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By Katrina Margolis
Hometown Weekly Reporter
During the school year, Deerfield Elementary offers short-term after-school enrichment classes run by the Deerfield PTO. A fundraiser for the PTO, these courses are offered during three terms – fall, winter, and spring – and run for six weeks each. One of the courses offered this winter term is debate club, taught by Deerfield’s own principal, Joshua Baumer. The course meets once a week for an hour after school for the duration of the term. “This is the first time we’ve done anything like this,” Principal Baumer said. “I thought we would only have around 10 kids, but we have 15 enrolled.”
Photos by Katrina Margolis
Deerfield principal Joshua Baumer teaches this mini-course on debate.
For the first offering, the course was limited to fourth and fifth graders. “Our fifth graders have recently done pretty extensive persuasive essay writing assignments where they had to pick a topic, one that was a bit controversial or had multiple perspectives, and had to dig deep and write about it and some of those were then sent as letters to me, to the community, to people at the state level as a way to really how them how to get somebody on their side,” Baumer explained. “Our fourth graders, in their classes, have recently done almost like a mock trial about school uniforms - whether they should be allowed or not - so they were pretty primed or this type of work.”
In creating this course, Baumer turned to the internet for resources. While there were a number of outlines and resources available at the middle, high school or college level, it was relatively limited when it came to elementary school debate. “I gathered a whole bunch of things and then tried to pare it down to it would be relevant to their age and be able to get it in in the time that we had,” Baumer explained. “The hour goes by very quickly. I’m embedding different games into the flash debate. Instead of doing a longer debate where they research a topic, I pick topics that are relevant to their lives so they can think of ideas and then plan out these roles.” These topics include bedtimes, if recess should be before or after lunch, and allowance.
When originally planning, Baumer’s mind first went to a public speaking course. However, looking around at today’s world, he reconsidered. “They’re really thinking carefully about how they’re presenting something, and being respectful of others’ points of view, which I think in this day and age could be a very useful skill - to be able to see someone’s view and not just see it as wrong.”
A lively and involved group, the course has so far been quite a success in Baumer’s view. “I’ve been having a really good time. I hope they are too!”
