Video transcript
NSW Premier's Debating Challenge 2015 - Primary Schools State Debating Championships Final

I welcome you to the finals of the Primary School State Debating Championships. This debate is between Northern Sydney and Riverina. The affirmative team from Northern Sydney is first speaker Zack, second speaker Sophie, third speaker Rachel, and Team Advisor, Emily.

The negative team from Riverina is first speaker, Jamie, second speaker, Preston, third speaker, Beth, and Team Advisor, Ellie. The adjudicators for this debate are Patrick, Theodora, Nick, [INAUDIBLE], and Don. Each speaker may speak for four minutes. There will be a warning bell at three minutes.

[BELL CHIME]

With two bells at four minutes--

[BELL CHIMING]

--to indicate that the speaker's time has expired. A bell will be rung continuously if a speaker exceeds the maximum time by more than one minute. Finally, before we begin, please ensure that all mobile phones are switched off.

The topic for this debate is that the school curriculum should include two hours of charity work per week in years 5 to 12. Please welcome the first speaker of the affirmative team to begin the debate.

[APPLAUSE]

Ladies and gentlemen, students in today's society do not feel the urge to help those who really need it. With our policy today, charities will improve, learning will improve, students will improve. And Australian schools, in particular, will improve if students of years 5 to 12 do to two hours per week of charity work.

We of the affirmative team believe that all Australian schools should include two hours of charity work per week for years 5 to 12. This should happen by 2017 at all Australian primary and high schools. This will happen by making the Australian Department of Education apply this policy to all school guidelines.

Students of years 5 to 12 will help various charities, like Salvation Army, aged care homes, and local government. They will do one hour of charity work on two various days a week. Our model will work, because with two hours of charity work in a week, charities will improve, students' lives will improve, and Australian primary schools and high schools will improve with our model in place.

Students will be supervised while doing these charities to keep safe from many dangers that can happen. Today, my points are that it teaches life lessons, and Australia is self-absorbed at this moment of time. Our second speaker's points are that charities will improve, and students will become even more fit. Now I will begin my first point.

Students will learn life lessons by helping charities. Students will have new and enjoyable experiences by helping charities like the White Ribbon Day, which is actually today. Students can help raise awareness for various charities, and learn various life lessons as well. Students will learn how to start conversations, how to give to others, and how it is important to help people who are trying to improve Australian life for all of us.

Year 5 and 12 students will enjoy doing charities, like improving our wildlife, and will learn life lessons, like how to plant and nurture trees. And how to look after local animals, like an endangered possum or wombat, and generally, how to help our society. Take for example, vast majorities of students don't know how to care for an injured possum if it were to be hit by a car.

But after working with local governments to help our wildlife, students of years 5 to 12 will be able to deal with these problems in future stages of life. This is why the school curriculum needs to include two hours of charity work per week for years 5 to 12. My second point is that students of years 5 to 12 will be less self-absorbed. Students will feel more charitable by helping those in need.

[BELL CHIME]

Making a difference in our community is literally contagious. Once you start, you just can't stop. Getting children off their backsides, off their phones, and away from their crowded desks to do charity work may improve their lifestyles dramatically. Imagine how our charities in Australia will improve when students of years 5 to 12 become less self-absorbed and more charitable.

Take for example, as stated in the Daily Telegraph, Maya Alexander cut off her ponytails when she was only seven years old. And what about Sam Mitchell Smith? He sold all of his toys so he could give all the profits to Oxfam. Imagine if all students in years 5 to 12 were this charitable. They would feel happier, and be so proud of themselves.

This can happen by implementing our model, so that many charities will be able to excel like never before. This is why the school curriculum--

[BELL CHIME]

--should include two hours of charity work per week in years 5 to 12. Because it will teach life lessons, and Australian students between the years of 5 to 12 will be less self-absorbed.

[APPLAUSE]

Good morning, ladies, gentlemen, and adjudicators. The other team stated that students will learn life lessons by doing charity work in school. While you may learn life lessons, this can be done outside of school in your own time. Whether it is after you've done your homework, or at a specific time that your parents have arranged.

