High School Debate Topic

When I was a kid, looking into the debate topics for high school was one of the most exciting things. The first high school debate topic I ever had to do was about censorship in schools. It was a big issue because there was a student group that published a rather inflammatory and controversial underground newspaper. Although none of the high school debate topics directly referred to the activities of students in the school, it was clear what was behind it. Some of the administrators wanted to repress the newspaper while other people were in support of its right to free speech.

Free speech versus censorship is perhaps the most tried-and-true high school debate topic, and as such there is a lot of information on it. There are books on both side of the issue available in the local library. A lot of my classmates were pretty radical about free speech and of course believed that censorship is always wrong. I did not have my mind made up quite so much about the high school debate topic until I looked into it. Once I started researching it, however, I realize how important defending free speech is. I realized that the harm that can be done by one high school newspaper is insignificant, but that the harm that can be done by repressing free speech is very great.

As a teacher myself, I can appreciate the information available for high school debate topics now. There is more information than ever before, organized in a much more easy to use format. Anyone who goes on the Internet can find vast databases of pro and con information on virtually any issue. Some of it is organized on websites dedicated to a high school debate topic, while other important sources are available on websites dedicated to one side or another of the issue. There are many places to look, and the information varies a great deal. Some of it is great, while some of it is virtually useless. All of it, however, is worth looking at for at least a minute or two.

The funny thing is that many of the high school debate topics talked about nowadays are the same ones that we discussed when I was a kid. School uniforms, free speech, and foreign-policy are still hot button topics. Although things have changed in many ways, the core issues still remain the same essentially.