Sep 06, 2024 At 12:46 PM EDT
As students and teachers across the country have returned to the classroom for another school year, Starr Rhee is having a homecoming of her own.
Rhee, 25, was recently appointed as the executive director of the Nashville Urban Debate League (NUDL). As a Nashville native and alumna of NUDL, Rhee told Newsweek that coming full circle to run her hometown league feels like a "special treat."
NUDL has been serving the Metro Nashville Public Schools District since 2010 and is part of the National Association for Urban Debate Leagues (NAUDL).
After graduating from high school, Rhee went on to attend Harvard University, earning a bachelor's degree in government and a master's in education. While in Cambridge, she began volunteering as a coach in the Boston Debate League (BDL) where she fell in love with teaching. Rhee worked as a high school social studies teacher and debate coach in both Boston and Washington, D.C., for the Washington Urban Debate League (WUDL).
NUDL had previously been led on a volunteer basis, Rhee said. But this year, the board was seeking to hire a full-time executive director to help grow the league. Rhee, who was moving back to Nashville, saw the job post and thought she would "throw [her] hat in the ring" as someone who had worked in this "niche area of expertise" and who could provide a fresh perspective as an educator and coach, as well as a former NUDL debater.
Newsweek caught up with Rhee to discuss what debate means to her and what her goals are for NUDL this season.
How has debate—and the Nashville league—changed since you first started out in this activity?
In many ways, debate is sort of always changing and always the same. Fundamentally, the arguments people were making back then and now are still very similar. But I think one of the things that has been really positive in the debate world is the expansion of debate access for more people—and that is what the Urban Debate League is all about.
When I was debating, especially on the national circuit, you would really only see private schools, it was a predominantly male activity, it was predominantly upper-class students. And that is starting to change. I think that is a real positive that I've been seeing in the debate world. It's really starting to diversify and Urban Debate leagues are playing a huge role in that.
On the flip side, I think the world has changed since the pandemic. Everybody talks about how much the pandemic completely shifted what's going on inside of our classrooms, but I think one of the things that people maybe pay less attention to is the effect that the pandemic had on the entire ecosystem that surrounds schools as well. And it's not just debate. It's all of these extracurricular activities that let kids be who they are as unique individuals that are part of their educational experience.
So if you lose a couple years of kids, then who's recruiting the next generation of debaters? I think a lot of smaller leagues have really struggled in the wake of the pandemic. I think we had a super vibrant league when I was debating, and in the past school year, it was like 20 or 30 kids in [about three] schools that were pretty consistent about coming to tournaments. So a lot of leagues [are] having that similar struggle of bringing things back to where they used to be.
What are your goals as executive director for this upcoming debate season?
The goal is to bring debate to as many kids as possible. My dream is that every public school in Nashville has a debate team and that every kid gets interactive debate in some way—even if it's not being on the team, but just in the classroom [and] being able to engage in that critical dialogue.
I credit so much of who I am to debate. I feel like I wouldn't have been able to go to Harvard if it weren't for debate. Debate was what I wrote my college admissions essay about and then once I got there, I don't think I would have been successful in my classes if it weren't for debate. Debate makes you read difficult things and interact with people from all over the country and from different perspectives and backgrounds. There's all these professional skills that I've taken away that continue to serve me, [and] personally, debate gave me people that continue to play an important role in my life.
Debate coaches are often some of the most influential adults that young people interact with. And I think my debate coach completely changed my life. He's someone that I still interact with today, and when I was a teacher, he was somebody who lended me support in the classroom.
I talked to my debate partner for the first time at a tournament—we did not know each other prior to debate, we just paired up because we both had a similar level of commitment—and I'm going to be a bridesmaid in her wedding. And these relationships and friendships that will take you through the rest of your life. It's just a special community.
How has your experience as a coach and a teacher changed your perspective on debate and helped prepare you for this new role as executive director of the Nashville UDL?
For me, when I was a debater, I was a very nerdy kid, I was a type A. I think that's what people think of when they think of debate, right? They think that it's an activity for nerds or kids who are already high achieving in school. But as a teacher, my mindset completely shifted because you see the way that debate impacts the kids who need it the most.
When you're in high school, you just see your own world. And I was very lucky in so many ways and privileged in so many ways with my own personal experience. I knew that debate was foundational to who I was. I knew that debate had changed my life, but I was lucky to not be dealing with a lot of the things that, as a coach, I saw my students dealing with. I think coaching helped open my horizons to how many more kids can be impacted by debate and how debate can be such a great outlet for students who might not have the structure or stability or just somebody to listen to them.
The beauty of debate is like you get to talk for eight minutes at a time, completely uninterrupted, and have the respect and attention of everybody in the room—and that's something not every kid gets to have at home. I want to take that into this year in [NUDL] and encourage coaches to recruit the kids who [they] might not think would be on the debate team, but when they are able to channel their energy into the right area, they will just flourish.
What is a piece of advice you would tell high school students starting out in debate?
I always tell my students [that] it's not about winning. It's about everything else that happens along the way, and losing is often more character building than winning. I think that sometimes kids will get discouraged when you go to a debate tournament and lose every round. But it's not about that. It's about learning. It's about growing. It's about gaining friendships. It's about learning how to take a loss and being resilient and coming back again and trying again.
What makes the Nashville Urban Debate League special?
Nashville is just a really special community. That's what drew me back to Nashville, there's a ton of history here. There's history of students being the root of activism and movements in Nashville. When you go back to the Civil Rights Movement, that legacy lives on with kids today. And so I think something that is really unique about Nashville is it's a very dynamic, diverse city that is constantly changing and evolving, and I think it's a city where young people have a legacy of making a difference, which is really inspiring.
We are small but mighty. But through everything, through the pandemic, through teacher shortages, through inconsistencies, there have been these educators and these young people who have kept this league going, kind of by sheer will, all on their own. And I think that speaks to the resiliency of Nashville and the appetite that people have to bring debate back.