Math, English, and basic skills are way more important than doing these-- than doing charity work. The other team also stated that charities will improve if schools force you to do charity work. But we believe that taking children out of school for long hours will equal loss of curriculum and large sums of money.

We believe that if children really want to help, they can do it in their own time. Like I've said, out of school. The other team also stated that doing charity work would benefit kids in the future. Kids benefit from many other things in school, like English, math, science, history. They teach you about all of the different lessons, like how to write a proper sentence, and how to add numbers.

I'm sure some kids may benefit from it, although most would appreciate more doing subjects. The negative team also stated that most kids don't know how to care for a possum if it is injured. This is true, but most kids don't come across this very often, and they wouldn't put young kids-- they wouldn't let young kids do charity work around a dead possum and help them care for it.

The school curriculum is so busy, so why make it busier? We believe in the status quo as what's already in place. It's already an option. So why should we change it if it's already working?

Today, I will be speaking about freedom of choice, and how the curriculum is already busy. And our second speaker will be speaking about how there are no benefits in making this change, and how it is already an option. My first argument is about freedom of choice and human rights.

Kids should get to choose if they want to do charity work or not. It shouldn't be a compulsory thing they have to do. People have the freedom of choice to do so many things. For example, they go overseas, by a car, or go to the shops and do some grocery shopping. And you can still choose to do charity work in school, when you're at the end of high school, or even out of school.

Parents should also have an impact on this. Parents should ultimately have a say in whether or not their child participates in charity work. By forcing schools--

[BELL CHIME]

--to make this change, parents lose the right to make this decision. We have many human rights, but being able to be forced to do something isn't one.

We have the right to do so many things, so we don't want to be made to volunteer. The human rights book was written so we could have rights and not be teared away from them. But by implementing the affirmative team's model, we will lose the right to have free will.

We choose what we want, and we should be able to keep this. We can choose what we want for lunch, or even choose what flavor chocolate we want. So we don't see the problem in letting us choose if we want to do charity work.

Freedom of choice and human rights mean a lot to people, and we don't want to take this away from them. Having something torn away from you feels horrible, especially being something so important like human rights. And that's why we shouldn't include charity work in the school curriculum. My second point today is the curriculum.

[BELL CHIMING]

The curriculum is already super busy with all the necessities of a child's education. Everything already in the curriculum is what a child needs to learn. Nothing in the curriculum needs to be taken out or shorted, and that's what it would conclude to if we had to add charity work because it was compulsory.

In a school week, we have around 30 hours to complete loads of subjects. In high school, there are so many subjects and even electives to get finished. We can barely fit the curriculum in now, and by taking away two hours of school a week is making trying to fit these in even harder for students, and for teachers.

We don't need to make charity work compulsory, as it is already an option. They are basically going to have to change the curriculum around completely. This will mess with teachers' working hours that they have to work. Kids will get bored with doing charity work for the rest of their schooling life from year 5.

[BELL CHIMING]

And that's why we shouldn't make it compulsory.

[APPLAUSE]

Ladies and gentlemen, we believe that so far, the opposition's case has come down to three main issues. Firstly, the students would lose time, and that it was a waste. Secondly, that students deserve their human rights and the freedom to choose. And lastly, that they could do it in their own time.

So onto that they would lose time. The opposition told you you would lose school time and waste it by going and helping charities. Actually, life lessons such as being charitable, and helping the community, and living a better life are important. And students are absolutely not wasting time. In fact, we believe that we will actually be learning more important things.

Even if we were wasting time, children will actually learn better after moving around. Because it's scientifically proven that if you move around before learning, you will be able to take in more information. They also brought up the idea that it would be long hours. Even if, to some extent, we were wasting time, we don't think that two hours is a great deal of time, considering you spent 30 hours at school a week. And if you do the math, that's around 7% of your school time in one week.

The debate is about years 5 to 12, and we believe that kindergarten students need to learn how to write a sentence and add numbers, not high school and older primary school students. Charity work and learning life lessons should be important for them and their future lives. Onto what they brought up about human rights and the freedom of choice.

