Arizona Talks works to increase and showcase speech and debate clubs at state high schools

Arizona Talks, a nonprofit that focuses on increasing civil discourse, is launching the Civic Action Network, an initiative to expand speech and debate programs and showcase local talent.

The goal is to get more speech and debate clubs to open at high schools around the state and help support already existing clubs get to tournaments.

According to Carlos Alfaro, the founder of the Arizona Talks Foundation, fewer than 50 high schools in Arizona have speech and debate clubs.

“These are our future teachers, judges, politicians in the future, and we want to make sure that they have a regimen of reading, doing the research and actually engaging in good debates and be able to tell people why they believe what they believe. That’s what’s going to make Arizona a beacon of free dialogue,” he said.

Speech and debate is an elective course and it is up to a school or charter district to have one.

During the launch event Wednesday evening, students showcased their skills, with Milo Coleman, an incoming senior at McClintock High School, giving a 10 minute speech about quick-fix cures to larger issues.

“I think that that’s super important in speech and debate because to be good in speech and debate you need to differentiate yourself in the pack,” Coleman said.

Coleman said he was drawn to speech and debate because of his talkative personality, adding that civil conversations are essential in an age of artificial intelligence.

“It’s made things so stale. I mean we’ve seen a rise in the same exact phrases being said,” Coleman said. “It makes everything so much more homogeneous and monotonous.”

Speech and debate students explain the importance of public speaking

Other speech and debate students, like Chiara Scornadacca, were also in attendance.

Scornadacca, who will be a senior at McClintock High School in Tempe next year, first discovered speech and debate in middle school and was immediately hooked. After joining the club in high school, she learned her former middle school’s program had been cut. That’s when she decided to take matters into her own hands.

“I founded the speech and debate chapter at Aspire Academy at Conley Middle School, just down the road from my high school, and I would go there every Wednesday after school and I would teach kids about speech and debate,” Scornadacca said. “I introduced them to limited preparation speaking and as well as interpretation.”

The students rubbed shoulders with state legislators.

Republican state Rep. Matt Gress attended the event, speaking about the importance of protecting the ability to disagree in a civil manner.

“Inside of the Constitution is the speech and debate clause. There’s actually a clause that protects speech and debate of legislators, and there’s a similar clause in the Arizona Constitution. It was designed to allow us to come to the floor with our views, our experiences, what we knew and know of the facts of the time and share those in the course of debate,” Gress said.

Former Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone was also in attendance. He said the current generation are the changemakers, and being prepared to have civil discourse is essential for understanding others.

“Your ability to maintain your composure, to be convicted of what you believe in, but understanding your words represent others will give you the position where your words are your power,” Penzone said.

The Civic Action Network hopes its fundraising efforts will help high schools launch new speech and debate teams, support existing teams’ travel, pay coaches and cover student tournament fees.

KTAR News 92.3 FM is a media partner of Arizona Talks.

Funding for this journalism is made possible by the Arizona Local News Foundation.

Subscribe to the KTAR Eyes on Education newsletter to get our top education stories, exclusive guest interviews and more to your email inbox.

Related

ESA reform Prop 212 won’t make Arizona voters’ ballot, per a court rulingPhoenix Children’s uses model patients to teach healthcare workers new skillsNAACP to file complaint after Peoria Unified pulls books on people of color from K-8 classesNew app helps Arizona ESA families check purchases, avoid fraud accusationsDining hall workers suing ASU over First Amendment right to protest working conditionsArizona ESA accountability proposition must be rewritten to be included on the ballot, judge rules