Week two was an absolute blast. Had a fantastic time teaching debate to these middle schoolers and I’m looking forward to working with the students who graduate to Public Forum Two next week. Debating the Universal Basic Income resolution has been challenging because many students don’t know how tax policy or social welfare policy functions, which is odd to me because they do study physics and chemistry. It’s also frustrating to not be able to send your students to google scholar, but I’m hoping they’ll get the hang of Baidu’s academic platform before too long.  

I learned a lot from Peter about getting the kids engaged with the class material. For example, the kids were often asked to stand up and speak for a minute about whatever popped into their brain as a kind of warmup activity. If they couldn’t be heard from the back, Peter or I would loudly ask a question about whatever they were talking about and the student would usually start talking with more volume. 

Talking to some of the parents who came to the demonstration was fun too. They were generally very supportive of debate as an activity and I also enjoyed the opportunity to practice my Mandarin. The team building dinner we had was delicious. It was great to eat Dongbei food again, since it is my favorite Chinese culinary region. I think we’re all planning to go ice skating or something sometime soon, and I think that’ll be a fantastic experience! 

​I had a fabulous time going out with the team to Magpie for team bonding, discovering the restaurant LaoShengXing, and of course hitting up Starbucks for some “fermented milk.”