Remember the story about how the Newton North debate team kept getting in trouble wasn’t able to hold onto a faculty adviser?
Well the Newtonite reports that they found one.
“I am going to be their adviser,” said principal Jennifer Price. “I have never been an adviser in my entire career at North.”
Well it seems that the article is pretty clear – they did not follow the rules and now hopefully that Jen Price and one of the moms of a debate team student are in charge things will change.
Pretty sad that this is what it took for them to be able to continue this program.
Doesn’t seem based on the article that these students have really learned a life lesson.
The debate team members seem to be under the impression they can do what they please. Surely they learned the school policies, if they didn’t already know them, after they returned from North Carolina last spring, so their excuses are wearing thin. My first thought was that they not be allowed to attend the last debate, but I guess that would be unfair to the other teams. I’m glad Principal Price is taking over.
As far as I’m concerned, Jen Price’s negligence created this problem. She should not be praised for solving it, especially after all the unnecessary controversy she helped generate.
Again, to commenters who aren’t students at Newton North, or didn’t know North had a debate team until the Newton TAB told you something mildly controversial was happening: recognize the fact your opinions are fairly uninformed and don’t speak with such surety.
Marti: “but I guess that would be unfair to the other teams” this comment demonstrates how little you know about debate. North’s participation at states has basically no impact on whether or not the tournament will go on. Surely someone who doesn’t have even a basic understanding of what debate is should withhold from making comments like “The debate team members seem to be under the impression they can do what they please.”
I don’t think that there’s much utility to be had from adult journalists’ coverage of the travails of high school students, unless some tremendous harm resulted (e.g. yesterday’s Plainville/Mattapoisett story).
These are adolescents, and there’s really no value in having their actions judged by adults other than their parents and their teachers.
Also, this sort of coverage ends up giving them them an inflated sense of importance that can very easily corrupt their social development.
And heaven help us once the students themselves get involved in the public debate.
I know that sometimes there’s not a heck of a lot of content to cover, but if the TAB and V14 could leave these topics to be dealt with by the students, the parents, the administration, and (when appropriate) the Newtonite, I think we’d all be a lot better off.
Actually Jordan and Micheal, the two times I started a thread on this (and the first time I heard about it) was from the Newtonite. I hadn’t even read the TAB story from a few weeks ago until last night.
Obviously, Michael, you’re right.
I don’t know the facts about Debategate, but I do believe that our high school students are disrespected everyday by the school system. I’m a little surprised by some of the insults being slung in their direction here. I would encourage high school students to speak out more about issues of concern to them. And I want them to know there are some adults in this community who actually hear them.
While I agree with Michael, I want to just point out to Jordan and Mike Striar that the article was written by an editor of the high school paper not by the school system or the “commenters” so it is a student speaking out about an issue with the debate team and it’s not the first time.
The article says last spring “the team went to North Carolina with a chaperone who was not approved by the school.” And then again this fall they went to the “Columbia tournament, where students went without permission.” In previous reporting the school reporter wrote about “losing” two advisers for these reasons.
It is posted here because “high school students” spoke out and were listened to. I don’t see any insults here by anyone, except to Principal Price and to commenters. Commenting with “I guess” as the beginning is an indication I did not go learn the rules of the debate team, but my comments, which I stand by, were concerning what a student points out in the article. Posting rude comments isn’t productive and the criticism wasn’t sound.