Investigation
Why Debate?
In 2016, it was the first time that I had been selected to represent Peru at the Pan-American Debate Tournament in Vancouver, Canada. Before the tournament, we had been training for two months non-stop to hone our refuting, critical thinking, case-building, teamwork and public speaking skills. Although our team didn’t make it to the “Break” (Quarterfinals or eliminatory rounds), we received a lot of feedback from each of the judges that evaluated our performance, as well as comments from the our coaches.
The overall feedback for my performance could be summarized into the following points:
These three pointers are the reason why I decided to pursue my CAS project on Debate. Given that I’d been elected to represent Peru again in the Pan-American Debate Tournament happening now in Buenos Aires, Argentina, I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to work on those three pointers that I’d been given last year.
Who will be on my team?
In order to improve on these three pieces of feedback, I will work along the coaches of the debate team: Sebastian Dasso, Rafael Shimabukuro and Luis Enrique Zela-Kort. These three retired yet experienced debaters will give me feedback debate after debate, which will help me measure my progress throughout trainings. Ines Fernandez and Deweena Parija, my debate teammates, will also be a crucial part of my growth. As they will be debating alongside me throughout trainings, they will be able to give me first-hand insight on my teamwork and communication.
CAS Objectives:
This CAS project focuses mainly on the strand of Creativity and Activity, given that being able to come up with arguments and refutation is part of Creativity, and being able to speak in public and engage with my own teammates is part of the Action. The main CAS objectives that will be pursued in this project will be Strength and Growth, Challenges and Skills, Collaboration, Awareness of Global Issues and Ethical Choices and Actions. Debate demands you to know extensively about current events, challenge the ethical claims made by your teammates, and collaborate extensively with your team, which is why this CAS project will meet many of the CAS objectives at once.
In 2016, it was the first time that I had been selected to represent Peru at the Pan-American Debate Tournament in Vancouver, Canada. Before the tournament, we had been training for two months non-stop to hone our refuting, critical thinking, case-building, teamwork and public speaking skills. Although our team didn’t make it to the “Break” (Quarterfinals or eliminatory rounds), we received a lot of feedback from each of the judges that evaluated our performance, as well as comments from the our coaches.
The overall feedback for my performance could be summarized into the following points:
- I lacked engagement with the other team’s arguments which weakened the depth of my refutation
- I needed to sign-post my speech as I shifted through the definitions, the models, the arguments and the refutation to make it easier for the judges and the audience to understand
- I needed to work on moderating the tone and pace of my voice, in order to be more engaging and persuasive
These three pointers are the reason why I decided to pursue my CAS project on Debate. Given that I’d been elected to represent Peru again in the Pan-American Debate Tournament happening now in Buenos Aires, Argentina, I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to work on those three pointers that I’d been given last year.
Who will be on my team?
In order to improve on these three pieces of feedback, I will work along the coaches of the debate team: Sebastian Dasso, Rafael Shimabukuro and Luis Enrique Zela-Kort. These three retired yet experienced debaters will give me feedback debate after debate, which will help me measure my progress throughout trainings. Ines Fernandez and Deweena Parija, my debate teammates, will also be a crucial part of my growth. As they will be debating alongside me throughout trainings, they will be able to give me first-hand insight on my teamwork and communication.
CAS Objectives:
This CAS project focuses mainly on the strand of Creativity and Activity, given that being able to come up with arguments and refutation is part of Creativity, and being able to speak in public and engage with my own teammates is part of the Action. The main CAS objectives that will be pursued in this project will be Strength and Growth, Challenges and Skills, Collaboration, Awareness of Global Issues and Ethical Choices and Actions. Debate demands you to know extensively about current events, challenge the ethical claims made by your teammates, and collaborate extensively with your team, which is why this CAS project will meet many of the CAS objectives at once.
Planning and Design
Duration of the project:
The project will begin on December 27th, 2016 and be completed by February 20th, 2017. The reason for this is that trainings begin in December and the tournament in Buenos Aires will end on the February 26th.
These are my three goals (based on the feedback outlined above):
Like is shown in the schedule, I will be training everyday starting January 9th, 2017 until leaving for the tournament on February 13th, 2017. During the training sessions we will be debating a wide range of motions, having workshops on debate procedures and talking about current events. Through these workshops, which would last 4 hours each, I will be building my knowledge and skills necessary to perform well in the Pan-American Debate Tournament.
The project will begin on December 27th, 2016 and be completed by February 20th, 2017. The reason for this is that trainings begin in December and the tournament in Buenos Aires will end on the February 26th.