We didn't think that asking you to help others and devote a little bit of your time to help others is a huge violation of your human rights. They also brought up the fact that they shouldn't be forced into doing this. Yet, in a school week, you are forced to do math, you are forced to do English. And we think that it would be perfectly acceptable for you to be forced to help others and do charity work.

They also said that students could do it in our own time. But we believe that the problem is that students aren't choosing to do it in their own time, and we think that is a huge problem. And we think the only way that that can be fixed is by imposing our model.

They also said they didn't want kids working around dead possums. Well, firstly, they're not trying to help dead possums, considering they're already dead. They're trying to help injured possums.

They also said that this wasn't a common thing. Have you seen how much wildlife we have in Australia? There is always going to be an animal in need somewhere around your area, and we think it's very important for children to learn how to care for it.

Today, I'm going to be talking to you about how imposing our model, we will have better charities and communities, which will eventually lead to a better Australia. And how kids will be getting out more and learning more from the world. So my first point--

[BELL CHIME]

--we will be having better charities and communities, which will lead to a better Australia. Australia is made up of many communities and the charities within. First, let me start with the communal facilities, such as libraries, parks, halls, or places such as retirement homes.

These are all facilities that can have trouble getting workers to help. But if our model came in to help, it would be more enjoyable for the communities. With babies not falling down holes in the slide, with a biography of a great religious leader not being found in the science fiction section, or the elderly being left to roam the nursing home.

Students will also be able to help local charities, such as the White Ribbon Foundation, handing out brochures, or setting the charity events up. Or even sorting out clothes at Vinnies Red Cross or Lifeline. With all these communities being improved, since these communities make up Australia, the whole country will be improved, improving the well-being of everyone.

[BELL CHIME]

In conclusion, our model would work, because all of our communities would be so much safer and better quality, and the students have gone through an experience of helping others. Onto my second point. Kids will be getting out more and learning more from their life experiences.

It is proven that moving before you learn allows you to take in more information. So if the students were out running errands, their brains would be able-- would be working harder when they return to school. During a school day, many students aren't actually getting enough exercise. But by them out helping and working in gardens, we ensure that they would.

Also, children will be learning from these experiences. Whether it be from them learning about the charities they are working for, or if they are working in the community. They may be working in homeless shelters, learning how privileged they are to be living in a home and a roof over their heads. Or basic life skills like how to set up a tent, or for older kids, how to hammer a nail.

[BELL CHIMING]

In conclusion, children doing charity work for two hours will be an extremely effective model. Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

The opposition stated that kids will be falling through slides. What kind of parent would let their kids go on a slide where there are holes big enough for a child to fall through? Anyway, there are council workers for this that will help fix slides. I don't think charities are going to be helping kids how to put a bit of plastic into a slide.

They're saying that charities are going to be helping sort books. If a biography by a religious leader is in science fiction. There are things called librarians who are paid to do this. They're saying that elderly people might be wandering around elderly care homes. Yes, this will happen, but there are elderly care workers who help this.

The second speaker stated that if they do charity work, they would be doing exercise. Exercise usually isn't done in charity, like fixing a slide, or finding a book's right place. Usually, serving and helping people doesn't involve exercise.

The second speaker stated that you are forced to do lots of things like math, so you should learn charity work. Math, you need it when you're older for a lot of certain jobs, like an accountant or working as a cashier. The opposition stated that charity work is more important. But if charities all over the country already have enthusiastic, efficient workers, then why should kids-- kids might not find this work is enjoyable, and won't be as efficient as the adult.

The first speaker stated that kids would be less self-absorbed if they did charity work. Most kids aren't self-absorbed, although some are. Those ones may learn eventually by their parents or other friends that is not a great thing to be self-absorbed. You do not need charity work to help you with this.

The other team stated that kids won't be sitting on the couch on their backside if they did charity work. At school, you don't sit on couches all day. You learn. You go to lunch, when kids are able to run around and have fun. Kids can sit on the couch all day if they like, but at school, you have to concentrate and learn.

