Jun 06, 2023 At 01:14 PM EDT
Messai Yigletu has always been a curious person.
"I always asked a lot of questions," he told Newsweek during a recent phone conversation. "I was that annoying kid. I just wanted to know why."
And he has a "1,001 Questions" award from fourth grade to prove it.
It is, therefore, no surprise that this curiosity led Yigletu to study and teach philosophy. But early into his time as a high school student, Yigletu channeled that drive for knowledge into debate.
The Washington, D.C., native participated in Lincoln-Douglas debate—a format named after the series of debates between Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln during the 1858 Illinois senatorial campaign. Lincoln-Douglas, known as simply "LD," involves two debaters respectively arguing about the morality or goodness of conflicting social and philosophical values, according to the National Speech and Debate Association.
Yigletu, 25, said this form of debate appealed to him because it is more theoretical and focuses on issues like human rights. It became the "catalyst" for his love of philosophical theory.
"Debate in high school actually kind of helped almost amplify that love and that curiosity I had because some of the first real philosophy that I interacted with…was because of debate," he said. "I can remember even the first local tournament I went to and hearing [about] consequentialism and Unitarianism and wondering, 'What are these long words I'm hearing?'"
He never forgot the skills he gained during his time as a debater, and that experience inspired him to study philosophy and political science at West Virginia University. After graduating from college at the onset of the COVID pandemic in May 2020, Yigletu moved back to D.C. to work as a teaching fellow at BASIS, a public charter school, in the fall.
The school's debate team had been on hiatus for a few years after the previous coach left. Yigletu was curious how he could reignite the program. While BASIS encourages teaching fellows to get involved in extracurricular activities, they were hesitant to allow Yigletu to take on that responsibility.
"At first they were a little antsy about the teaching fellow creating a [new team], but I said I really wanted to do it, and they let me," he said.
But Yigletu soon discovered why the administration was reluctant to let him take on the task of restarting the debate program. In addition to the challenges of being a new teacher, Yigletu was trying to wrangle together a team during entirely virtual learning.
"I didn't meet any of the students in person," he said. "I didn't really get to interact with them in person, so it was difficult creating interest at the time when kids are stuck in their homes."
Yigletu was able to overcome the recruitment challenge to draw a solid group of students dedicated to debate. Through consistent placement in the virtual morning announcements and advertisements in his own class, Yigletu was able to enlist former and novice debaters.
While the debate coaching aspect was definitely new for him in terms of learning about a form of debate with which he was unfamiliar, Yigletu looked forward to continuing his two lifelong passions.
In his first year of teaching, Yigletu taught logic and creative writing to middle schoolers. The logic class helped students develop critical thinking and deductive reasoning skills through the study of the history of logic, basic philosophy, propositional logic, symbolic logic and fallacies and game theory.
"It's a great class because gaining those deductive reasoning [skills] and critical thinking early on is important for [students]," he said, adding that some of his most successful high school debaters took his original logic class back when they were in middle school, which gave them an advantage when crafting arguments later on.
His classes are very discussion-heavy, focusing on student participation.
"I never waste in-class time saying, 'I'll give you 20 minutes to read this text,' because that's information that really could be spent discussing and really having talks," he said. "I always try to make sure they understand that the very fact that they're asking questions has put them in front of so many other people who are still struggling to even reach that first step."
Noemie Durand, a graduating senior at BASIS who is both taught and coached by Yigletu, said he is "the most inspiring teacher and coach" she's ever had.
"He taught me to think critically about my beliefs and challenge myself and others," she said in an email to Newsweek. "He has inspired me to constantly have captivating conversations and enjoy them."
She said Yigletu makes his classroom and any conversation with students a safe space where it's OK to be "right, wrong or anything in between" and encourages students to change their beliefs or arguments when called for.
Once he began as a full-time teacher last year, Yigletu was still teaching logic and creative writing while also starting his own philosophy class.
He now only teaches high school AP English and a philosophy elective and existentialism capstone class called "Death and Existence" that focuses on the philosophy of life's purpose and how death impacts our own existence.
"For high school students, in this very unique and changing society of existing, I think it's really important they gain the knowledge and the theoretical information they need to reach their own decision-making and really figure out who they want to be in life," Yigletu said. "A lot of people, especially the younger generation, become very one-track minded or very hard-headed as far as what they believe is right and what they believe is correct."
Durand said Yigletu holds himself to the same standards.
"He never made us feel like he was right just because he was an adult—which happens all too often to teenagers," she said.
While debate may feel all-encompassing for his students, Yigletu instills the need for balance, telling students that they need to prioritize debate, but "never over school. Debate means nothing if you're failing your classes."
Durand said Yigletu has helped her learn to walk the "fragile line" of balancing self-awareness, humility and confidence, adding that he has helped her enjoy the process of debate.
Mental health is also a top concern for him, as he worries that the more existential material could take a heavy toll on students' mental and emotional well-being.
"I was worried teaching a class about death and your own existence—not being able to deal with it or harming them," he said. "But luckily, we haven't gotten to that point yet."
Yigletu has realized that he must also take his own advice when juggling his passions as a young teacher.
"I take each day as a learning experience. I think that's really the best way I've got to keep myself sane," he said. "I look at it as a way to continue figuring out who I am and what I'm good at and how I can improve on that. And I think that growth mindset helps me because I always wanted to be a teacher since I was young."
On the last day of his philosophy class, he shows his students a TED Talk by writer-blogger Tim Urban about looking inside the mind of a procrastinator. Urban discusses brain patterns of people who procrastinate on meeting deadlines as well as things outside of work on their "life calendar," like health and relationships.
The key point of the video, Yigletu said, is that you only have a little time in your life to do the things you want, and you can't really procrastinate all your personal goals or desires.
"I really want my kids to understand that this is [their] life," he said. "I don't know what's right or what's really out there, but I know that for sure."
