“High School Debate Night”
Topic ‘That Students be allowed to access the internet during the HSC examinations”
President Sharee reminded the debate teams of the rules (as outlined in the invite) before passing the mic on to PDG Brian Beesley. There are 3 speakers and 1 student on each Debate Team. Brian will be going around each tablet and selling ‘black’ colour tickers. These black tickers are the bribery tickets that go towards raising funds for the SRC school project. (On this note, one of the Rotary Debate team player, Ray, was very busy handing out chocolates and lollies to try and sweeten the crowd!!) Bribery tickets are $2.00 per ticket and there is no limit to the quantity sold!! Once purchased, the tickets were placed in either the school bucket or the Rotary bucket to see who wins the popularity vote. Each speaker has 2 minutes to speak and there is a warning bell at one and a half minutes.
Topic for the Great Debate is “ Students be allowed to access the internet during the HSC examinations.”
Rotary team is debating ‘AGAINST’ and the Gloucester High School team is debating ‘FOR’.
The Gloucester High School Speakers
Colleen Sorrensen, Ben Reynolds (student), Mark Green, Principle Patrick Cavanagh
In Summary, the School Team argued that Internet is part of an integration of our Life. Colleen argued that Googling is part of our life now. Ask Siri, said Speaker Ben. Mark pointed out that internet helps us to progress and think better. Quoting from George Carlin, “Govt don’t want well-informed, well-educated people that do thinking. They want obedience and dumb enough to accept the pay. The Internet open up possibility to Youth so they can exceed expectation. And as Principle Pat candidly concluded, to argue against using the Internet will result in being run down by the Train of Progress. Technology has been invented for us to progress.
.
.
The Rotary Debate Team
Ray Martin, Cohen Durbridge, Geoff Slack, Peter Markey
In Summary, the Rotary argued that eventually, students are so reliant on the Internet that no one has thought of what will happen if the internet went down? Ray argued flippantly that gone are the days where students were forced to be inventive and skilful and well prepared when it came to using various devious cheating methods. Cohen argued there will be OH&S issues in exams room where cords of technology trail along the floor. And that who has the fast Wi-Fi ultimately has the most advantage. Geoff argued that Internet will take away the ability for students to argue and influence using their own brain and not some technology. Peter concluded by asking if the world has gone stark raving mad! He pointed out that not everyone had equal opportunity to the same technology, city kids vs country kids. Whoever has the fastest Wi-Fi wins. And when the internet goes down during an exam, students will be force to use their brain but unfortunately, they didn’t retain any because they were too reliant on the internet access!!
Sergeant Peter Markey then lead a ‘Fine Session’ Interlude while the Judges were counting tickets and Wendy deciding whose team cheered the loudest (keeping in mind there are 3 Rotary table supporters to the 1 High School table supporters….)
Claire Reynolds & Grahame Holstein counting the tickets
Wendy Hughes – Applauses Judge
Winner of the Award, determined by the Applause Meter, goes to the Rotarian Team. The Popularity Vote, determined by the Tickets, goes to the School. The High School team also won a $500 donation to their SRC program from the night’s fundraising. President Sharee presented the cheque to Mark, who is one of the management team of SRC. With this donation, SRC can continue to run some of their projects, like providing food for Lunchtime, for the Athletes & Swimming Carnival, the School Social, and others. So it is a Win Win competition, good fellowship night and plenty of laughter.