TOC Finals 2010 Videos
9
May
Westminster TA (aff) d. St. Mark’s MB (2-1) *Bricker, Greenstein, Herndon
The negative went for economic growth bad.
1AR by Ellis Allen from Westminster
2NR by Alex Miles from St. Mark’s
2AR by Daniel Taylor from Westminster
Thanks!
Thanks a lot!
why was the room so nice/large/not a million degrees?
Hardly anyone was watching — that meant more space in the room, fewer hot bodies, etc.
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Rajesh Inder Jegadeesh :
why was the room so nice/large/not a million degrees?
Rajesh, are you sure you remember correctly? Was the room really that hot? Maybe it was just you?
These kids are talented for sure, but i just wanted to shout out to the small schools who did well at the toc, i mean obviously talent is one thing, but you gotta admit, westminster has like 20 ppl cutting them cards, not that this takes away from the intelligence of the two debaters, it just raises an interesting point
@bobbie
it's sort of a rumor that "20 ppl" cut cards for westminster. they have good coaches, but Daniel and Ellis also work really hard and produce a lot of the files they use.
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bobbie :
These kids are talented for sure, but i just wanted to shout out to the small schools who did well at the toc, i mean obviously talent is one thing, but you gotta admit, westminster has like 20 ppl cutting them cards, not that this takes away from the intelligence of the two debaters, it just raises an interesting point
Westminster certainly has coaches, but to be fair every "small school" that did well (defining it as breaking) had at least one or two good coaches with them (we had Jon Voss, Drew Nishioka, and then Ozzie and several others for the TOC; McDonogh had Daryl Burch and then Seth Gannon for the TOC; St. Paul Central had Mike Baxter-Kauf). I'm pretty sure Westminster didn't have 10, let alone 20, and at least judging from the insane amount of cite/full text requests Ellis sent me throughout the year and the insane amount of knowledge both DTay and Ellis have about every area of the topic, I am positive that their victory was well-deserved based on their work ethic alone.
This conversation seems to start every year after the ToC. I am not sure why it is productive to try to diminish the accomplishments of a team who just won/did well at the ToC.
Pete-
You are right it isn't productive.
More importantly though the comment is just uneducated. EVEN IF Westminster had 10000 card cutters they opted to read the same affirmative all tournament with some new twists to it in the quarters, semis and finals. So maybe they had some good politics updates and strats versus other teams still in, but they won on the AFF reading the SAME aff.
um, seriously guys, re-read the post, i made it clear that it doesn't take away from westminster AT ALL.
And no, the comment is NOT uneducated. You are ignorant to believe that it doesnt make a difference, because it does. I can work just as hard as a team at the TOC, but because Im from a smaller school, I dont have coaches, etc cutting all the otehr files and random cards, or tons of backfiles, but thats life i guess. Again, they are talented, smart, hardworking, but there is a difference. SOMEONE NAME THE LAST TIME A SMALL SCHOOL WON THE TOC
if you want to win the TOC, stop caring about what other teams have and work harder. being from a "small" school is an excuse to prep smarter, not lose.
small school or not, name the last time a team that didn't work their asses of won anything.
@ bobbie
Caddo Magnet, Niles West, Isidore Newman School, Omaha Westside
all toc champs… not sure which one of those is a coach laden powerhouse
also, you really didn't respond to the fact that you are factually incorrect – which round at the tournament did westminster utilize random backfiles and cards – they were aff every elim and cut a majority of the aff
also – westlake this year had 2 tubs but let's be honest, one arg in the box – they did pretty sucessful if i remember corerctly
well, the dude never said you didnt have to work hard, but seriously teams prove that it doesnt matter
what about the issue of money, though, its more interesting
kids who go to 7 week or DDI or NUDI get a lot better than ppl who dont go to camps?
Johnz-
Not everyone who goes to 7 weeks or DDI or NUDI or any camp, automatically gets better. Kids who have the work ethic to learn and work hard are the ones who get better at camp. It has nothing to do with what camp you go to, it all boils back down to how hard you want to work.
