, Collett has learned to appreciate the intricacies of building an argument and presenting it.
In the real world, it’s a blessing and a bit of a curse for Collett, as arguing with people who haven’t developed those skills can be frustrating.
Again, it’s a different story for Chen.
“I don’t have that many arguments with people in real life,” she said.
Both agree, however, that the skills they’ve learned in debate are important for everyone.
“In debate you don’t get to choose your side,” Chen said. “They assign you a side on any given topic. That forces you to step outside your own personal beliefs and experiences and to interact with something that you originally didn’t believe in.”
Put another way: “It really helps teach people that their personally held beliefs aren’t the end all be all of everything. There are other beliefs,” Collett said.
To help fund their trip to Oxford, Collett and Chen have launched a crowdfunding campaign.
For more information, visit gofundme.com/OxfordCupFinalsFund.
