2003-01-03 - 10:12 p.m.
MOCK TRIAL
Our local high school has a mock trial team. More precisely, our local high school has two mock trial teams. Mock trial teaches analytical skills, public speaking, thinking on one�s feet, and the art of questioning. There are 24 students who compete based upon playing roles of witnesses and attorneys in a pretend trial. They are rated not upon which side should win the case but upon how well they play their roles. While the mock trial is based upon a real trial, the rules make some changes for educational purposes. While real trials can have as many attorneys as witnesses, even among pricey, toney law firms that situation is rare. In mock trial, it�s common.
I help coach the mock trial teams even though Kat chooses not to join. (She�s much more interesting in acting than in the law. Something about being the offspring of two lawyers makes her mind ideal for mock trial and her spirit avoid it.) The teens are bright, enthusiastic, and generally hard-working. I love watching their delight as a new idea works better than anticipated and their dismay as their carefully drafted cross-examination goes awry because the witness just doesn�t answer the way they expected. More important, I love to see the quieter students begin to take some risks and the more forward students learn to reign in their personalities for a cause. Mostly, I love to watch them learn to think first from one side and then from another.
After several months of work, the teams are beginning to come together, one a bit more so than the other. They are beginning to be able to separate the essential from the desirable from the background noise. They are starting to work with specific facts rather than glowing generalities as high school students generally are wont to do. Some of them are figuring out that they have only one piece in a puzzle and must cooperate with others to make a clear and complete picture.
We have a month and a half until the regional competition. It�s time to launch them. Like any good team, we�ll have some scrimmages. They�ll try, they succeed perhaps although maybe they�ll fail and pick themselves back up. I�ll support, nag, cajole, shape, and do all the other little things that coaches do. And then the teacher-coach and I will launch them.
Wish us luck.
LAST YEAR: My Balancing Act
LAST FIVE ENTRIES:
Defending Spaces
Not One-Size-Fits-All
Forget the Suitcase
Routine
Cry for Me, Argentina
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Copyright 2006 by Ellen |
