Debate Camp
C A N A D A
Summer Programs in Public Speaking and Debate
All Ability Levels Welcome - Grades 5 - 11
OUR PHILOSOPHY
Debate Camp's allure and magic is in its mix of activities. We believe that learning is best served by engaging students in an academic experience, while at the same time ensuring they feel empowered to take risks. Debate Camp's mission statement - developed in 2001, remains our guiding principle:
Debate Camp aims to empower students with the skills of effective communication and teamwork through the avenues of competitive debate and public speaking.
We believe that camp creates a novel and secure environment in which campers feel safe to try and think on their feet, listen to and rebut a point or two, and to trust in the thoughts and delivery of their partner - - a true exercise in teamwork.
Debate is less about elite-level skills development for competition purposes only, and more about empowering skills relevant to life long learning. We believe that to have advocacy skills, an ability with rhetoric, an ability to effectively organize one's thoughts, and ability to listen and be heard - - are all life-long skills. Campers repeatedly inform us of how successful their academic experiences are - after Debate Camp, largely because the felt intellectually emboldened and confident in their ability to engage in academic discourse on subjects and with a skill-set they felt unsure about only weeks previous. This is why we feel campers return for a few years - and engage in all that camp has to offer.