Just over a week ago, the 9th IIUM Interschool Debating Championsip started. Nearly 80 schools from all over Malaysia, coming together to debate. There were a few categories: the Malay, English and even Arabic debates. But of course, my interest was mainly for the English debates.
The brother
My youngest brother, Affan, debates. He’s been debating for just about a year. His team (Al-Amin Gombak) also ranked first in this year’s Interschool debates.
Ranking first is… drumroll Al-Amin Gombak!
Yeah, I know it’s grainy, but that’s the best resolution I could get. I’ll put up the proper tabs (digital) next time.
So I’m really proud of him. He’s only in Form 3! And since he basically skipped a grade, you could even consider his age to be in Form 2.
The story
We were in the hall, just after 6 intense rounds of debating. They were just about to announce the rankings. Al-Amin Gombak had already had 5 wins and had just met up against MCKK in the 6th round. It was a silent round though, which meant that no one knew who won or lost! We were waiting in suspense wondering who won the last round.
And they kept delaying it! First talking about the tournament, then making one announcement after another. Finally though, the big screen up front started up. And…
“Ranking first. The only team with 6-0 in this tournament (6 wins – 0 losses) drumroll Al-Amin Gombak!”
The comments
“So, how long did you train them?”
“You must be proud of them.”
“What did you do with them?”
The truth
I actually didn’t do much. It was all mostly them. I only trained them for about a month before that. Actually, more like 3 weeks. And even during that time, we had the weekends off and they had to go for tuition and other co-curricular activities sometimes.
All 4 of them are pretty smart and have good logic. They can think on their feet. They can solve world issues. In their training, I never told them much about arguments that they should use for this case or that case. (No, I won’t tell you more about our trainings. grin) They came up with that themselves. Every win they got from that tournament, they got themselves, using their own arguments.
So the arguments were sometimes a little weaker than I would’ve liked, but oftentimes much better than I would’ve expected of them. After all, they’re still in highschool! I didn’t start debating and speaking in front of people until I was 18 or 19. They’re starting at 14 or 15… and winning!
So I can’t fully take the credit for training them. But I can be proud of them. And proud of my brother. But I suppose my father must feel this even more. After all, I only trained him a month. My dad (and mom) have been taking care of all of us and training all of us for the past 25 years. If this feeling is what it’s like to see your child succeed, it’s amazing. I can’t imagine how it would feel as a father to see your son or daughter doing well.
But it was only worth it because Affan wanted it so much. Not me or my dad. He wanted it, and he got it using his own skills and abilities. I think that’s what really makes us happy. That we’re not forcing him to do something but that he wants to do it himself.
The future
I don’t know what’ll happen. But I know that they’ve already made a target of themselves. From a little known school that most people haven’t heard of (did I mention that it’s my old school too?) to becoming the top ranking team at a national interschool debate tournament. Some schools will be gunning for them next year. And I’m sure that both sides will have fun doing it.
The other schools
I know you’ve never heard of Al-Amin before this. I hope that this helps. Because it is honestly annoying that when people ask me what school I went to, and I say “Al-Amin”, they get this blank look on their faces.
So maybe now people will think “oh, I know that school“, the same they do when people say MRSM or MCKK or TKC. Here’s hoping that it’ll happen that way.
The ending
After this whole event though, they proceeded to the knockout rounds. They skipped the double-octofinals and won their octo-finals, but were finally stopped at the quarter-finals by KYS (Yayasan Saad College). They were a good team.
So in the end, Al-Amin Gombak never made it to the finals, and they didn’t win…
…
…but there’s always next year. grin