Special to The Leaven
LENEXA — St. James Academy’s speech and debate program here is on a mission to harness the power of rhetoric to bring the world closer to Jesus. The St. James Thunder debate program is collaborating with local Catholic schools to establish middle school debate teams, empowering students to use the strength of their voices.
“The next generation of Catholics will need to know how to find their voice and how to make those voices heard in the public square,” says Joe Walberg, director of speech and debate at St. James Academy. “They’ll need to know how to handle complicated ideas and make sense out of confusion. They’ll need to know that they can be part of the conversation in the world where they live.”
Identifying a gap in resources for debate programs in Catholic schools, Walberg noted the challenges faced by parish schools in starting these initiatives.
“I had been talking to a couple of principals, and they said how much they wish they could bring debate to their schools, but there wasn’t a path to start. Several public school districts have speech and debate programs in their middle schools, but these programs just don’t exist in Catholic schools,” Walberg said.
“It’s hard finding teachers who can take on another club or activity, finding the resources to research and build cases, and just teaching how competitive debate works,” he explained. “Most parish schools just aren’t equipped for it, even if they want to be. So, we just decided to start and see what it would take. We had to step in and build the infrastructure.”
The Thunder debate team pitched the program to pastors and principals to assess interest, and began working with grade school teachers through evening Zoom sessions. These sessions cover the basics of competitive debate and coaching techniques.
“It takes a big effort to launch a program like this. We compiled sets of evidence and wrote some sample cases. We worked with some national debate research companies to offer packages of debate briefs to schools starting programs. We set up after-school workshops to get the middle schoolers some large-group practice,” added Walberg.
Currently, four parish schools — Good Shepherd in Shawnee, St. Paul in Olathe, John Paul II in Overland Park and Sacred Heart of Jesus in Shawnee — are participating in workshops where students are learning to craft persuasive arguments and engage in debate rounds. St. James Academy hopes to expand this program in the coming years and make more opportunities for 6th, 7th and 8th graders to try the world of debate.
“We’ve received great feedback from students and participating schools,” said Walberg. “This is just the beginning, and I’m super excited to see how it grows.
“Debate teaches students how to do complicated research and it obviously develops public speaking skills. But it also encourages students to consider someone else’s point of view, take ownership of their ideas and how to try really hard things. I know how debate rewrote the story of my life as a young person. This is powerful stuff.”
“I can’t think of a much more important venture for our church and our young people right now than developing the skills to think through complex issues, listen with understanding to others’ perspectives and then communicating the truth to them in a compelling manner,” said St. James principal Shane Rapp. “I have seen this in action with our high schoolers in Mr. Walberg’s program, and to expand that opportunity to more young people is a gift to those who avail themselves of it.”
The middle schoolers’ first debate tournament is scheduled for Nov. 7 at St. James Academy.