Someone who works hard but goes to a cheap camp can still get better.
okay, i ma assuming they have a decent work ethic, and stop acting as if there wasnt actually some sort of a bias. THERE IS, but i guess we just have to deal with it. And the kids who go to camps like 7 week dont just go to screw around-at least mostly
and there is a difference in getting better-more camp=more improvment,logically, since you practice more!
" And the kids who go to camps like 7 week dont just go to screw around-at least mostly"
False.
okay fine, whatever, guys, I dont even agree with the guy who initially started this issue, but i will say because IVE seen personal examples of people who are incredibly smart but cant afford to go to camp, so stop pretending like it isnt a problem
I've worked at numerous camps over the years. I've never been to a camp that didn't offer scholarships for kids who couldn't pay. I've also witnessed kids who haggled and negotiated their tuition down to a manageable level. I've also witnessed lab leaders give up portions of their salary to enable kids to get the camp experience even though they couldn't afford it. One common element in all of this is kids actively and aggressively pursuing the opportunity to go to camp (some would interpret this as showing the willingness to work hard).
As someone who: a.) grew up poor, b.) never went to camp until my college paid for it, and c.) was consequently a pretty bad debater, I should be sympathetic to cause. I'm not. I don't want to go into a whole pull yourself up by the bootstraps speech, but opportunities exist and often they go untaken.
Don't wanna speak for these kids, but since Hirn already did somewhat, I will. Whitney Young had tons of success this year because they worked hard. They aren't rolling in cash and they don't debate for a large squad. Nevertheless, they managed to show up for the TOC with a lot of help. I'm sure that most of the people were taking less money than they normally would to do a job like that. The reason being, they liked the kids they were working for.
If you build it, they will come.
I'm not sure that it's worth having this discussion here (as it has already almost entirely degenerated into ad-homs) but – is it even controversial that wealth inequality has impacts on who goes to/does well at the TOC? Of course, there are individual examples that show that you do not *automatically* do well if you are rich, and *automatically* do poorly if you are not rich, but I'm sure we're all smart enough to know the difference between a general trend and an individual anecdote. Can you do well without a lot of resources? Yes. Can you do poorly with a lot of resources? Yes. Are you more likely to do well with a lot of resources than without a lot of resources, OF COURSE. We all know this.
@Josh Brown
You pretty much just said:
"Can we agree that, once we dismiss all the evidence to the contrary, what I've said is true?"
The burden of proof lies with you. Show me some examples of dumb lazy rich kids who beat smart hard-working poor kids regularly, because they have more money. Then we'll talk.
Anxiously awaiting your reply,
Whit
If paid debate coaching or summer instruction does not help produce any competitive advantage, I assume that your services will be free from here on out.
NOTE: Please don't misconstrue this comment as some sort of hate on the students who worked really hard for their TOC success. I just think that Whit Whitmore's services are worth money, because they produce both a competitive advantage and a superior educational experience.
@antonucci
Cue roy comment on how whit shouldn't be paid. Nooch is all the back and forth between you and roy just a sham because you do seem to play the straight man for him quite often
Hey, this is completely unrelated to the TOC, but I was wondering if anyone knows whether or not the dates for Wake and greenhill will be changed this year,as of now they would coincide with the Jewish New Year
I think everyone is pretty much in agreement.
While better coaching and better debate camps increase success, it is only minimal. And those things alone did not cause people to make it to the outrounds of the TOC. There work ethic during the year and presumably at the institutions they attended were more valuable to their success.
Last year Greenhill moved their tournament by a week in order to prevent this I am told that was the reason however I do not know.
