Letter from the Chair

As coach of the HAFTR Speech, Debate, & Model Congress Program and the Chair of the Citron Online NSDA District, my goal is to create an inclusive environment for students that can’t compete on Fridays and Saturdays.  By allowing these students to engage with the broader speech, debate and model congress communities throughout the country we will create  great listeners, eloquent speakers and strong and resilient leaders.  

To properly defend their views and their communities students need to learn to research, develop and deliver well constructed arguments on both sides of a topic.  They need to also learn to listen carefully to their opponents. These skills are learned through practice.  When you have these skills you can be an advocate that engages others in a convincing way. 

In the National Speech & Debate Association, students are taught to dissect every topic from every angle.  They are taught not simply to regurgitate talking points of one side or the other, instead they are taught to critically analyze all arguments while at the same time carefully listening to their opponents.  Students then apply these skills by debating both sides of a topic often multiple times per day.  

In these polarized times, just having the mental dexterity to engage others on their own turf is critical.  Until you listen carefully to the arguments of your opponent, you have not understood their perspective. Until you debate from the other side’s perspective you have not internalized their arguments.   Until you fully internalized their arguments you will not be able to win them over.   These are the skills students need to bring with them to college and beyond.

In the Citron Online NSDA District we develop future leaders and advocates.  We run over 20 online debate, congress and speech tournaments throughout the year.  In these tournaments our students are challenged by high school debaters and speakers throughout the country.  At the end of each year we take the best students to the NSDA National Tournament, so they can apply everything they have learned against the best competitors in the country.

Help us develop future leaders by supporting Citron Online.  Your donation will be used to run tournaments, off-set student travel costs, run summer camps and engage more and more students who can’t compete on Fridays and Saturdays in the art of persuasion and rhetoric.

Coach Alex Libkind

Chair Citron Online