From  day one, debating has shaped American culture. Thanks to Junior, Ryin Engle-Clarkson, SES now has a debate team. Because this is a new experience for everyone involved, club members will only be debating with other club members. It was decided that the best course action would be to combine Political Thought and Debate Club. The first club meeting was held  October 14th, 2021 and after that the club plans to meet twice a month. 

When asked why she decided to start a debate club, Engle commented, “Because with the amount of opinions with politics, with how businesses are run, it’s been very out of control. So, I wanted to make a controlled environment for these opinions to come out, and for people to speak their minds without hurting other people’s feelings.” 

Politics are certainly a testy subject for many people. When asked what topics she plans on debating, Engle said, “So, we don’t have any ideas quite yet, but one thing we are pretty sure of is that we want to lay off politics. But that might change because we have political thoughts combined with debate. But we didn’t want to get into that, because we know how opinionated people can be with that. And we would rather have a debate than a fight happen. “

Combining two clubs is a major change that takes a lot of consideration. “Originally political thoughts and debates have a lot of similarities. There was no sponsor for political thoughts, we thought that because they are so similar, we can put those two ideas together,” Engle commented. 

“We thought about it (having an audience) because we only have a few Trojan Times throughout the week, we didn’t want to take away students’ time. We might make it public, but so far it’s just going to be between us.”

“I really find any topic interesting. Ones I’m not passionate about are more fun to me because I can form opinions in the debate and not just stick with ones I have already,” said Sophomore Isabelle Christensen, when asked about topics that she would like to debate. 

Melissa Williams (Sophomore) also said, “That the death penalty should be abolished, and that Juveniles should be tried and treated like adults for a crime, oh and also the major threats to human society (like, climate change, pollution, and all of that stuff)”

With the forming of this new club, students will have a safe environment to share their ideas and thoughts. This will encourage students to be vocal. With the state the world is in currently, vocal young people are definitely needed.