@Bozo
According to an NDCA e-mail from Aaron Timmons, sent out about a month ago, the Greenhill tournament will be held September 10-13, 2010.
okay fine, let me present you with a situation
two teams who work equally as hard, one goes to westminster and can go to debate camp every year, has great coaches-the other cant go to debate camp, cant travel much, etc, your guys' arguments are slightly flawed, blahaha hard work
im talking about kids who work hard, okay there is a problem and inequality-
What do you want us to do about this "problem and inequality"?
@johnz
I understand and I can sympathize with your sentiments; you're right, people with more money do have an advantage. it is unfair. But there are a lot of unfair things about life. Just like you can remedy a speed differential with efficiency, more speed drills, and smart argumentation, you can remedy economic inequity with persistence and hard work. Whit is all too correct when he says that debate camps aren't evil institutions that are out to only help the rich; from personal experience, I know that there are very willing and able to negotiate costs. More than half of the kids on my debate team go to camp for free or nearly free each year, and I don't think anyone could pay what's listed as tuition at most camps.
You say that coaches help. On a personal level, we got REALLY lucky this year – as Whit said, a lot of people worked for us for less than they would elsewhere (for example, the coach we had throughout most of the year contacted us on facebook asking if he could coach us for free after watching us win a small midwestern tournament with no coaching); that's probably not sustainable for most teams, but it shows that good things will happen if you do work. Plus, as Miles said, teams like Westlake don't have coaching and regularly do incredibly (like lose two prelim rounds the entire year, win the Glenbrooks, etc). That's because David Mullins worked as hard or harder than any debater I've seen in the country (they actually did have more than one argument :P). Plus, if you go to camp, you at the very least have a built in resource from your lab leaders and coaching there. If you are persistent in email conversations, you will get a lot from judges that you regularly get at tournaments. Even discussions on websites (some may advise against this) can fill in for a lack of a coach.
Even the costs of travel, through persistence and diligence, can be overcome. While in some cases like Kansas or Missouri their restrictions make it impossible to really solve, there are a lot of ways to cut costs. Take Westlake again: from frequent flier miles to just chilling with friends at a tournament, they were able to figure out how to get places. We've gone to tournaments for free too; sure, it takes something like driving in a van 1500 miles to New York without stopping and debating once you get there (how we went to Lakeland basically for free, as Stefan Bauschard after a long email correspondence between him and me, waived all fees, gave us way more housing than we should have been allotted, and changed our judging commitments to allow us to go), but if you are really dedicated you can do it.
There's even ways to get money to allow an entire team to travel. Take Beacon, in New York City. They have almost zero external funding or school support. However, their team (which is significantly student-run and organized) works really, really, really hard to fundraise tens of thousands of dollars; they lobby people, have big dinners that they work up, give speeches, write letters, etc, and they have a ton of teams traveling across the country. They're also quite successful, their top team as juniors like won Lexington and was a round away from breaking at the TOC.
I agree; there is economic inequity in debate (as there is across fields) and that creates some disparate competitive impacts. It should be addressed (although it probably won't be on a wide scale). In the absence of a different economic system though, there is a ton that can be done at the individual level to create success at the top levels of policy debate.
i only read like the first 4 posts of this rich/poor throwdown but i just want to make a couple of responses to "bobbie"
1. regardless of the truthclaim of ur comment it's really assholish and detracts from the talent of all 4 of the debaters in that room. saying "lets be fair wm had 20 coaches cutting cards" is just evidence that instead of working to become good you sit there and say "oh they're just good b/c they go to a school where people cut them cards. don't do that. miles rishee ellis and dtay could probably kick the crap out of you regardless of how many coaches either side had.
2. questions of resources are many times very thinly veiled. having 100 coaches doesn't mean you win the TOC. St. Marks had much fewer resources than a lot of other teams there. I know for a fact miles works like a fucking dog all the time and the args he went for in finals he cut without any help from his coaches.
3. your'e just empirically wrong regardless of resource claims – andrew and zack from bronx literally didn't have a card cutting coach for 80% of the year and they still managed to dominate more than nearly every team. westlake lost like 3 rounds all year and they went to a school with no resources but worked like dogs cutting very specific K strategies.
