Michelle Herman stood before her teammates at a meeting of the Edmonds Speech and Debate team, fielding suggestions on how to act like a teen boy for her dramatic interpretation piece.
“If he’s in front of his girlfriend, he’s going to be strutting,” a girl suggested.
You should slouch, put your head forward and put you hand in your back pocket, said team coach Dawna Lewis.
Her shoulders hunched, Herman acted out the next line convincingly.
“Hey Kate,” Herman said in a cool-guy voice. “You know this hospital has a dance right?”
Herman was practicing the piece for a tournament the team was to attend that weekend. The team is open to all Edmonds School District students, though right now all of the 14 members attend the Homeschool Resource Center.
At practice, Herman stayed poised despite the barrage of feedback.
She would have felt differently three years ago, when she joined the team.
“My mother dragged me in kicking and screaming,” Herman said. “She thought it would be good for me.”
In the end, it was.
“I have such a love for speaking now I can’t shut up,” she said. “I can get in front of any number of people and have no fear.”
In contrast, team member Josh Froebe has always loved to argue.
“With my mom, it’s not so much debates as arguments — about the dishes, politics. Mostly dishes,” he said. “Or cleaning my room.”
The week before a tournament, preparations consume his life and he doesn’t have time for homework, he said.
Some students spend 25 hours the week before a tournament practicing, while others just come to the meetings, said Lewis.
A former Homeschool Resource Center parent, she was on the debate team in high school.
She’s constantly scouting for students who would be good for the team.
“If I see there’s someone who is really gregarious or someone who’s the loud one in the library, I talk to them,” she said.
But she also seeks out kids who are terrified to get up in front of people.
“To see them get over that, it’s heartwarming,” she said. “We’ve had kids in the past who joined because they felt like they were going to throw up when they got in front of their science class.”
Sophomore Ali Al-Sadi was one of those kids.
“When I first went to the team I was quiet and non responsive,” he said. “I didn’t have much to say in class. Since joining the team I’m able to speak out more and tell my opinion.”
Many high schools nowadays don’t have speech and debate teams because it’s expensive and a huge time commitment, Lewis said. Edmonds’ team does everything through fundraising.
Lewis, a full-time homeschool parent, coaches for free because of her love for speech and debate. She has fond memories of her high school team.
“I’d always been told I talk too much and that gave me a place where I could do that,” she said. “I loved winning.”
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