The affirmative team tried to persuade you that we will take kids out of school so that we could help injured wombats and possums. But this will take months to teach kids how to help a possum or a wombat. And anyway, we have vets for this. And there are already volunteers out there doing things like this that have done long years of training.

[BELL CHIME]

It takes a bit to train. Eight years of qualifications. I think we should just leave it to the vets. The school curriculum is busy, so why make it busier? My first point today is that doing charity work has no benefits for the receiver of the charity, whoever's helping them, and teachers.

First of all, the person receiving the help may not be getting genuine help from the children. Because if a child is not enthusiastic or passionate about the charity work, then if someone needs help, the child might not know how to help, or even disrespect and be insensitive towards the person. Imagine if this person was seriously sick. And instead of having a passionate, caring, and volunteer relate-- a volunteer who relates to you, instead, having a 13-year-old kid checking his latest technology every minute, who doesn't relate to you in the slightest.

[BELL CHIME]

This would be extremely unfair on this patient, and how is this going to affect the teach-- but how is this going to affect the teachers, who are going to miss out on two hours out of 23 and 1/2 of hours of school each week? This simply isn't enough time. If you think that teachers get frustrated if you do debating for 30 minutes, imagine timing that by four.

Not to mention, how are we going to get all of these charities out into the small towns? Even if we don't get all these charities out there, we are going to have to travel, which could be one or two hours. That means we're losing more school time.

But how will we get to these bigger towns? Will we have to hire a bus? If we do, who's going to pay for it? If we are having years 5 to 12 all travel on buses, the pricing will be astronomical to get a whole high school to travel on a bus.

[BELL CHIMING]

The school curriculum is busy, so why make it busier?

[APPLAUSE]

In this debate, we believe that there were three big questions asked. "Is there a problem?" "Will it work?" And, "Is it worth it?" But firstly, "Is there a problem?" The first big clash was about, is there an actual problem? Yes, there are hundreds of charities out there, but are they all getting the help that they so desperately need? No.

The Breast Cancer Foundation is trying to find a cure to breast cancer, but they are having to hold back because they don't have enough money to purchase the right technology. There is a problem. There may be lots of volunteer workers, but they all split to different causes, with not enough in each one.

By putting children into charity work, not only will they develop life lessons, as my second speaker spoke about, but provide themselves to fill the places of those who never stepped forward. If we get kids to run fundraisers and spread awareness, then maybe the Breast Cancer Foundation will get the money they need to get the right equipment, give money to the Foundation Army, in need the feed the homeless.

Charities like that aren't getting the money they need to achieve their goals, and they do not have the right amount of people by their sides to help them with their causes. And that is definitely a problem. A problem we need to solve.

The opposition stated that two hours of charity a week-- two hours of charity work in a 30-day week is too much missed time for learning. Less than 10% of your school week is worth being put towards charity. Two hours is a minority of a 30-hour week that can be put towards people in desperate need.

They said that the price of buses would be an issue, but we only require you to help in your local community, a walking distance away. Will this work? The second issue of this debate. The next question was about if this will work. There are a few parts to this, the first one being, will you lose school time?

We do not agree with the point put forward by the opposition that students will lose precious learning time. In fact, we think that it's quite the opposite. If anything, they're getting a more valuable education for the two following reasons.

The first being the point put forward by my second speaker. Getting out is proven help your concentration and focus. By simply moving, the hormones in your brain enthuse you to focus even better than before. If that doesn't make you have a better educational learning experience, what does?

And onto the second part of this. Kids will learn life lessons. Being taught skills that are guaranteed to help you when you're older is a major plus, and it will teach our students to be thankful for what they have.

Seeing what the less fortunate do and don't have will teach our young generation that there are people who are in troubled situations. If anything, encourage kids to not only work their hardest during the compulsory sessions, but take these skills and use them outside of school hours. And apply for volunteer work and continue projects in and out of school.

This will not waste time. Putting in place our model, it will be a better use of the time we already have. That is why we need to put our model in place. Secondly, will the situation improve? The opposition then spoke about how the kids can learn better and more important lessons during school.