The debate over debate inequity is perennial. I've found cross-x.com posts from 2007 where I debated this. Here is my 2AR:
It's important to distinguish income/outcome inequality. Inequality of outcome is good because some do deserve it more. Some people are just better than others, they work harder and are smarter. Often in these discussions, some people come off like whiners making excuses for their ineptitude by explaining away why others win more as mostly money. Instead, we should have a different discussion at a different time, and frame it around inequalities of opportunity. The Rawlsian "Veil of Ignorance" says that we should evaluate decisions as if we didn't know what our position in society would be. The fact that some of us are born into positions of privilege is a matter of luck, not skill. That some of us are born with privilege isn't a reason to resent or reject that privilege, but rather it's an opportunity to use it to give everyone equal opportunity, by seeing things via the Rawlsian veil. Debate is far ahead of the rest of society in this respect, since good judges will vote for the best team regardless of school name, and there have been great strides in making camp evidence and coaching lectures available online (seriously, if you just read all of the3nr and spdebate, you won't need much other coaching). Almost everyone in the community, especially the bigger-name people, wants to equalize inequality of opportunity because they want to see debate grow. Complaining that we're not at 100% is counter-productive, because it replaces what could be a solution-oriented discussion with whining, which just provokes resentment from the "big schools" who now feel insecure about having earned their win and get defensive in return. The problem with comments akin to the one on trial here is that they irrevocably split coalitions by asking the wrong question. Even if you didn't mean it, it still comes off that way. It seems like you're blaming some students for having more coaches. Remember that students at bigger schools didn't CHOOSE to have those coaches, just like no one chooses into what social position they're born. Saying that they had an easier path ignores that those students couldn't have chosen a harder path- even if they only used self-cut evidence all year, you can't unlearn the coaching tips you already received. It shouldn't be "Do big schools win the TOC more?" but rather questions like "How can we give everyone the same starting backfile set to win debate rounds?" This summer(ish) I hope to make a infile searchable database with all years' campfiles and cites.
Teaching everyone how to start their own business means everyone wins. Redistributing the wealth so everyone makes the same amount means everyone loses.
Yes, coaches cut cards.
No, that does not equal debate success. We won most of our rounds this year on stuff we cut OURSELVES.
We (being me and andrew, by ourselves) did 85% of our files this year. I know Miles' dedev file that he went for mostly every round at the TOC was something he did himself. Westlake, a school with few resources, managed to roll teams all year on arguments they cut.
The point is that while yes, income matters based on where you travel, how well you do is mostly contingent on how hard you work.
to be fair, dedev was not every round, we also went for gender
Whit -
I agree that the burden of proof lies with me to prove that wealth inequality affects outcomes in Debate. I disagree that I need to provide "examples of dumb lazy rich kids who beat smart hard-working poor kids regularly because they have more money" in order to prove this. What I'd probably need to show is fairly obvious if some cursory research were done – that the average attendee at the TOC comes from a family with a higher per-capita income than the average American, and that the average attendee at the TOC comes from a school that is wealthier than average. The example of Whitney Young isn't quite as instructive as you seem to think – it's a magnet school that has more resources allocated to it than many other Chicago Public Schools. I'm not really arguing about "big" vs. "small" debate programs – because I think that distinction is relatively arbitrary and probably begs a lot of questions. I'm just saying richer kids going to richer schools have a better chance of doing well at Debate.
I also agree that I've made an argument which claims that the evidence you have provided is irrelevant. I think that's a pretty ordinary tactic in argumentation. The reason I've claimed it's irrelevant is because it is – anecdotes about this or that team that did well neither support nor deny general claims of the sort I was making. More general research would be needed – and I admit I haven't offered any. I'm just relatively certain that had some been done, I would be right. I know that sounds dogmatic, but to be honest this feels a little like being asked to prove that the sky is blue, even though on some days it's cloudy.
