Al-Bayan Bilingual School Debate Team

1999 Season History

a year ago debating in Kuwait
seemed pretty impossible

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THE AL-BAYAN BILINGUAL SCHOOL DEBATE TEAM
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Al-Bayan launched its debate program in January of 1999. New MUN Director Daniel R. Fruit created the program. Previously, BBS had not debated.

These are the first to ever debate for BBS.

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BBS PARTICIPATES AT KFSAC
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This was a rather unusual tournament. KFSAC treats debate a simply another forensics activity-unlike many places in the States. The level of familiarity with debate among many schools was not particularly high. As a result, this event witnessed a lot more debates about the exact meaning of the rules than of the actual resolution itself.

As for the resolution, itself, it suffered from the fact that it required the world (or US) to do less, rather than more, which contradicts general practice in writing resolutions. This left the negative in the unusual position of having to defend more action while the affirmative proposed less, again the exact opposite of what logic, and general practice, suggest.

After the tournament, judges and coaches had a lengthy and fruitful discussion of the rules and debate. Likely, this will lead to several key improvements for next seasons. First, schools will follow the Stateside resolution which allow students to spend more time considering arguments. Second, next season debate will split from the general forensics tournament and have its own tournament which BBS has offered to sponsor. Third, that tournament will be preceded by several practice rounds. Fourth, speech lengths will conform more to Stateside norms.

As for the debating itself, BBS acquitted itself quite well for a school debating for the first time. On the other hand, BBS was forced to forfeit several debates because students either came late or couldn’t come at all. Whenever a squad forfeited, this had the effect of giving the opposing school "perfect" scores for their squads, meaning that BBS may actually have done better in terms of place if these forfeits had not happened. Students learned from this experience.

All placement was by squad. The top 2 ASK squads placed 1-2. The top ESG squad placed third while the top BBS squad placed fourth. Since the host school, AIS, never sent the formal tabulations of the scores, the following calculations are based somewhat on guesswork.

4. Nabil al-Khaled and Faye al Turkheim (3-1)
7(?)Mohammad Fakhraldeen and Mustafa Malaki (1-2)
9(?)Saad al Ghawas and Yasmeen al Mousa (1-2) (including two losses from forfeits)

Mustafa listens intently to a rival speaker.

Mohammad furiously takes notes during a speech.

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BBS SPONSORS AND WINS THE BAYAN INVITATIONAL TOURNAMENT
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The shortcomings of the KFSAC tournament persuaded BBS to offer to host a second tournament later in the year. Originally, this tournament was to last two days and have all of the schools that attended the KFSAC tournament (AIS, ASK, BBS, ESG, and UAS). However, first UAS and then ASK indicated that they would not attend.

BBS split about equally with ESG in terms of awards. ESG captured two of three top debater awards while taking one of the three top squad awards. However, BBS virtually swept the field in team statistics winning 5 out 6 matches and only narrowly losing the sixth. Overall, it was a fine performance from BBS’s beginning debaters.

Alia al Humaidhi cross-examines an ESG speaker.
Partner Yasmeen al Mousa listens and prepares to speak.

TOP SQUADS
(Ranked first by squad and then by speaker points)
# 1 BBS Mohammad/Mustafa 2-0 103
# 2 BBS Alia/Yasmeen 2-0 99
# 3 ESG Mishkat/Sara 1-1 114
BBS Faye/Nabil 1-1 105

TOP INDIVIDUAL DEBATERS
(ranked by speaker points)
# 1 BBS Nabil al Khalid 59
# 2 ESG Sarra 58
# 3 ESG Mishkat 56
BBS Yasmeen al Mousa 52
BBS Saad al Ghawas 49

TOP SCHOOLS
(ranked by wins)
# 1 BBS 5-1
# 2 ESG 1-5
# 3, 4, 5 AIS, ASK, and UAS (in reverse order of withdrawal)

Mr. Mark working hard to judge another close match.

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BBS INTERSCHOOL TOURNAMENT
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The suspect is over. The BBS intra-school tournament finally decided the "bragging rights" for the school. Four squads competed in the event. At the end of the first two rounds, EACH squad had won a debate and lost a second. That made the third round, the one to win in order to advance. These debates were close, and exciting. So close, that in the C versus B round, the audience of eighth graders refused to leave for lunch.

When the smoke cleared, however, both the C team and the D team advanced to the tournament round. The team of Faye and Nabil put up a strong fight in a debate marked by several spontaneous rounds of applause. In the end, the debate hung upon whether Saad and Mustafa had created sufficient doubts about the workability of the Faye and Nabil's plan. The holes they created, in the eyes of the judges, were just sufficient to grant the negative the win and avenge an early-round loss.

This victory marked a debate personal best for Saad al Ghawas who also took the top speaker award from Nabil al Khalid. However, Mustafa Malaki's fine second negative speech provided the margin of victory. Mohammad Fakhraldeen took the third best award while Alia al Humaidhi enjoyed her best single day of debating to come in fourth.

A glance at the team scores will show just how close they were. For a first season, even the lowest average (21.0) is quite good. Only a scant 8 points separated the four top teams after four rounds, that about one minor point per debate, and that's how close most of these debates came. All debaters deserve credit for making BBS proud!
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Team Members
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Team A: Alia/Yasmeen
Team B: Hamad/Mohammad FD
Team C: Mustafa/Saad
Team D: Faye/Nabil

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Round by Round Results
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Round 1 A defeats B D defeats C
Round 2 C defeats A B defeats D
Round 3 C defeats A D defeats B
Championship C defeats D

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Squad Scores
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Squad Scores Wins Losses Points
Team C 3 1 155 1st Mustafa/Saad
Team D 2 2 155 2nd Faye/Nabil
Team A 1 2 148 3rd Alia/Yasmeen
Team B 1 2 145 4th Hamad/Mohammad

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Individual Scores
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(This uses an average of all judges scores)
1. Saad al Ghawas 28.0
2. Nabil al Khalid 27.8
3. Mohammad Fakhraldeen 27.3
4. Alia al Humaidhi 26.0
5. Mustafa Malaki 25.8
6. Faye al Tukhaim 23.8
7. Yasmeen al Mousa 23.3
8. Hamad Sultan 21.0

A strong performance made Saad the top speaker
though Nabil was a very close second.

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Congratulations on ending a Sucessful First Season
Keep the Traditions Alive.

This is Mr. Dan typically stressed out at a meet.

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