Forensics Forward provides free afterschool speech & debate classes to students in underserved communities.
Our goal is to provide an equal opportunity for students in NJ and NY who wish to participate in speech & debate once they reach high school.
Our goal is to provide an equal opportunity for students in NJ and NY who wish to participate in speech & debate once they reach high school.
We aim to inculcate a passion for speech and debate among middle and high schoolers, hoping to give them the drive to start debate teams in high school and become state-level competitors.
We believe that the debate events that provide the most value – both in terms of “life skills” such as public speaking outside of debate and in terms of accessibility – are Public Forum ("PF") and Congressional Debate ("Congress"). As such, we’ll be teaching only these two events during our first session.
Teams made up of 2 students compete with each other on one monthly topic over roughly an hour, starting with Constructive speeches and crossfire questioning periods and ending with Final Focus speeches that summarize the round.
Individual students give 3-minute speeches that respond to previous speakers' ideas and question each other in a round of approximately 12-20 students, similar to a Socratic Seminar or a Fishbowl.
Debate is unique for developing a combination of academic skills, from argument generation to good research habits, and social networking skills in its students.
that that allow them to launch careers into elite fields such as finance and law.
and according to a study performed by the Johns Hopkins University School of Education, are therefore more likely than non-debaters to matriculate to a 4-year college.
Debate students are likely to meet each other repeatedly each season at tournaments on the national, state, or local levels.
When debate alumni matriculate to college, they find that these friendships help them form a network that spills across campuses, majors, and professional goals.
Our instructors are all part of the nationally renown Millburn Speech and Debate team, which has produced the #1 Public Forum champions in the 2017-2018 season as well as the #1 Congressional Debate champion in the 2018-2019 season.