And I totally agree with Kevin's sentiments – of course it's important to try anyway, and of course there are ways to narrow the effects on inequality. And it's also true that there is unfairness in life. My only real point is that it IS unfair. I don't think that unfairness is inevitable, I just think we're all used to it. I don't think that unfairness is the Debate community's fault so much either – we're replicating inequalities that exist society-wide in the United States, both in terms of educational funding and in terms of general income inequality.
And lastly – of course I think the people who reached the elimination rounds at the TOC worked very, very hard. But how many other kids are there that could have worked that hard were they given equal opportunities to do so? Pointing out that inequality exists does not detract from what those who accomplished the most have done, it just reminds us to keep things in perspective. And don't just think about the other kids who do TOC-style debate but lack sufficient coaching – think about all the kids who don't even know what "TOC" stands for, and don't even have debate teams, would probably have been good at it, but lacked access to the opportunities required.
@Josh Brown
"But how many other kids are there that could have worked that hard were they given equal opportunities to do so?"
What? I said, "if you work hard opportunities will open for you." You said, "I'm sure kids will work hard if you give them opportunities first."
"think about all the kids who don’t even know what “TOC” stands for, and don’t even have debate teams, would probably have been good at it, but lacked access to the opportunities required."
If a tree falls in the woods and it hands out a national debate championship, have you missed out on anything?
I'm fully on board with you that the plural of anecdote is not data. However, what you've correctly diagnosed as dogmatism isn't either.
A closing note from a personal hero of mine (Susanna Sherry):
What distinguishes reason from alternative epistemologies is its general reliance on basic logic and the evidence of the senses (augmented by scientific discoveries). Certain types of questions are always in order in response to a reasoned argument: "Doesn't that contradict what you said earlier?"; "Is that consistent with the evidence?"; and "If that's true, wouldn't it follow that…?" Other responses are always out of order: "This must be true (or false) because the ultimate source of authority (God, the Bible, or some other source) says so"; and "I have faith that this is true regardless of its internal contradictions or its inconsistency with the evidence." In some ways, it is easier to describe what reason is by explaining what it is not. To be reasonable, an argument need not depend solely on deductive reasoning, but it cannot be illogical. It need not be entirely provable by scientific experiment, but it cannot be inconsistent with everything science and the social sciences know about reality — until and unless that reality is experimentally proven wrong. Reasoned appeals need not be fully successful, but if they convince no one except those who are already believers, they are probably flawed. Nor are common human emotions entirely excluded. But neither appeals to power nor "strategic arguments designed to persuade [primarily] by their emotional effect on the listener" are consistent with reasoned argument. Reason also stands on its own: neither the identity of the speaker nor her institutional role should be relevant to the persuasiveness of an argument. Moreover, reasoned argument invites response and must therefore depend on a commonly shared perception of reality. Appeals to a perception of reality shared only by the faithful — those who have seen the light, as it were — cannot count as reasonable.
Teams with low incomes will always have a harder time sending a team to the TOC. The way that people become good at debate is by experience, and the way people get expirenced at TOC style debate is by going to national tournaments like Harvard, Emory, Glenbrooks and so on. But, if you go to a school that only has enough money to send you to local tournaments that do not do TOC style policy debate, its harder to get that kind of experice at that kind of debate you need to win high-level rounds.
By this same principle, it is easier to do well if you go to a higher income level school. If your school has enough money, you probably go to tournaments like Harvard, Emory, MBA and Glenbrooks reguraly. Going to these tournaments gives you the expirence you need to win, and watching out rounds there or even getting into some higher level debates there will teach you something that you can use to become better and win TOC bids.
Of course this comes with work as well, you also will have a hard time winning the TOC if you do no work, and the teams that got to the deep elim rounds are very talented and do tons of work. But, even if you do tons of work, but you cant afford to go to a tournament that gives out TOC bids, you wont be able to go to the TOC.