These are my three goals (based on the feedback outlined above):
- Improve engagement with the other team’s arguments and craft an in-depth refutation that is structured
- Sign-post the speech as I shift through the content (Between definition, models, and arguments)
- Moderate the tone and pace of my voice, become the character in the speech to be convincing
- Qualitative: I will record the feedback given by my coaches and teammates during trainings and during the Pan-American Debate Tournament in Buenos Aires
- Quantitative: The objective is to qualify to the Quarterfinals in either the English or Spanish division of the tournament
Like is shown in the schedule, I will be training everyday starting January 9th, 2017 until leaving for the tournament on February 13th, 2017. During the training sessions we will be debating a wide range of motions, having workshops on debate procedures and talking about current events. Through these workshops, which would last 4 hours each, I will be building my knowledge and skills necessary to perform well in the Pan-American Debate Tournament.
Trainings Schedule
Trainings and Tournament Schedule
Action and Reflection: Pan-American Debate Tournament in February 2017
The following are descriptions and summaries of each debate that happened in the tournament, both for the Spanish and English Rounds and the Quarterfinals. The pictures that serve as evidence of the Action are posted below the summary.
Spanish Preliminary Rounds:
Motion 1: “Esta cámara lamenta el juicio de Dilma Rousseff”
We were proposition, so we had to defend this motion. This was a very interesting debate for me as I was the second speaker in our team, and I’m usually accustomed to being the first. Being the second speaker meant that I had to do 5 minutes of refutation and then deliver our final argument in 3 minutes. Even though this was a prepared case so I knew the refutation for all the points they were bringing, I realized the enormous difference between knowing what you want to say and how it actually comes out. This ended up being the reason why we lost the debate: we were so focused on showing off what we knew that we forgot that the judges and the audience weren’t following us, given that they didn’t have the background knowledge. It was a hard loss given that we worked so hard on the case, but we kept our spirits up for the next round.
Motion 2: “Esta cámara apoya al TPP”
This time we were opposition, and I was the first speaker for our team. We were up against team Argentina 1, which had a very solid case based on facts and statistics. It was the first time that I had debated a motion on free trade agreements, so I found it very challenging to come up with refutation to some of the more complicated claims they brought. We brought up the ISDS, the subsidies of the developed countries on primary goods and more points on labor rights and working conditions. In the end, the debate was given over to team Argentina, yet I was proud of our overall performance as a team. While we were waiting for the results, our team had a very friendly chat with them, they were extremely nice people.
Motion 3: “Esta cámara declararía al Internet como derecho universal”
The debate was very frustrating, mainly because the proposition brought very weird arguments that didn’t have anything to do with the actual motion. As the first opposition, I found it very challenging to refute things that didn’t even make sense in the first place, which led to the debate into a very confusing exchange of ideas. I wanted the debate to be over, because with each speaker the debate got more and more deviated from the original motion, and it was painful to listen. The judges felt the same way, and that was the overall feedback for the debate. Although we did end up taking the debate, I realized the importance as a team to be able to refute both intelligent points as well as points that don’t necessarily make sense.
English Preliminary Rounds
Motion 4: “This house would impose economic sanctions in Venezuela”
This was, by far, the best debate I’ve ever been in. We were proposition, and I was in charge of framing the case, give our model and present our first two arguments. Overall, the amount of time and dedication that we put into this case really did pay off. We knew our facts, we anticipated their refutation and their claims, and were able to turn every single one of them to our side. It was really no surprise that the debate was given to us, we really nailed it. It was the first time that at every stage of the debate I felt that we were in the lead. In most debates, when the other team refutes I don’t know which of us is going to win, yet this time I knew that their points weren’t holding against our own claims. This debate is a keeper.
Motion 5: “This house would ban gay conversion therapies”
In this debate we were opposition, and it was a very tricky subject, mainly because it’s not a subject that is commonly discussed or debated. What made it worse was that our stance, although it was very clever and well thought out, it was very complex to understand at first glance. And I think that was the main reason we lost the debate since the start, given that the team started refuting something that we hadn’t said and the debate started taking a very confusing direction. By the time we realized what was happening, it was already too late to point out the obvious flaws that their refutation had, and it costs us the entire debate.
