Debate Reflection ;; Kelynn

Overall, I thought that the debate topic and evidence presentations went very well and some very good points and arguments were made. I ended up getting the argument I agreed with the most which worked out because it would have been easier to vocalize the position i had. (Viewpoint 4). I believe that in all areas of life, including war and combat there should be some sort of etiquette, although this doesn't seem like the most important time to show that I feel that the value Americans have for their morals was made vulnerable by dropping the atomic bomb. (That was a run-on sentence...). Because Japan was already making movements to surrender, more or less, and make peace with the Western Powers, dropping a bomb was totally not necessary, killing citizens that physically, had nothing to do with the war. Furthermore, Japan took measures to even contact Russia so that they also could make peace with Western Powers, making the dropping of the bomb ridiculous. The United States used this bomb to try and gain extra power which at this point was not the point of the war and should not have been included. We jeopardized our moral values to try and steal any power that we could, purely for our own achievement.

During the discussion I feel like the class did well representing their respective viewpoints. However, unfortunately I'm starting to see some of the old habits we, as a class, started the year with, such as :

*dominating conversations
*putting people down while trying to prove a point.

I think we all need to step back and TRULY observe the discussion rules because lately, these things have been happening more often. Because these discussion RULES are being broken, only about half the class is ever really able to say what they have to say, which I don't think is fair. There were about 5 people who said NOTHING during this discussion, and I feel like those 5 people more than likely had great things to say, and didn't. Although they should put forth effort to jump into discussion, jumping in should NOT have to include yelling over other people or interrupting other people. The discussion topic and points were good, but our discussion BEHAVIOR, i think, is calling for a personal assessment from the members of our class. WE made the rules, I think it's important that WE ALL follow them...