PHOTO: Slovenia World Schools Debating Championship team (left to right) Maja, Filip, Bojana, Teo and Blashka

The 2007 WSDC in Korea seems up in the air, with no confirmation of details even after the postponement until July, but the preparation moves forward here in Slovenia. Bojana Skrt, director of Slovenian national debate program ZIP and the coach of the team, has asked me to work with them while I am in Europe. So far we have had about 20 contact hours of coaching and debating.

It is a remarkably talented team. Filip, a WSDC veteran, is the outstanding debater in Slovenia and recently won the national logic contest. Anna is a WSDC veteran and a truly impressive speaker. Maja, also a veteran, is the sparkplug of the team, keeping everyone focused and on track while being an excellent speaker herself. Teo and Blashka are new to WSDC but are highly talented and successful debaters in Slovenia now and add a lot of depth to the program.

One of the things that I have been doing is debating against them. I pair up with Teo and Blashka and we debate the other three. This allows me to be more actively involved and plant arguments and errors to see how they will handle them, as well as to illustrate the techniques and practices I am trying to impart to them. We have had two such debates and I think they take it more seriously than just debating against each other, and I can already see them growing and developing.

I really enjoy working with this team and I also really enjoy working in the WSDC format. Perhaps someday I will go to one of the WSDC championships, perhaps in Washington in 2008.