Motion 6: “This house would make renewable energy a condition to receive non-emergency aid”
Coincidentally, we were up against team Argentina 1 for a second time. This time, we had opposite sides: Peru was proposition and Argentina was opposition. The debate was very solid, both sides were very well researched and had solid claims, which is why the outcome was a split tie. However, the reason why the split tie went to Argentina was because they did a lot of refutation on our model, and not so much on our arguments. However, because we couldn’t save our model based on things that we had forgotten to say at the beginning, it weakened our entire case in the long run. As a team, we do need to work being clear and concise about our initial claims, so that they don’t jump back at us at the end of the debate when we can no longer fix it.
English Quarterfinals Round: “This house would ban foreign takeovers in developing countries”
For the third time, we were up against team Argentina 1 for the Quarterfinals. This was an impromptu motion, which meant that we had only 1 hour to prepare the entire case. What was even more challenging was the fact that none of our team members had previously taken a business or economics class related to foreign takeovers, so our arguments were mainly based on obvious reasoning and logical deductions. This was the Quarterfinals and about 40 people were in the room watching the debate, which incremented the pressure. My heart was beating as I stood up and delivered the 1st opposition speech. Our team overall did pretty well, I was so proud to how far we had come not only as debaters but as a team. Although the split tie was given to team Argentina, I felt completely satisfied with our performance in the tournament.
Spanish Preliminary Rounds:
Motion 1: “Esta cámara lamenta el juicio de Dilma Rousseff”
We were proposition, so we had to defend this motion. This was a very interesting debate for me as I was the second speaker in our team, and I’m usually accustomed to being the first. Being the second speaker meant that I had to do 5 minutes of refutation and then deliver our final argument in 3 minutes. Even though this was a prepared case so I knew the refutation for all the points they were bringing, I realized the enormous difference between knowing what you want to say and how it actually comes out. This ended up being the reason why we lost the debate: we were so focused on showing off what we knew that we forgot that the judges and the audience weren’t following us, given that they didn’t have the background knowledge. It was a hard loss given that we worked so hard on the case, but we kept our spirits up for the next round.
Motion 2: “Esta cámara apoya al TPP”
This time we were opposition, and I was the first speaker for our team. We were up against team Argentina 1, which had a very solid case based on facts and statistics. It was the first time that I had debated a motion on free trade agreements, so I found it very challenging to come up with refutation to some of the more complicated claims they brought. We brought up the ISDS, the subsidies of the developed countries on primary goods and more points on labor rights and working conditions. In the end, the debate was given over to team Argentina, yet I was proud of our overall performance as a team. While we were waiting for the results, our team had a very friendly chat with them, they were extremely nice people.
Motion 3: “Esta cámara declararía al Internet como derecho universal”
The debate was very frustrating, mainly because the proposition brought very weird arguments that didn’t have anything to do with the actual motion. As the first opposition, I found it very challenging to refute things that didn’t even make sense in the first place, which led to the debate into a very confusing exchange of ideas. I wanted the debate to be over, because with each speaker the debate got more and more deviated from the original motion, and it was painful to listen. The judges felt the same way, and that was the overall feedback for the debate. Although we did end up taking the debate, I realized the importance as a team to be able to refute both intelligent points as well as points that don’t necessarily make sense.
English Preliminary Rounds
Motion 4: “This house would impose economic sanctions in Venezuela”
This was, by far, the best debate I’ve ever been in. We were proposition, and I was in charge of framing the case, give our model and present our first two arguments. Overall, the amount of time and dedication that we put into this case really did pay off. We knew our facts, we anticipated their refutation and their claims, and were able to turn every single one of them to our side. It was really no surprise that the debate was given to us, we really nailed it. It was the first time that at every stage of the debate I felt that we were in the lead. In most debates, when the other team refutes I don’t know which of us is going to win, yet this time I knew that their points weren’t holding against our own claims. This debate is a keeper.
Motion 5: “This house would ban gay conversion therapies”
In this debate we were opposition, and it was a very tricky subject, mainly because it’s not a subject that is commonly discussed or debated. What made it worse was that our stance, although it was very clever and well thought out, it was very complex to understand at first glance. And I think that was the main reason we lost the debate since the start, given that the team started refuting something that we hadn’t said and the debate started taking a very confusing direction. By the time we realized what was happening, it was already too late to point out the obvious flaws that their refutation had, and it costs us the entire debate.
