Student Leader Ignites Community Collaboration

Foreword by Taylor Berberich, Jr. Marketing & Communications Coordinator: The Practice Space values youth leadership and creating opportunities to make real change in our community. This story is a great example of how youth voice and communication skills can blossom into authentic collaboration with young leaders. 

STARTING A PARTNERSHIP

I’ve been involved in Girls Write Now, a New York-based nonprofit focused on uplifting marginalized voices while providing mentorship to gender expansive youth, since October of 2023 when I joined the “Lead Journey” program focused on community activism. Later, I became a part of The Practice Space’s Junior Board in October of 2024 and thought, “Why not bring the two together and give the benefits of debate to communities who have never had access before?”

AnnMarie Baines, CEO of The Practice Space, worked diligently to secure a collaboration with Girls Write Now staff and thus, the Civil Discourse program, or “learning journey”, was born: four online sessions, each two hours long, as a 3-month experience that I co-created with AnnMarie. Girls Write Now mainly focuses on written works, including storytelling, poetry, and literature. Civil Discourse, a debate format, encourages people to think about unique topics, organize their thoughts before speaking, and use their voices with confidence.

WHAT IS THE CIVIL DISCOURSE PROGRAM?

This course brings all the benefits of debate without any of the hyper-competitiveness and toxicity it is often infamous for. Instead of traditional, head to head debate, with two sides and a clear winner, Civil Discourse focuses on polarizing topics, and finding surprising middle ground, made possible by a willingness to communicate and challenge beliefs and biases. This program has been almost a year in the making, where we’ve been writing curriculum, creating a new debate format, filming demo videos, and teaching live online sessions. We just wrapped up our first cycle in September, and there is more to come!

LEARNING TO GROW

There weren’t huge hurdles to overcome every session, but many minor ones. Lack of turnout, making unexpected changes, or finding out your prepared materials don’t work as well as you thought is a little disheartening. In those moments I turned to AnnMarie, who made adjustments on the fly, struck a perfect balance of challenging students but never to the point of discomfort, and lowered the barrier to entry in different activities. Odd number of debaters? AnnMarie has a solution. Confusing topic? AnnMarie already reworded it. She always moved swiftly, calmly, and remained flexible. I learned to mirror her, realizing changes aren’t shortcomings, just moments for growth.

POWER OF PARTNERSHIP

When we designed this program, we wanted to target marginalized communities who are often silenced by society. We were so lucky to have a phenomenal group of Girls Write Now community members from that exact target demographic. Everyone was so able and willing to participate. It was incredibly rewarding to see a queue of people on Zoom waiting to get a word in during discussions, to ask questions, and bring up points that surprise everyone. When participants were chatting and riffing ideas off of each other— the journey felt so real. Preparing 6 months ahead for an imaginary group you didn’t know, a debate format you just created, and talking to your computer screen for 2 hours every session becomes a bit monotonous, begging the question, “Am I doing anything or helping anyone?” But when the faces behind the screen light up, when silence becomes chatter, and mic feedback erupts, the answer to the last question is, “Yes.” I am a firm believer in passion being contagious but it can wane. This class reinvigorated my passion and infected its participants too.

CONFIDENCE & COMMUNITY

“Everything you’ve ever done has prepared you perfectly for this moment.” Is a saying I learned from my Girls Write Now mentor. The Practice Space prepared me perfectly for this program.

I’ve taken a step back from debating every single weekend, the long grueling hours, hyper-competitiveness, and the isolation I’ve felt while competing has made it difficult to continue. However, the lessons I’ve learned from debate, including confidence and persuasion, are ones I will keep forever, which wouldn't have been possible without The Practice Space. When I met AnnMarie my freshman year, that’s when my journey with debate began. She’s coached me after school, at camps, and tournaments. Then, she gave me opportunities to lead, including on the Junior Board where I’ve gotten to know staff and other students. The Practice Space has given me debate, an activity that’s taught me to think critically, fast and often, but really I’ve been given a community I can turn to. People who I can count on and believe in me and my vision.

That sense of community has been one of the most rewarding takeaways from this experience. At our final session, the showcase, AnnMarie asked everyone to share something they were proud of. I went first, and said, “I am proud of the fact I’ve found and built a community who will give me a chance to try, whether that be letting me start a class, collaborate with another nonprofit, or give me the opportunity to teach them.” Something I had known but never really realized until that moment. Civil Discourse is just the start of the road for me, and I’m looking forward to taking that journey with Girls Write Now, The Practice Space, and my community.