So before I comment let me just say that what I say in no way marginalizes dtay and Ellis' accomplishment. I have honestly never met two people who worked harder, practiced more or ate more unhealthily than them (eating is prob just dtay).
With regards to the above argument I just want to say that I don't think we should rule poverty out as an inhibiting factor for the success of individuals in debate (notice, not teams, individuals). This can make a big difference, let's imagine a hypothetical where Person A debates for a "big school" and is pretty well off. Person A spends tons of time doing work and has the support of his parents and teachers. Obviously this is a recipe for success. Person B let's say does the same amount of work, perhaps more, but his/her family lives "in poverty." is it fair to assume that because those considered to be the "well-off" have created opportunities for the less fortunate that they are able to achieve the same level of participation? While person A receives the support of his/her family person B is constantly pressured to get a job, to stop wasting their time cutting cards. They are pressured not to go to tournaments, and while all students have obligations this student's are borne out of necessity.
My point is that we shouldn't overlook poverty in relation to debate just because of the existence of financial aid/scholarship money, there are other factors at work that may make participation for the impoverished a great deal more difficult.
I feel like this thread has turned into a bad cap K debate, where people assert (correctly) that money affects every aspect of our lives (including debate) and then pretend this is a meaningfully relevant concession.
Does money create certain opportunities for people or make it easier to compete at debate? Yes. If I gave your debate program an extra 15K, could you deliver me a TOC championship? Probably not. Money doesn't win championships. You can't buy them. Westminster doesn't have the largest budget in the country. DTay and Ellis aren't the richest kids in the world.
"Aha! But money does have SOME influence," you say. So what. Money is not an insurmountable barrier to success.
The story of poor little Johny who is super smart, a super hard worker, hands down better than the field of competition and, but for being short on cash would win the TOC is the stuff of movies. You do a disservice to children when you tell them that they will never win the TOC because they are poor, or that they would have won the TOC this year were they rich.
Two People. Only two people get to call themselves TOC champs each year. If you ever want to be one of those people, you have a A LOT more to worry about than money.
..and the story of little Johnny who worked hard, was super smart, and, despite being short on cash, still won the TOC on pure pluckiness and daring is also the stuff of movies.
(Actually, that’s a much more popular movie.)
The difference between the two movies is that your movie, Whit, is much more toxic. It’s the bootstrapping myth, and it is pernicious. The whining directed at Westminster is wrong and annoying and obviously comes from a place of (frustrated) privilege, but it has nothing on this myth. I do not know much about Suzanna Sherry, your personal hero. I’ll quote from a personal hero of mine, Kurt Vonnegut, though, who seems to speak to these issues in a way that Ms. Sherry does not.
“America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, ‘It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.’ It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: ‘if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?’ There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand – glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register.”
“Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves.”
This is not a perfect description of the debate sphere, of course, and it is not a perfect analogy to the various bootstrapping myths circulated on this thread. The analogy, however, is pretty clear. It’s toxic to tell students from schools without debate programs that they can win the TOC if they just…work harder.., apply themselves… or act “chill” and bum rides to tournaments or something. That’s simply incorrect, and it would lead them to self-loathing if they were dumb enough to believe it. I’ll translate the meme:
“If you’re so smart, why didn’t you win the TOC? You’re not one of those two? Then I suppose you didn’t work as hard. You didn’t just creatively innovate around resource inequities. I suppose you aren’t as chill as Westlake. So shut up.”
Is that about right?
I disagree, and I really do apologize for the vehemence of my disagreement – but it is vehement, and sugarcoating would be as dishonest as it would be diplomatic.
FAQ:
–”Are you ascribing Westminster’s success to resources?”
No. No. No. I’m not, and I really restrained myself from posting on this thread for a while because it’s an unfortunate crossing of arguments. I dissociate myself entirely from the original poster.
