Every Monday after school there is a raucous group of fifth and sixth graders on campus that simply won’t stop arguing! This of course is our competitive debate team, which has grown over the past several years to become a stalwart of the Goldenwest Debate League (GWDL); a league that includes familiar Los Angeles area independent schools including Wise, Carthorp, Curtis, The Center for Early Childhood, and several others. Crestview ended its 2023-2024 campaign last school year by taking first place at the GWDL Championship tournament held at The John Thomas Dye School.
This year the team has been preparing diligently for their first tournament of the 2024-2025 season to be held at the Wise School on December 7. Early in the year, Crestview debaters focused on building foundational skills to effectively refute, note take, and critically think through complex topics. As the debaters progress they learn to build formal assertions followed by reasoning, evidence, significance, and showing the impact of their points.
Lately, debaters have been practicing delivering their cases in front of their peers and coaches during scrimmage sessions. These sessions can get loud not only with dissenting opinions but especially with bursting laughter and rapping knuckles (this being the form of applause in debate). In all, the program aims to develop students to think critically, speak well, and listen carefully in a fun team atmosphere where arguing is encouraged!