With a little effort, this step in building an effective WSD team can be the most fun!
Think back to your best memory from debate regarding your team. Is it the end of the year party at the coach’s house with karaoke? Was it dinner at a two-day tournament spent laughing with teammates at the happenings of the day? Whatever your memory is, it probably involves an element of warmth, friendship, and connection. These memories probably happened after many months or years of being together, so how can we recreate the same feelings in a World Schools team with only a couple of months together? The answer comes with three simple parts: bonding, humor, and humility.
Bonding is having a structured or semi-structured activity that creates feelings of closeness. This could be having an icebreaker challenge at the beginning of each practice where you get to know fun facts about each other and connect over similarities, or could be as casual as taking the team to Chipotle for dinner before or after practice and hanging out as you would with friends. Bonding can also happen far outside of practice, if you want to organize an escape room, pool party, or other day activity together, these are also great ways to bond. Another good way to bond I have used successfully is food. If someone on the team can cook or bake, or even if you all bring snacks from the store to share, eating and talking together is one of the fastest ways to bond in and out of practice. Sharing food has long been a tradition of bonding in multiple cultures, and debaters are no exception- sharing snacks together can make you feel closer in practically no time.
Another element of getting closer together is sharing humor. Whether it’s popping a meme in the team group chat or making a joke before starting a speech at practice, laughter has a way of bringing people together. Of course, we must keep the humor appropriate and positive (instead of self-deprecating or rude to others); nobody likes to be humiliated in front of their team! As long as you stick to this basic guideline, have fun making inside jokes for your team to laugh at even after hard days, and enjoy funny occasions when they arise. You can even get your coaches in on the fun. Laugh at their jokes (even if they’re dad jokes), and try not to feel too stiff and formal even if they are a new coach to you. Coaches and teammates alike are human; nobody is immune to laughter or smiling.
Finally, the least fun but arguably most important element of team building is humility. This humility manifests itself in being willing to learn from your teammates instead of assuming you know all the answers, taking criticism or corrections for mistakes with grace, and hyping each other up even if you don’t feel like the team is doing the best it can. Because these are people you might not know very much about, you may feel pressure to be the best or even one-up your teammates, but this pressure is all inside your mind. There is no gain in ignoring valuable advice, being in a huff when receiving corrections, or yelling at each other when something goes even slightly wrong. Being patient, supportive, and open-minded is essential to having a successful team both in competition and in relationship to each other.
While nobody can make bonds instantaneously, we can facilitate a healthy environment for growing healthy team relationships by having specific times to bond with each other, sharing laughter and having a good sense of humor, and being humble teammates who are willing to grow and support each other. Best of luck with your teambuilding and don’t forget to have fun!
~ Jewell
Dynamic Debate Advice 