International Online Debating Contest mit freundlicher Unterstützung der Britischen Botschaft

Ein herzlicher Dank gilt der Britische Botschaft Berlin, die dieses Jahr die Ausrichtung des Online Debating Contest am 14. Februar 2023 unterstützte!

Dieses Jahr nahmen erstmalig neben elf Berliner Schulen fünf europäische Schulen aus Italien, Spanien, Tschechien, Rumänien und Belgien am Online Wettbewerb teil.

Aus unserer Schule konnte sich ein Junior Team der 7.Klassen erstmals in einem solchen Wettkampf ausprobieren. Ein herzlicher Glückwunsch geht an unser Senior Team, das den zweiten Platz in der Senior League belegte und ebenso an Fee Schnittker, die den zweiten Platz in der Kategorie „best speaker“ belegte.

M. Brehm

Es folgt ein Erfahrungsbericht des Senior Teams:

We, as team Bertha von Suttner Seniors, partook in the International Online Debating Contest where we were given the opportunity to compete against various schools all throughout Europe. Most of us had never debated before, and although this competition was conducted online, and we did run into the occasional technical complications, we found the experience to be very exciting and enjoyable. 

The competition was divided into three separate debates, in each of which we competed against a different school. 

Our first question was “Is a free speech absolutist absolutely the best person to run twitter?”, which Frances, Fee and Helen competed in. We were given several weeks to prepare as a team and learned to truly appreciate the process of researching as a group and preparing our case as the proposition together. It was a truly fulfilling feeling to present all of our hard work and see it result in the first win of our competition, as well as Fee winning best speaker of the debate.

In the second debate we, as the opposition, questioned “If a European army is the only true way to secure our continent?”. We were thrilled to have succeeded in winning this competition as well with Annemie, Frances and Lovis as the contestants. 

Finally, it was time for Annemie, Helen and Fee to compete in the impromptu debate. Here we were given thirty minutes to prepare and build our case with regard to the question “Should we deal with the problems here on earth first before we go back to the moon?”. We were thrilled to claim our third win and another best speaker in this debate.

Finally, it was time for the overall rankings of the debating contest. We were thrilled to be declared second best team of the whole debate and for Fee to claim second place as Best Speaker of the entire competition.

Although some of us had been nervous and therefore apprehensive to join this debate team, we ultimately all ended up truly enjoying the experience and decided to partake in future debates together, as a team. 

To all those interested in trying out debating, we can only urge you to take a chance as you will be grateful for the experience, knowledge and self assurance you acquire throughout this journey.

With kind regards,

Frances, Fee, Helen, Annemie and Lovis

The Bertha von Suttner Seniors