Motion 6: “This house would make renewable energy a condition to receive non-emergency aid”
Coincidentally, we were up against team Argentina 1 for a second time. This time, we had opposite sides: Peru was proposition and Argentina was opposition. The debate was very solid, both sides were very well researched and had solid claims, which is why the outcome was a split tie. However, the reason why the split tie went to Argentina was because they did a lot of refutation on our model, and not so much on our arguments. However, because we couldn’t save our model based on things that we had forgotten to say at the beginning, it weakened our entire case in the long run. As a team, we do need to work being clear and concise about our initial claims, so that they don’t jump back at us at the end of the debate when we can no longer fix it.
English Quarterfinals Round: “This house would ban foreign takeovers in developing countries”
For the third time, we were up against team Argentina 1 for the Quarterfinals. This was an impromptu motion, which meant that we had only 1 hour to prepare the entire case. What was even more challenging was the fact that none of our team members had previously taken a business or economics class related to foreign takeovers, so our arguments were mainly based on obvious reasoning and logical deductions. This was the Quarterfinals and about 40 people were in the room watching the debate, which incremented the pressure. My heart was beating as I stood up and delivered the 1st opposition speech. Our team overall did pretty well, I was so proud to how far we had come not only as debaters but as a team. Although the split tie was given to team Argentina, I felt completely satisfied with our performance in the tournament.
Demonstration of Learning
Outcome #1: Strength and Growth
Outcome #2: Challenges and Skills
Outcome #4: Perseverance and Commitment
Outcome #5: Collaboration
Outcome #6: Awareness of Global Issues
Outcome #7: Ethical Choices and Actions
“This is what my entire summer sums up to”, was what I kept repeating to myself over and over again as the bus drove by Av. 9 de Julio into the Universidad Católica Argentina. In a way, I wasn’t exaggerating, given that I had spent six hours of my life since the start of 2017 going to debate trainings and researching for the prepared motions. Even during the weekends, I would occasionally find myself researching more facts and more case studies while all my friends were down at the beach.
The entire reason for my overwhelming stress can be summarized into one phrase: The A-team.
Last year, I wasn’t part of the “A-Team”, which is a term in debate we use to reference Peru’s best team, or the team that actually has the burden to do extremely well and has to debate both in Spanish and English.
This year, I was selected to be part of the “A-Team”. We were the team who had worked the hardest. We were the team debating 12 debates instead of 6. We were the team the coaches relied on to make it to the Quarterfinals.
And the reason why I had spent so much of my summer working for debate, was for the sole reason that I wanted to prove myself and our team. Knowing that you needed to win a minimum of 3 out of 6 debates to make it to the Quarterfinals, I strategically made the prepared motions extremely well researched and developed to assure ourselves a win. The improvised motions, I knew they were going to be up to our own abilities, yet it wasn’t something I could control.
The debate tournament opened with the Spanish preliminary rounds, and it was the language division that the coaches were betting on us to “break”, or in general terms, make it to the Quarterfinals. The prepared cases had more than 16 pages of research, extensive refutation tables, and more than 30 hours of work each. These were my biggest pride, and I wasn’t planning on loosing any of them.
Things certainly didn’t go as planned.
Debate after debate, our confidence went from being in the clouds to being smashed repeatedly against the pavement. We lost the first debate, we lost the second debate, and we lost the third debate. I didn’t necessarily have a problem with losing the first debate, after all, it had been against the best Mexican team in an impromptu debate and we had lost in a split (2-1). But that wasn’t the case for the other two debates that followed.
The second debate was a prepared motion about Dilma Rousseff’s trial, which I had personally spend more than 10 hours researching. I knew everything about the trial, Temer’s economic policies, Lava Jato, Lula da Silva, and the Brazilian media. I was prepared to provide refutation to the most complicated ideas that the other team might have brought, ranging from the Constitution to Socialist regimes. What I wasn’t prepared for, is a team that never understood our case and arguments filled with logical fallacies at every turn. Minute by minute, I could feel how my case, which I thought to be irrefutable, was being crushed by ideas that didn’t even make sense. Although we lost in a split loss (2-1), I felt completely devastated. I couldn’t believe that I been prepared to refute any kind of argument except those that don’t actually make sense. I was so proud of my own case that I didn’t adapt to what the other team brought.
Our team was so personally disappointed in that debate, that it was exactly what made us loose on the third one. We were debating the Trans Pacific Partnership FTA this time, and we made the exact same mistake, yet now against the best team in Argentina. We were so hung onto our own facts and our own arguments, that we failed to do basic refutation of the points they brought. This resulted in having two parallel debates, in which neither side conceded their points and only talked about the benefits of their side. However, that’s not the way debate is supposed to work, you’re supposed to engage with the ideas the other side brings and prove them false or irrelevant.
