{"id":23580,"date":"2019-04-18T12:40:41","date_gmt":"2019-04-18T16:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23580"},"modified":"2019-04-18T12:40:50","modified_gmt":"2019-04-18T16:40:50","slug":"local-student-ready-to-take-on-the-world-while-tackling-tough-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/local-student-ready-to-take-on-the-world-while-tackling-tough-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"Local student ready to take on the World while tackling tough issues"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna Croxon has a keen\neye for the marginalized in our society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Born to what she says\nis \u201ca lot of privilege,\u201d she says she\u2019s not content to \u201csit on\u201d that privilege;\ninstead, she wants to use it to do good, using any platform she can to foster\ndiscussion about social justice issues, everything from the challenges facing\nthe LGBTQ+ community, to sex trafficking, to the Black Lives Matter movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In recent years,\ndebating has been her platform where her impassioned pleas for social justice\nwon her a place at national level. Now, she\u2019s ready to take on the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna, a resident of\nAurora, is one of three students from King\u2019s Country Day School set to square\noff against international competitors at the World Debating Championships,\nwhich will be held in Toronto starting this Thursday and running through April\n17.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the Nationals,\nAnna, who has been involved in debating since middle school, placed third\noverall, earning a place to compete at the Worlds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cQualifying for the\nworlds is definitely very rewarding,\u201d she says. \u201cAlong with that, it is very\nexciting to be able to meet a diverse group of people from all over the world\nand hear what they have to say about worldly issues and topics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna says she has\nalways had a passion for public speaking and pursuing that all-important\nplatform. She wants to be able to talk about things that matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think as someone\nborn with a lot of privilege, I have somewhat of a responsibility to use the\nplatform I was given to make room for people who have not been born into the\nsame life as I have because I can recognize how privileged I am \u2013 and I really\nwant to make sure I don\u2019t just sit on it and I use it to actively do good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the National Level,\ncontestants must participate in four areas: persuasive speaking, debating,\nimpromptu speaking and interpretive reading. For persuasive speaking, Anna\nfocused on the assault and abuse of the intellectually and physically disabled.\nDebate topics ranged from \u201cwhether or not it would be a good idea to\nassassinate Kim-Jong Un,\u201d the right to protest in highly concentrated areas\nlike highways and airports, and whether or not there should be hate speech\nlaws. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe learned a lot\nabout the community of disabled people, especially within Canada and how that\nissue was epidemic and hidden within the walls of Canadian society,\u201d says Anna.\n\u201cPeople don\u2019t really know it is happening and because they are so vulnerable\nand susceptible to abuse because their disability either prohibits them from\nspeaking up, or prohibits them from defending themselves. It can occur a lot\nmore frequently than we think and some of the statistics were honestly just\nmind blowing about how frequently it does occur. A statistic that really struck\nme: over 85 per cent of women with disabilities will report being sexually\nabused or assaulted at least once in their lifetime, which is obviously a very\nhigh number and something that really amplifies the importance of the topic and\nhow frequently it does occur, but we never see it in newspapers, PSAs, or even\ntalked about in school communities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the worlds, Anna\nis branching out into the world of \u201cvoluntourism,\u201d addressing this issue in a\nspeech that delves not only into the industry itself, but also into what she\ndescribes as \u201cthe idea of the White Saviour\u201d complex. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am tackling a\nmultitude of different issues in this speech because it is very multifaceted,\u201d\nshe explains. \u201cWhen we volunteer in these underdeveloped countries, we come\nover from the western world, we\u2019re very unqualified, for example, to build a\nhouse or to teach children English even though we don\u2019t speak their native\nlanguage. Looking at the standards of the western world, we would never let a\ngroup of elementary school students go and medically take care of children\nwithin our hospitals, or teach at our schools, or build our libraries. Why are\nthe standards so much lower in developing countries?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am also examining\nhow because of this we\u2019re depriving local workers for much needed jobs. Instead\nof employing people within the local communities which would, in turn, improve\ntheir economy and alleviate some of the poverty those nations face, we\u2019re\nhaving people come over and do work that they could be doing. It is just\nexamining how these experiences are focused on the volunteer\u2019s quest for\nexperience as opposed to the recipient community\u2019s actual needs, and\nperpetuates this idea of a desperate, under-developed country needing to be\nsaved by the western world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through channelling\nher passion to be the change she wants to see in the world through public\nspeaking, Anna says she has developed a new sense of confidence in speaking to\na crowd and, on a smaller scale, simply interacting with people. It has helped\nher organize her thoughts efficiently and write a speech but, she says, more\nimportantly, has been the chance to improve listening skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt might sound ironic\nbecause I am there to speak, but when I get to sit back and listen to the other\ncompetitors, it is really, really interesting for me to hear their thoughts,\nperspectives and what they have researched, and the work they have put into\ntheir topics because I think in our modern world, we do a lot of talking and\nsometimes even in debating we listen to them speak as opposed to just listening\nto listen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think these competitions are really, really helpful\nin me just listening to other people\u2019s ideas in order to weave different\nnarratives and perspectives into my own understanding which, in turn, helps me\nto be a better public speaker and a better debater because I am learning about\nwhat other people think and other people\u2019s ideas on important issues\u2026 I think\ndiversity of thought is something that is so crucial and pivotal to learning\nand success. Along with that, being able to meet a diverse group of people from\nall over the world and Canada is really an irreplaceable experience I think\nwill stick with me in my latter years of life.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir Anna Croxon has a keen eye for the marginalized in our society. Born to what she says is \u201ca lot of privilege,\u201d she says she\u2019s not content to \u201csit on\u201d that privilege; instead, she wants to use it to do good, using any platform she can to foster discussion about social justice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/2019-04-18-07.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-68k","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 13:51:47","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}