There may be more important classes out there--

[BELL CHIME]

--but none that give you this good an experience. Learning about charities during HSIE is not the same as working for those charities and actually making a difference. There is not a fine line between the two. To give children a proper teaching in these subjects, they need to actually get into it.

Looking at a whiteboard will not help our students. That is not what life in the future is like, looking at a whiteboard. But being an important and helpful member of our society truly is important. Thirdly, is it a choice or not?

Firstly, why would someone object to doing charity work? There's no negatives. We'll be learning life lessons, getting fit, and being happy. Secondly, the opposition has told us that we have to already do the curriculum, and that it's compulsory. Well, that's not freedom of choice, is it? And they're saying that is more important than learning life skills.

Isn't that an invasion of your rights? Unless you count being told by your teacher and the curriculum to do math as doing something against your wishes an invasion of your rights. If they are both in the curriculum and have that similarity, why is it considered less important than math?

[BELL CHIME]

We agree with the opposition, many jobs require math. But in life in its entirety, it requires life skills like kindness and the eagerness to help. We need to put our model in place. They said that math is important, and we agree with that. But we believe that many kids don't know the importance of charity as well.

And the next question is, is there enough charity workers already? The opposition presented the idea that there were enough charity workers in our community. Firstly, there are not enough charity workers. Otherwise, there wouldn't be homeless people on the street, and families who have children that aren't provided for well enough.

With school children helping as well, a real difference could be made to Australia. Even if there were enough charity workers, children could still help out. Say, planting community gardens, or maybe entertaining people in aged homes.

So even if we had an excess of charity workers, there would still be pluses to it. They say that we would have enough workers such as librarians, but many of those things are volunteer-only, and they have trouble finding enough workers.

[BELL CHIMING]

Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

The school curriculum is busy, so why make it busier? The first argument presented by the affirmative team suggested that by forcing children to do two hours of charity work per week, it would be teaching life lessons. As we have stated throughout the debate, you can do charity work outside of school, where it's not disrupting everyone else's education life.

They stated that kids will simply learn all these valuable lessons, like how to be kind, whilst doing charity work. While we agree that you might learn a few lessons out-- while you may learn a few lessons doing charity work, these can certainly be done outside of school, with the help of the parent. Also, what kind of job requires charity work? Not too many.

You should really be learning about math so that you could perhaps become an accountant, or a cashier. Or English, so that you could become an author or a lawyer. Those are way more important things to be learning. And by enforcing this two hours of charity work per week, we lose those very valuable skills.

They stated that you could simply live a better life by doing charity work. But as I have started, jobs rarely need charity work. Living a better life needs good money, and if you don't have a job, how's that living a better life? You need the education time, not the charity time.

The second argument presented by the affirmative team suggested that all Australian kids are simply self-absorbed. First of all, consider that adults, shouldn't they be the ones learning how to not be self-absorbed and learning about all these things? If we're going to enforce it in children, why not enforce it in adults as well? They're self-absorbed.

Also, it's not fair for the vast majority of children who aren't self-absorbed, to take away their education time. To take away their learning time. To take away their rights. It's not fair and it's not right. It shouldn't be done.

They suggested that charity work will lead to a better Australia. There are way more major problems throughout Australia other than charity work. What about this big ice scandal that's going on? Shouldn't we be looking after that, rather than looking after these charities?

More needs to be done than charity work to fix Australia. It's not as simple as that. The second speaker stated that there are loads of injured wildlife, so kids need to learn how to care for them. First of all, as my second speaker has already stated, there are these things called vets that get paid to do this. They are the ones that should be doing this, because honestly--

[BELL CHIME]

--a child probably doesn't care, or they don't have the right degree. Vets do. Wouldn't it be safer for a vet to do this? Because if you really wanted our injured wildlife to continue living, you wouldn't put it in a hand of a bunch of 15-year-old kids.

The third argument presented by the affirmative team suggested that charities will improve. Well, let me explain to you what goes on in a 14-year-old's mind. Oh, great. I'm getting forced to do something that I don't want to do. Oh well, I just won't try. It's not like I'll ever get in trouble for it. Yeah.

