Public forum teams debate in state qualifier on the issue of single gender classrooms

Kacey Fang

Upper School debaters discuss their arguments after five rounds of alternating stances on the issue of having single gender classrooms for public schools. The state-qualifying tournament for public forum was held yesterday and today at Leland High School.

Three Upper School teams debated today in the public forum state qualifier at Leland High School, arguing both sides of the issue concerning whether single gender classrooms would improve the quality of American public education.

The tournament consisted of five rounds, two of which were yesterday and three today. The teams’ stance on the issue alternated for each round.

The team of Arjun Kumar (12) and Adithram Rengaramchandran (12) pointed out the flaws in studies conducted on the success of single gender classrooms as one of its arguments.

“In the United States, for instance, it’s very hard to do a truly randomized study about single-gender schooling because researchers […] can’t force somebody to go to a school,” Arjun said. “A lot of times what we do is we talk about how our opponents’ studies don’t actually properly account for these variables because right now a lot of single-gender schools are private schools so necessarily that comes with a lot of things like socioeconomic status, higher levels of education, and a higher testing level to get in.”

For one of its arguments supporting single gender classrooms, the team of Samali Sahoo (10) and Zoe Papakipos (12) took the angle of gender stereotypes faced by girls in some co-educational classrooms.

“If you’re stereotyped, then you have less STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] opportunities, or if there’s less stereotyping, then later on you’ll be more open to STEM fields,” Samali said.

Personally, Zoe agrees with this perspective but has not experienced it firsthand.

“It limits the attitudes towards STEM,” she said. “It’s not very prevalent at Harker, like I’ve never felt discriminated against in STEM classes.”

The teams prepared for this debate by gathering evidence and research over the course of a week. Debaters could choose to share their information with other Upper School teams through a joint Dropbox. They also held practice rounds in class over the past week.

For some seniors, this tournament would be their last.

“I’m happy it’s the last debate tournament of my life. I’m very happy to have an amazing partner,” Adithram said.

The top five teams in this tournament move on to the state competition. No Upper School team will participate in the state round.