The Pitman speech and debate club, CLA (Civic Leaders of America) had a mock Article V amendment convention on Saturday, March 22nd. For those who are unaware about what a mock Article Amendment is, it’s basically a pretend convention to add a new or remove an old amendment to the constitution.
From the CLA club at Pitman, there were two teams that went to said convention to compete. There was the Senate Squad which included four people, two juniors, one sophomore, one senior, and then the Princess and the Pop Stars which included a freshman, junior, and a senior.
From the convention there were three placed teams, two of which were the teams from Pitman! The Princess and the Popstars placed 2nd with a winning price of $500 per team member and the Senate Squad placed third with a winning price of $250.
The advisor for the teams that attended this convention was a very infamous teacher here on the Pitman faculty team, Mr. Farhadian, when asked how he felt about both teams placing in the competition his answer was,
“It was our first time participating in the Mock Article V (Amendment) Convention. Students selected a topic of their choosing, researched it, and proposed a constitutional amendment at the convention. It was exciting to hear all of the group’s arguments and equally exciting to have placed 2nd and 3rd in our first run at it.” – Isaac Farhadian, AP U.S. Government teacher and Civic Leaders of America Advisor
And he was not alone in this. As someone who participated in the competition myself and was one of the pop stars for the Princess and the Pop stars team, I was too ecstatic for the results of the convention. A member of the Senate Squad, Dante Jenkins was too asked the same question,
“Placing 3rd was a complete surprise to me and my team because we all felt very unprepared compared to the other teams which we were competing with. I am still surprised with the results but we did win some scholarship money, so that was a bonus.”
The biggest deal among the Pitman teams and almost every other team there at the convention was the preparation of the presentation and delivery at the convention. It was a worry within my group, it was a worry within the Senate Squad along with every other team that we talked to at the convention.
Blake Creamer the junior on the Princess and the Pop Stars team, the princess himself was asked, “How well prepared did you think you were?”
His response was very straight forward, “I was personally not well prepared”
And although that may be true, the 2nd placing of the competition with 8 other teams speaks otherwise. Both teams clearly did extraordinarily to be placed in the convention, and hopefully the CLA club at our school will continue to accomplish these amazing things.