The very first high school debate subject I ever had to carry out was regarding censorship in schools. It was an enormous issue since there was a student group that published a rather inflammatory and controversial underground paper. Even though none of the high school debate subjects directly referred to the activities of students in the school, it was clear what was behind it. Some of the administrators desired to repress the newspaper while many individuals were in support of its right to open speech.

Free speech versus censorship is possibly the most tried and true high school debate topic, and as such there is numerous details on it. There are books on both side of the issue available in the local library. Many my classmates were pretty radical about free speech and of course considered that censorship is forever inappropriate. I did not have my mind made up quite so much about the high school debate topic until I looked into it. As soon as I started out researching it, however, I realize how imperative defending free speech is. I realized that the harm that may be done by one high school newspaper is insignificant, but that the harm which could be done by repressing free speech is very immense.

As a teacher myself, I can be thankful for the details available for high school debate topics now. There is more details than ever before, arranged in a much more easy to use format. Anybody who goes on the net can find huge databases of pro and con information on virtually any topic. A number of it is organized on web pages dedicated to a high school debate topics, while other important sources can be found on websites dedicated to one side or another of the issue.