“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it!”

The new Grade 8s have started the school year with some arguments! We have looked at where and why people argue and started working on how to structure our opinions and views in clear, meaningful ways. The topics have varied from the trivial (pizza or pasta? Hamburgers or hotdogs?) to the more serious (should we have free speech in school? Should 16-year-olds be allowed to vote?), yet we continue to circle back to the defining question of our time: do you put the milk or the cereal in first for your breakfast? As the debate rages on, we will move on to look at how rhetoric may be used to further your cause, whilst what logical fallacies are, and why they should be avoided. If this inspires the students to be unusually quarrelsome at home in the next few weeks we can only apologise!

Mr Osmundsen