Personalized Debate

With Red Ribbon week comes loads of conversation around drugs, alcohol and smoking.

Each day carries a theme -- from wearing crazy socks to dressing like twins -- and application to the week is put into place in some of the classes.

In Christopher's debate class, the work this week focused on "why or why not do I do drugs." Won't the teacher be surprised if a kid justifies using drugs. How would they handle that? Fortunately, and obviously, Christopher took the side of not participating in drugs, smoking or drinking alcohol.

He had to write a one-page paper and then illustrate his reasoning. His picture, cleverly drawn (art is paying off) showed a cigarette with a red X and a bottle of Bud Light with a red x. This of course indicates don't do either.

His paper covered how unhealthy drugs, et al, are and what they do to your body. His examples ranged from yellow teeth to pimply skin. He also pointed out the expense to doing drugs.

As he wrote, he commented that he used the words "you" and "your" frequently. I told him that personalizes the debate and helps the listener better identify with your argument. I came close to launching into a comparison of the presidential debates, but stopped, when he said "I need to count these yous and yours." Obviously, my personalization argument didn't add up for him.

Maybe I should have used you and your as I described my reasoning.