Bloomfield Hills High School debate team excels in inaugural season

BLOOMFIELD HILLS — Last year, Bloomfield Hills High School students were inspired to form a debate club. This year, the club has officially become a team that has proven itself time and time again at tournaments.

Zuheir Sibai, who was a freshman at the time, brought up the idea of starting a debate club to Krish Patel, then a sophomore. The debate club was a more casual format, but this year the students decided to take it to the next level by making it a team that goes to competitions. Now Sibai and Patel are co-presidents of the debate team.

Prior to this, Bloomfield Hills High School didn’t have a debate team or club for students, and so each student had a lot to learn.

“It honestly didn’t come naturally. Every kid had to try. Every kid had to learn from the basics,” Sibai said.

With the help of coach Zoz Compagnari, the team has been able to build up their knowledge of debate, which has led them to success in tournaments. The team now consists of 30 students.

“We wouldn’t have been here without our coach, as well as our other teammates,” Patel said. “It takes more than just two teams to take your team to where it is, and I think it’s incredible to have the teammates that we do have always pushing us.”

As Patel said and the other team members reiterated, the debate team is “by the students, for the students.”

“While Bloomfield Hills has the resources, I think the debate team stands for students being proactive and using those resources,” Patel said.

 

Individual and team success
The team has earned team and individual awards at its tournaments this year, including at a tournament at Berkley High School, where the team locked out the bracket during the semi-finals.

In a debate tournament, there are usually four preliminary rounds, and based on those rounds, teams advance to the quarter-final, semi-final and final rounds. However, students from the same school can not compete against each other.

“If two teams from the same school are matched up, there’s an automatic win by the team that’s ranked higher at that time in the tournament,” Zoz explained. At the Berkley High School tournament, the Bloomfield Hills team “had five of the top eight teams in the quarter final, and after the quarter final was over, all of the teams in the semifinal were Bloomfield Hills teams. So there was an automatic win in the semifinal round, and there was an automatic win in the final round. The tournament ended three hours early because we had taken all the places that were left.”

 

Creating close bonds through a shared love for debate
In addition to success at tournaments, the debate team has formed close bonds with each other.

“I didn’t know maybe 95% of the people on the team at the beginning of the season. However, now I love them all so much. They are some of the sweetest people I’ve ever met,” Priyanca Skilton, a junior at BHHS and team co-captain, said. “I’ve never really had a sports team kind of bond, but this is as close as I think you can get to that, because we’re all just so close now.”

After tournaments, the team continues to hang out together because they have grown so close.

“I think it’s really good that we’re a community, which makes us stronger as a team,” Maya Stojkovic, a junior at BHHS, said.

Within the team, there is a range of grade levels represented. Because of this, Holiday Lucai-Sample, a junior at BHHS and team secretary, said, “There’s a lot of open-mindedness in the team.”

 

Promoting personal growth
Learning debate has given students confidence and skills that have helped them grow in areas other than debate.

“The things I took from it will last for me forever, because the skill of being able to push your voice out without being aggressive is something you’ll need no matter what career you go into,” Zuheir said.

Skilton said debate has helped her become a very quick thinker in her everyday life.

“I can say that confidently in my school life, and at home, I’ve become more observant in conversations. I’ve become more present in activities, and I know what to do and say much easier,” Skilton said.