And with three losses, our first day in the Spanish rounds ended. It was incredible to think that in the morning we were looking to make it to the Quarterfinals and now we are hoping that we won at least one debate in what was left of the tournament.
To make it even worse, the next day, the exact same thing happened to us. No engagement with the other side, failed to refute the most basic points, and stuck too much on our side. At the end of the second day, I felt like a complete failure. I had never failed in such a miserable way. The worst thing is that it would have been justifiable if I hadn’t prepared enough, yet I had given my all to these cases and it still wasn’t enough. To top it off, it wasn’t like Inés (my debate partner) and I could cry and be depressed for the rest of the trip, given that we had to prepared now for the English preliminary rounds.
The motivation to debate in English was below zero, we were just tired and sad. I lost my ability to talk as we were on our way back to the hotel, and I felt incredibly sick.
I don’t really remember how we did it. Inés and I decided to talk it out in the room, and started to evaluate our performance. We started to analyze what we had done right and what we had done wrong. After a very long talk, it boiled down to needing to communicate refutation ideas during the debate, and having an outline of our burden, stance and model in the table for us to reference throughout the entire debate. This way, we would never be sidetracked with irrelevant points, and instead be fully focused on proving our burdens to the judges.
Instead of mourning over our devastating losses, we spent the entire night rearranging our case structure so that they would become “Duh Cases”, a term we invented at around 2am of that day. By a “Duh Case”, we meant having a case that was logical, obvious and very easy to follow. We trashed away all the complicated rhetoric, and focused on having a case that was perfectly understandable and basically obvious, in order to avoid unnecessary doubt that eventually sidetracked the debate.
The next day, we walked into the English preliminary rounds with a completely plan: we walked in with markers of different colors to highlight the most important refutation points, a blank sheet of paper specifically for sharing points of informations, and an A3 sheet with our burdens, our model and our three arguments outlined. We rearranged the seating order so that I could be in the middle and create conversation between the three of us during the entire debate, and proudly pasted our Peruvian flag in front of our table.
To our surprise, the change in our game plan worked so well. We started winning debate after debate, and even won the motion related to imposing sanctions in Venezuela. Our entire team had spent hours researching about Maduro, economic sanctions, economic policies in Venezuela and the effect on its people. This case was our baby--and we had even spent 4 hours the night before making it extremely clear and concise. When we won all the judges against the Mexican team would had beaten us in the Spanish rounds, I felt this rush of accomplishment invade my heart. It wasn’t only the fact that we actually won a case we were so proud of, but that our perseverance allowed us to pull ourselves together and keep working hard. At that moment, I really felt that all of our sacrifice was worth it.
Believe it or not, our team actually classified for the Quarterfinals. I couldn’t have been more proud of my team and even myself for the commitment we showed throughout the entire tournament.
Outcome #2: Challenges and Skills
Outcome #4: Perseverance and Commitment
Outcome #5: Collaboration
Outcome #6: Awareness of Global Issues
Outcome #7: Ethical Choices and Actions
“This is what my entire summer sums up to”, was what I kept repeating to myself over and over again as the bus drove by Av. 9 de Julio into the Universidad Católica Argentina. In a way, I wasn’t exaggerating, given that I had spent six hours of my life since the start of 2017 going to debate trainings and researching for the prepared motions. Even during the weekends, I would occasionally find myself researching more facts and more case studies while all my friends were down at the beach.
The entire reason for my overwhelming stress can be summarized into one phrase: The A-team.
Last year, I wasn’t part of the “A-Team”, which is a term in debate we use to reference Peru’s best team, or the team that actually has the burden to do extremely well and has to debate both in Spanish and English.
This year, I was selected to be part of the “A-Team”. We were the team who had worked the hardest. We were the team debating 12 debates instead of 6. We were the team the coaches relied on to make it to the Quarterfinals.
And the reason why I had spent so much of my summer working for debate, was for the sole reason that I wanted to prove myself and our team. Knowing that you needed to win a minimum of 3 out of 6 debates to make it to the Quarterfinals, I strategically made the prepared motions extremely well researched and developed to assure ourselves a win. The improvised motions, I knew they were going to be up to our own abilities, yet it wasn’t something I could control.
The debate tournament opened with the Spanish preliminary rounds, and it was the language division that the coaches were betting on us to “break”, or in general terms, make it to the Quarterfinals. The prepared cases had more than 16 pages of research, extensive refutation tables, and more than 30 hours of work each. These were my biggest pride, and I wasn’t planning on loosing any of them.
