Chewing gum should be allowed in school

Thank you. I will not hesitate to say that had someone asked me about this particular issue a couple of years ago, then I would say that I agree with Con (on the resolution). It was and still is believed that chewing gum disturbs the concentration of the one who chews it. However, I have read about this and found out that new studies say the opposite. Experts have changed their views on this issue, even though it indeed does come as a surprise to most of us, I am in no denial about that. According to the first reference, a person who is referred to as Dr. Scholey had a team with which he tested gum-chewing effects on three groups of pupils: 1. Gum-chewers 2. Non-gum-chewers --> Those who neither chewed gum nor moved their jaws up or down 3. Those who simulated gum-chewing The results showed that the first group performed double as good as the second group, but also 25% better than the third group. Why is this? According to the same source, "the insulin-connection helps switch the Central Nervous System from Sympathetic to the Parasympathetic System; from fight-or-flight to-relaxation-mode. The hormones, enzymes and neurotransmitters activate 'acetylcholine' instead of epinephrine (adrenalin). When we go to Parasympathetic and 'inhibit' fight-or-flight (cortisol), we learn and think with fluidity and speed." The rest can be read on the article itself. Many other studies have been performed. The second references mentions another study. In this study, it was demonstrated that in math tests, the gum-chewing students performed no less than 3% better than the abstinent ones. In fact, their final grades were also better. This study was performed by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, and the participants made up the amount of 108. As we can see already, there are many good reasons to not only allow chewing gum at school, but to actually encourage it or, in certain cases, make it obligatory. This could be in cases where children performed extremely bad in e.g. mathematical tests. According to the third reference, chewing gum can benefit children who suffer from ADHD.[4] This mental state does very well in ruining the concentration of the one who suffers from it. The person can be hyperactive and either forget quickly what the teacher says, or not pay attention to the teacher at all. However, the good news is that chewing gum might help. The reason why that is is because children with ADHD usually do many things at once, such as clapping hands and hitting on something, and so on. When they chew gums, they sort of "minimize" the need of doing many other tasks, while they simultaneously get more oxygen in their brains due to an increased heart rate. Among all that there are, as has been mentioned, other benefits for the mind and the brain. So far, we can conclude that chewing gum is beneficial in certain areas: 1. Improves concentration 2. Significantly improves academic performance 3. Helps sufferers of ADHD 4. Overall better body/mind performance As a matter of fact, even though the points above have been explicated, we can already see that by confirming even the basics of them, they outweigh all the negative effects of gum chewing. And what exactly are the negative effects? My opponent has the burden of proof on that issue, but I can address some common points already. -- Rebuttals -- 1. Chewing gum breaks the concentration This theory is old and has already been debunked by numerous modern studies. The greatest attack on this theory is the one which tells us that gum chewing benefits the sufferers of ADHD. If there is any group of people who suffer from lack of concentration, then they are the ones. Since studies are only in favor of ADHD sufferers chewing gum, we can easily conclude that this theory of "gum chewing breaks concentration" is invalidated. Gum chewing has been proven to be good for concentration. 2. Children mumbling Many teachers are annoyed by the fact that children sort of mumble when they speak while chewing gums. I agree that it can be quite disturbing. However, I will not hesitate to say that as much as that can be disturbing, the hyperactive children are far more disturbing with all their noises and random activities during classes. If pupils are allowed to chews gums, not only will there be more peace because ADHD-children will concentrate better, but the pupils who usually cannot concentrate and focus properly will actually improve in that area due to gum-chewing, as studies have indicated in very sufficient ways. Therefore, this argument is also negated. Children will rather do better in class and disturb less when they chew gum than when they do not. As I have demonstrated, chewing gums is very beneficial to people, especially children, and serves great and efficient academic purposes. There is no need to prohibit chewing gums, especially not during tests, since it has been shown that children perform better during tests while they chew gums. However, we should not that there are many options when it comes to making new rulings on gum chewing: a. Only children who suffer from ADHD can chew gum during class. -->ab. Only children who suffer from ADHD must chew gum during class. b. Only children who perform bad at tests can chew gum during class. -->bc. Only children who suffer from ADHD must chew gum during class. c. All children can chew gum during class. -->cd. All children must chew gum during class. Now, my personal view is that we should have an established scientific fact on the issue before we can apply rule cd. However, I find rule c to be the most benefiting right now, and I have made it clear as to why that is the case. Even if rule c and rule cd are too "risky," we still have rule a, ab, b, an bc. Therefore, there are many reasons for why chewing gum should not be outlawed in school, but rather encouraged, and perhaps also made obligatory. There are no longer valid reasons for a ban on gum chewing. I look forward to my opponents response, and I thank him once more. I do not appreciate semantical arguments in this debate at all, in case my opponent tries to make use of them. -- References -- [1] http://ezinearticles.com... [2] http://articles.cnn.com... [3] http://www.wellsphere.com... [4] http://en.wikipedia.org...