So how are the charities going to improve if this is how all 14-year-olds who were supposedly helping these charities, how are these charities going to improve? Kids simply won't try. When you're forced to do something, you don't want to do it.

So a better way to implement this change would be to offer this inside of school, so that kids can choose whether or not they want to do it. That way--

[BELL CHIMING]

--the enthusiastic people who want to participate will be able to participate. And all the kids that don't really care can be left behind to do some basic science. They used breast cancer as an example and said that breast cancer needs money.

But the topic is about the charity work. Kids aren't going to give out that $5 that they just get from their parents as pocket money to a foundation. If they need the right technology, they really need the right money. And by implementing charity work, it's not going to get them anywhere.

The fourth and final argument presented by the affirmative team was that kids will get fitter and healthier by doing this. But the examples that they used were things like shelving books. First of all, you bend down, you pick up the book, and you put it on a shelf. How is that going to get you incredibly fit?

Or looking after wildlife. You might go in a car to find the wildlife. You might do a few simple things, then you get back in the car and go back to school.

[BELL CHIMING]

How is that a good thing? The curriculum is already busy, so why make it busier?

[APPLAUSE]

Well, first and foremost, it's been said a few times at this tournament, but it's worth saying again. The quality of primary school debating that we've seen across the entire week, but particularly in this debate, has been absolutely outstanding. And the entire panel would like to congratulate all six speakers in the team.

[APPLAUSE]

What we were particularly impressed with in this debate was the ability of both teams to take the material that was introduced by the other side in the debate and use it against them. To flip their examples and use them for their own taste, and also to rebut the underlying analysis. I never thought I'd hear so much about possum's in a debate, but it spoke to the quality of the teams that there was a back-and-forth literally between all six speakers about that particular issue in the debate, and what it indicated about either team's arguments or analysis.

At the end of the debate, we thought there were three big questions. The first was "Will participating in community service activities add or detract from the quality of a child's education?" The second question was "Would there be a significant benefit to the charities themselves of having this source of labor made available to them?" And the third question in this debate was "Should it be compulsory, or should it be a choice that's available to students in schools?"

So right from the start of the debate, on that question about quality of education, the affirmative told us a couple of things. They told us people would learn life lessons, and that those life lessons would be both specific, like caring for a possum, or whatever other example they wanted to indicate. And that those skills would be more general, like starting a conversation, or having a sense of charity, or knowing that they were more privileged than they were perhaps aware of beforehand.

The negative comes back right away and says, well, hold on a minute. The curriculum is very busy. What's going to get squeezed out? And the process of squeezing other things out means that the quality of education as a whole is likely to go down. So what do we hear in response to that particular argument?

The affirmative comes back and does some quick math and says, well, it's only 7% of the time that they're in class. It's not that big of a deal. The negative says, that's sneaky. You're cutting out lunchtime as well there. It's in fact a bigger portion of the time that we're talking about.

But some of the other responses we hear from the affirmative are also quite good. Which is the very basics of an education in literacy and numeracy are achieved by the time kids get to year 5 and 6. And that the kinds of things we're teaching them are more practical, and more life skills, which we'll come back to a little bit later.

In terms of that squeezing out material, we are convinced at the end of the debate that there's going to be a little bit less time spent on math, science, English, in the core curriculum. It's probably going to be more so than the additional benefit of being slightly more focused, because you've been moving around. We're convinced that the time lost outweighs the benefits of the exercise there.

But the question becomes just how important these life lessons we get from charities goes up. We'll come back to that a little bit later on. So the second question in this debate was "Will there be significant benefits to the charities themselves?"

The second affirmative comes up and sets out very well this idea that one of the things the charities in our society lack, because they rely on volunteer people working for them, is the ability to have enough volunteers to get their jobs done. They say that having these kids made available will help them do their work. And that when challenged by the second speaker of the negative about the availability of volunteers, the third affirmative clarifies that although there are some, they're often spread too thin across different causes.

