Afterschool Programming Overview
The two principal reasons why schools do not establish debate program are that they either do not know about debate or do not have the support to lead a debate program. The former problem requires advertisement and promotion of debate by the community to administrations, parents and students in schools that lack debate programs. To that end, Perspectives actively seeks out school districts and parents from other schools to inform them of the values of debate and encourage the creation of debate programs.
The volunteer coaching program, however, is meant to alleviate the burden on schools who wish to start debate programs or have their programs grow. While it is easy to understand the value of a debate program and schools may readily admit it would be desirable to have such an activity, the difficulty in finding a faculty sponsor to dedicate so much time to the program with little experience in the field itself often prevents the formation of such teams. An initial contact with debate can seem overwhelming for anyone as he or she must learn the format of the debate round, the way debate leagues function, research the topic area, get students interested in the program, etc. Teachers have their time stretched enough as it is with the many other extracurricular activities, performance pressures and other such stresses placed on them in the classroom.
By providing volunteer coaching to schools, Perspectives seeks to alleviate the initial burden on faculty sponsors for debate programs by providing experienced educators to train students in debate. Our volunteers provides the initial support for schools to start up and build debate programs. Ultimately, Perspectives volunteers seek to provide a debate education in such a way that individual school programs can actively participate in local debate leagues, competitions and sustain themselves so future students can benefit from the activity.