My favourite debating game is called “wall to wall”. You play it like this: tell students that one wall represents “agree” and the other “disagree” and make a statement, asking them to go to the side that represents their feelings. Then you ask them to justify where they’re standing. Students can change their minds and move as their peers argue for one side or the other.
It’s a great way to get students thinking and talking, but it also reveals issues. There is incredible value in noticing where student opinion is unanimous, for example - because if opinion around a complex, multi-faceted issue is in total agreement, this can mean that there is a gap in your students’ understanding.
Such blind spots are often revealed in debating. In November, for example, Debate Hub ran a multi-school competition with more than 200 participants. In a round about the benefits of traditional masculine traits, every single team that had to defend this position, lost. After the round, many teams expressed frustration that they had even been asked to defend the idea that there are positives to traditional masculinity.
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In debate competitions and clubs, students are assigned a side - they don’t get to choose - so students are used to advocating for things they don’t necessarily support. Yet, in this instance, to the surprise of the organisers, students simply could not articulate positive conceptions of masculinity. When the audience was asked for a masculine role model, the first answer given was Andrew Tate.
While this involved a lot of student frustration, it was an incredibly valuable teaching moment. Students had just organically discovered that they couldn’t differentiate between toxic masculinity and masculinity.
This allowed us to have a discussion about why masculine traits might have an upside, with a group of students who were already engaged and had just discovered their own blind spot. Sometimes what is revealed is not a lack of understanding but strong social pressure to believe or say something, which is equally important to recognise.
Here’s how schools can make the most of these opportunities:
Cultivate a culture of debate
If your school organises one or two debates a year on relatively uncontroversial topics, you won’t find out where there are widespread misunderstandings or where students are not hearing both sides of an argument.
Only by having regular debates - in class, in form time, in assembly, in a thriving club - can you have enough debates to get a feel for your cohorts’ opinions.
Vary your topics
In today’s world, no one can blame teachers for worrying about parental complaints and being cancelled over setting debate topics that veer outside the typical topics such as school uniform or social media.
However, having coached debating for 15 years, the concerns around cancel culture mask the reality that the vast majority of parents and students in the UK think debate and discussion are a healthy part of education and that very few topics are off limits.
When you encourage students to debate a variety of issues, you can see where they have a sophisticated understanding, and where they are mindlessly repeating a prominent opinion.
Be ready to discuss
“If you don’t want to know, don’t ask” definitely applies here. Once you set a topic, you must be prepared to chat with your students about it, in debate club, PSHE or form time. Teachers need to be comfortable playing devil’s advocate, not aggressively or combatively, but as part of the intellectual exploration students often need.
Teachers shouldn’t try to persuade students, but rather deepen their thinking by asking questions and offering alternative perspectives. For example, asking questions such as ‘Have you considered…’ or ‘What do you think someone who disagrees with you would say in response?’
Hold students to the standard
The maxim we use at South Hampstead is that if you can’t articulate the other side of your opinion, you haven’t thought enough about that opinion. It’s OK to believe feminism has harmed society, if and only if you can articulate clearly why feminism has been good.
Holding students to this standard in discussions and debates should be an expectation in any school. It will enhance their thinking, understanding and writing.
Finding our students’ blind spots isn’t always easy but is always valuable. At a time when we are rightly concerned about social media echo chambers, it is vital that schools be the antidote.
Michael Hepburn is the director of Debate Hub, a partnership programme run by South Hampstead High School GDST in London
