This weekend saw a superb set of Junior and Senior Socratic Club sessions. It was great to begin 2025 in such positive fashion, with superb contributions from old and new members alike.
We began with a focus on body language skills for discussions and argumentation, with so many interviews around the corner and forthcoming debating competitions.
We then turned to a newsround with a review of the fires in LA, Storms in the US and UK, the resignation of Justin Trudeau in Canada, the talk of a sale of Greenland and the passing of former President Jimmy Carter.
We then asked what words embodied leadership for those in each group:
Kind, Polite, Supportive, Listening, Collaborative, Inspiring, Confidence, Brave, Integrity and Noble.
For further warm-up we looked at New Year’s Resolutions and these included:
Helping out more at home
More Travel
More stamina – sporting world/ & education
Improving/Learning: French, German, and other subjects
Sport and workouts in the morning
Reading more
Taking up a new sport
For unseen work we looked at an image of a luxury Golf course in juxtaposition against a scene of poverty from the same island. This prompted a superb set of ideas and thoughts more generally on poverty around the world.
In the Senior session we debated as to the key players to decide on any sale of Greenland: with the majority in favour of Denmark deciding, with many unhappy as to the idea in the first place. Natural resources and Scientific research weighed heavily on the debate.
Greenland and the LA fires also inspired a debate on climate change in the Junior Group and whether we should act now? Or if the focus should be Bezos/Musk style on Planet B and space?
The majority voted in favour of acting now.
Further set piece debates involved the motions:
‘This House would spend more time at school reading’ &
‘This House would preserve old buildings’
In each case the motions were carried by substantial majorities across the groups - there was also a wonderful expression/phrase that the 'benchmarks of history' should be maintained.
Well done all on a superb start to 2025!
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