I just brought my niece to the WDI middle school public debate program, and despite her serious reservations about "speaking in public," being by herself in Vermont, and having to do work in the summer, she had a blast! At first she couldn't get over the "homework," but after a while she really warmed up to the experience.   It's hard to say what her favorite part was, but she said that she made a lot of good friends from all over the country, even the world - from D.C., California, Vermont, Korea, and since she is from Ohio, they called her "Miss Ohio." She kept telling me how much she's going to miss them.

 

All in all, I'm really glad she went to camp this summer. She told me that she feels a lot more comfortable speaking in front of people, and her self confidence in general has noticeably improved. But I guess the real testiment to the camp's effect on her was demonstrated by the incident we had at the airport as she was about to fly home to Ohio. As an unaccompanied minor, there are apparently extra rules for travel that require extra time during check-in; extra time that we hadn't planned on, and we were already running late. For about five minutes, it wasn't clear whether or not the check-in staff was going to let her board. After a tense phone call to the airline, we were on the way to the gate. As Alexa put it - "boy, this debate institute has really helped me deal with my anger. Before the institute, I would have given that person a piece of my mind!" Mind you, this was an unsolicited statement from a 13 year old. Debate works!

 

 

Lisa Heller Boragine

Dept of Art & Communication

Cape Cod Community College