Events
The idea of introducing the debates in the Wankowicz High School appeared four years ago. In the beginning the debates were a historical confrontation run in Polish between two teams but eventually the option of conducting debates in English emerged to make them more demanding, high-level and interesting. They also were run under the topic connected not only with history but also with problems or issues present in politics and everyday life. Every year, the
debates were better and better both in the level of confrontations and in the technical preparation of them. Number of improvements was introduced like creating General Rules of the Debate, Scoring Cards and electors judging the presentations as well as break entertainments. The level of the debates rose when the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme was introduced in the school as students with great language skills started to take part in the
events.
Today, the debate in Wankowicz High School is an event which can be treated in the same way as other professional ones. The person who performs as a chairman prepares several topics basing on the events happening in certain moment. One of them is chosen and presented two teams consisting of 4 persons. They have then a few weeks to prepare the arguments both for and against the topic as they don't know which option they may have. Drawing the site for or against takes place on the day of the debate 45 minutes before the beginning to make the speakers gather ideas and get ready for the speeches. Representations are judged by 9 unprejudiced and objective electors who are teachers and students of the school.
The procedures of debate are controlled by the chairman who familiarizes the audience with the topic and presents the representatives and the general rules of the debate. The first part consists of 3 minute-lasting speeches presented by both teams interchangeably. Open debate lasts 12 minutes and is composed of 6 question-answer sequences. It is preceded by the break which gives time the representatives to prepare for the open debate. In the end, the leaders of both team present final speeches lasting 5 minutes concluding the ideas and arguments said by the members of the teams. Representation with more points wins the confrontation.
On the 1st December 2009, a debate was held in Wankowicz High School. It was the confrontation between the 1st and 2nd IB DP classes run under the topic "Five years of participation in the European Union - beneficial or destructive from Poland?" Karolina Dziąćko (leader), Ewa Dudzic, Marta Kaczanowicz and Ralf Ruszczyński from the 1st class representation had to prepare arguments considering the destructive influence on Poland and 2nd class team consisting of Ewelina Faruque (leader), Dorota Adamczyk, Monika Zielińska and Adam Szurkowski chose the argumentation for the beneficial influence of membership in European Union on Poland. The proper debate began after the presentation about the European Union shown by the chairman. Great number of varied aspects connected with the topic was brought up by both sites and during the open debate the strong arguments and counter-arguments were presented showing the depth of the topic investigated by the teams as well as the strength of their preparation. That was a very exciting and bitter fight between two skilful teams but eventually the 2nd IB DP class representation won. However the members of the IB DP team will be chosen from both IB DP
classes.
The next debate will be in January and the high school representation will be created after that
European Blind Union has pronounced year 2009 the year of Louise Braille, the man who changed lives of blind people all over the world. Louis, who lost his sight in early childhood, improved the code used by French army to silently pass messages in night-time manoeuvres and turned it into an alphabet. This system was a liberator for hundreds of thousands of blind men and women.
Our school wants to commemorate the anniversary of his 200th birthday and to some extent play a role of a liberator by introducing new project under the auspices of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). Our aim is to enable blind children, adolescents and adults the access to articles, poems, stories, books etc. which they do not have a chance to read because they are not available in Braille.
Our goal is to create a school laboratory in which we will be recording written texts chosen by us in cooperation with blind people from the Polish Blind Union. We also want to encourage our friends and teachers to read and record at home books, poems or stories which they love and want to share with others.
In today’s world, children are loosing the art of reading books. We hope that those with the gift of sight will be encouraged to read more and those who must rely on different senses will have a chance to listen to the books read by our students.
Our project includes organizing a photo session and producing posters and leaflets informing about our idea and spreading it among others.
We hope that both students and teachers will engage in the original project of our school.
Everyone, who is willing to join us, is welcome.
All that You need is a Dictaphone, strong voice and positive attitude J
If there is a will there is a way.