The transfer from debater to coach – how experienced debaters can contribute to the quality of high school debate education, Monika Sobočan, University of Maribor, Slovenia

Enabling high school students to acquire appropriate debate knowledge to compete at tournaments right from their freshman year on is one of the major concerns of many public high schools in Slovenia. Especially in the remote areas it is difficult to find skilled instructors for debate that would engage with students and give them the possibility to gain specific debate knowledge, beyond the basics. That is why one of the practical options is that juniors and seniors in high schools are slowly introduced to become debate coaches and take over resposibilities of organizing debate workshops and different debate drills. This article analyzes the implementation of peer to peer debate education and it's impact on the workshop executers with a case study based at the high school Gimnazija Franca Miklosica Ljutomer (Slovenia). Results of the method are promising: new generations of debaters are inspired to give back to their high school and when reaching junior year, actually have the motivation to take over some of the workshops and dedicate part of their free time to instruct new generations in debating.

3rd International Conference on Argumentation, Rhetoric, Debate and the Pedagogy of Empowerment, October 2010, Maribor, Slovenia.

Further details can be found at the conference websites:
Basic information at debate.uvm.edu/debateblog/better/Welcome.html
News blog at betterworldconference.blogspot.com/

The conference was organized by the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, University of Maribor in Slovenia uni-mb.si/ , ZIP, Za in proti, zavod za kulturo dialoga/Pro et contra, institute for culture of dialogue zainproti.com/ , and the World Debate Institute of the University of Vermont debate.uvm.edu/debateblog/wdi/Welcome.html .

The organizers are grateful for the support of our sponsor QatarDebate qatardebate.org/ .

Thanks to organizers Boris Vezjak, Alfred Snider and Bojana Skrt. Special thanks to Peter Mesarec, Monica Sobocan and Aljoša Polšak.