We thought there was some good attacks to this from the negative team, which was to say, well, not only do kids not qualify to do those jobs, they don't have the qualifications of a vet. And we'd certainly rather have a vet caring for the possum than the 14-year-old kid. But if the kids are being forced to be there, they're not going to put in their best efforts.

We thought that was a really good response as to why the benefits to the charities that the second affirmative wanted to claim were not necessarily going to be as large as the affirmative believes. But we thought the affirmative had a lot of examples in his debates of things that, to a degree, wouldn't require that much effort. That just having the people there to put the books in the right part of the library would be a benefit to the library, and the librarians who work there.

So we thought this issue was a little bit of a wash. The benefits probably weren't as big to the charities as the affirmative claimed, but they probably weren't going to be doing active harm, or at least killing possums unnecessarily. The third question in this debate, then, was "Should it be compulsory, or should it be a choice?"

The negative come up and say, well, sure there might be some life lessons you learn. But you can learn them on your own time with the supervision of your parents, and your family, and your friends. We think the affirmative responded to this in a couple of ways.

The first to say, just at the moment, not enough people are doing that. People are a little bit self-absorbed. They're not getting out there. They're not spending the time doing the work, and that the benefits that would come to them are particularly important.

The second thing the negatives say is that, well, even if that's the case, it should be a protection of your right to freedom of choice. You should be able to participate in this if you want to, but you shouldn't be forced to by the government or by your school. The affirmative come back and say, well, we don't think freedom of choice is particularly well-respected in school all the time.

You're forced to do math, you're forced to do English. We can force you to do this as well. Then the negative come back again. They say, well, those things are more fundamental. They're more fundamental to the things you have to do in later life, like accounting, if you want to be that. If you have an accountant, or work as a cashier, or work as a lawyer, or any of those professions where you'll need math or English.

Where we think the affirmative ultimately come back to this argument is to say, well, the lessons you learn on these issues are almost as fundamental as those ones. That if we're going to teach you about charity in the classroom on the whiteboard, it's good to give you that hands-on experience, to give you that sense of charity.

To give you that sense of kindness, as well as the specific skills you might learn in those activities. That it's just as fundamental. And because kids aren't going to go out there and do it on their own. We thought those benefits ultimately outweighed the cost to their other education. And in very close decision, the panel award this debate to the affirmative.

[APPLAUSE]

First of all, we would like thank you. Just making it here is such a big thing. Getting selected and then making it here is even better. But winning it is amazing, so congratulations. Also, I'd like to thank all of the teams. You're all really hard, and-- yeah, you're pretty hard.

And all the supporters, you're amazing, so thank you. And the adjudicators for adjudicating and doing a good job of that. And the Collaroy Centre, who had great hospitality, and for letting us stay here. So that's good, too.

And last of all, I would like to thank our team. We only caught up-- we met each other once via a VC catch-up, and then we came here. Made it this far, so we're winners in ourself, even though we didn't win. We still made it this far, and--

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I'd also like to thank all the moms and parents. You're so supportive through every debate. And even though we didn't win, we still had such a good time, made new friends, and that's good.

And we'd like to lastly thank Megan, who supported us, encouraged us, positive feedback after every debate, and taught us so much. And for the milkshakes and ice cream, and stuff like that. So we'd like to thank everyone, and congratulations.

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So we have a lot of people to thank, so this is going to be quite long. OK, so first of all, we'd like to thank the other team for a really great debate, and we wish you great luck in the future. And you guys are so, so, so good. And then we'd like to thank Drew for being a really good sport when he had to miss out.

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And I'd also like to thank the adjudicators for being really, really great adjudicators, and doing a really good job, I think. I think they did a good job. Yeah, they were really nice.

And I'd just like to thank Collaroy for having us here, and they have really good canned food. And I'd like to thank the parents for coming and supporting us. And also especially, I'd like to thank our coaches, Mrs. Lewis, and Mrs.--

Bruce.

Bruce. I do know, I'm just scared.

[LAUGHTER]

And Sarah and James as well. Sorry, I don't know where you are. Did you leave?

He's gone. He left.

OK, he left. So thank you so, so, so much for giving us a really great time. And I think that we've all improved so much thanks to you.

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