Things certainly didn’t go as planned.
Debate after debate, our confidence went from being in the clouds to being smashed repeatedly against the pavement. We lost the first debate, we lost the second debate, and we lost the third debate. I didn’t necessarily have a problem with losing the first debate, after all, it had been against the best Mexican team in an impromptu debate and we had lost in a split (2-1). But that wasn’t the case for the other two debates that followed.
The second debate was a prepared motion about Dilma Rousseff’s trial, which I had personally spend more than 10 hours researching. I knew everything about the trial, Temer’s economic policies, Lava Jato, Lula da Silva, and the Brazilian media. I was prepared to provide refutation to the most complicated ideas that the other team might have brought, ranging from the Constitution to Socialist regimes. What I wasn’t prepared for, is a team that never understood our case and arguments filled with logical fallacies at every turn. Minute by minute, I could feel how my case, which I thought to be irrefutable, was being crushed by ideas that didn’t even make sense. Although we lost in a split loss (2-1), I felt completely devastated. I couldn’t believe that I been prepared to refute any kind of argument except those that don’t actually make sense. I was so proud of my own case that I didn’t adapt to what the other team brought.
Our team was so personally disappointed in that debate, that it was exactly what made us loose on the third one. We were debating the Trans Pacific Partnership FTA this time, and we made the exact same mistake, yet now against the best team in Argentina. We were so hung onto our own facts and our own arguments, that we failed to do basic refutation of the points they brought. This resulted in having two parallel debates, in which neither side conceded their points and only talked about the benefits of their side. However, that’s not the way debate is supposed to work, you’re supposed to engage with the ideas the other side brings and prove them false or irrelevant.
And with three losses, our first day in the Spanish rounds ended. It was incredible to think that in the morning we were looking to make it to the Quarterfinals and now we are hoping that we won at least one debate in what was left of the tournament.
To make it even worse, the next day, the exact same thing happened to us. No engagement with the other side, failed to refute the most basic points, and stuck too much on our side. At the end of the second day, I felt like a complete failure. I had never failed in such a miserable way. The worst thing is that it would have been justifiable if I hadn’t prepared enough, yet I had given my all to these cases and it still wasn’t enough. To top it off, it wasn’t like Inés (my debate partner) and I could cry and be depressed for the rest of the trip, given that we had to prepared now for the English preliminary rounds.
The motivation to debate in English was below zero, we were just tired and sad. I lost my ability to talk as we were on our way back to the hotel, and I felt incredibly sick.
I don’t really remember how we did it. Inés and I decided to talk it out in the room, and started to evaluate our performance. We started to analyze what we had done right and what we had done wrong. After a very long talk, it boiled down to needing to communicate refutation ideas during the debate, and having an outline of our burden, stance and model in the table for us to reference throughout the entire debate. This way, we would never be sidetracked with irrelevant points, and instead be fully focused on proving our burdens to the judges.
Instead of mourning over our devastating losses, we spent the entire night rearranging our case structure so that they would become “Duh Cases”, a term we invented at around 2am of that day. By a “Duh Case”, we meant having a case that was logical, obvious and very easy to follow. We trashed away all the complicated rhetoric, and focused on having a case that was perfectly understandable and basically obvious, in order to avoid unnecessary doubt that eventually sidetracked the debate.
The next day, we walked into the English preliminary rounds with a completely plan: we walked in with markers of different colors to highlight the most important refutation points, a blank sheet of paper specifically for sharing points of informations, and an A3 sheet with our burdens, our model and our three arguments outlined. We rearranged the seating order so that I could be in the middle and create conversation between the three of us during the entire debate, and proudly pasted our Peruvian flag in front of our table.
To our surprise, the change in our game plan worked so well. We started winning debate after debate, and even won the motion related to imposing sanctions in Venezuela. Our entire team had spent hours researching about Maduro, economic sanctions, economic policies in Venezuela and the effect on its people. This case was our baby--and we had even spent 4 hours the night before making it extremely clear and concise. When we won all the judges against the Mexican team would had beaten us in the Spanish rounds, I felt this rush of accomplishment invade my heart. It wasn’t only the fact that we actually won a case we were so proud of, but that our perseverance allowed us to pull ourselves together and keep working hard. At that moment, I really felt that all of our sacrifice was worth it.
Believe it or not, our team actually classified for the Quarterfinals. I couldn’t have been more proud of my team and even myself for the commitment we showed throughout the entire tournament.