Resources get you to the base of the mountain. Coaches guide you up the mountain. There’s an enormous personal investment, though, to get to the top of the mountain, and I am in *no way* discounting that effort. They obviously climbed that mountain by themselves, and plenty of other people had their shot and got outperformed.
I really do consider complaints about 20 card-cutting coaches silly and, in a way, privileged. I generally hear these sorts of complaints from wealthy-ish children who bought into bootstrapping myths at a fairly young age and feel wounded when they enter into a slightly different field of resource inequities.
Telling ourselves that *everyone in America* had that shot, however, is absurd and toxic, though, and feeds into the sort of myths that produces both self-loathing and some truly terrible self-congratulatory douchebags who make Karl Rove look like a model of civic virtue.
“Well, if resource inequities screen some people out of debate, why is it still a worthwhile endeavour for me? My school doesn’t invest heavily in debate. I don’t have much coaching. Why bother?”
Debate, at its highest levels, is not especially equitable at the distribution of competitive goods. The distribution of trophies is not a pure meritocracy, and the sooner you disabuse yourself of this notion, the better.
However, debate is still incredibly worthwhile because, if you have the maturity to accept a somewhat unbalanced playing field, it’s fairly equitable about the distribution of *educational* goods – which is more important.
Put more simply, if you enter into this somewhat unlevel playing field, and, despite prodigious efforts, come up a little short at the TOC, meh. Whatever. Except for a small number of uber-nerds, this is not real life.
Ten years from now, no one will care that much if you went 3-4 or got to the quarters.
If, however, you devote yourself passionately to that goal, and you genuinely strive, you will reap inestimable personal rewards, regardless of your numerical record. It’s easy to rattle off long lists of debaters who have gone on to complete and total awesomeness. What we often discount, of course, is that many of those debaters were not even close to the pinnacle of competitive success.
The success comes from the striving, not from the endpoint. To throw every annoying hippie meme into the pot, the path to enlightenment is extremely worthwhile even if aren’t going to reach nirvana in this particular go-around.
“How might I usefully process this sort of information if I did, in fact, win the TOC? Should I feel ashamed of my privilege somehow? I worked very hard for this, you know.”
You did work hard. Kudos to you, and you should derive immense personal satisfaction from your accomplishment. There will always be haters, and pshaw to them.
However, I would urge you to acknowledge one truth that others might push you to forget. I don’t direct this at you specifically, but to every national champion.
You got lucky.
You may have been a little lucky at the tournament – matchups and panels and such mean that there’s a little luck in every championship. The ball can bounce in a lot of unpredictable ways. More importantly, though, you were lucky because you won the birthing lottery in some sense. You were probably born kinda to very wealthy by US standards, and you were automatically born extremely wealthy by global standards. You were certainly born into a community that treasures learning, and that is an unfortunately rare gift.
This component of luck means that your success also carries an element of responsibility. You encounter a lot of people less talented and less lucky than you are, and I think it’s part of your job and purpose to help them up a bit instead of just looking back down the mountain at them.
I apologize for the length, the grandiloquence, and the hints of vitriol, but I really do feel passionately about some of these issues.
Antonucci – I totally support the vitriol/passion/grandiloquence… No need for apology.
I think the most important/useful thing you've pointed out is the "bootstrapping myth." There's a reason this stuff is the stuff of movies – it serves a convenient ideological function for poor and rich, validating systems of inequality by romanticizing the exceptions to that system. The "poor kid triumphs over adversity" movie is WAY more popular, because it allows us to avoid hard questions. _Freedom Writers_ may make us feel better about ourselves than Season 4 of _The Wire_ – but that's a problem, not a good thing.
Maureen Dowd wrote sometime during the Bush administration that everyone knows it's easier to score from third base than from first. The problem is when you start out on third and think you've hit a triple. If we cannot acknowledge the role of luck AND its significance (i.e., not like one poster above who says we "all" can agree that wealth inequality exist but its impacts are "minimal") then we will be trapped in the grips of a narrative that perpetuates that very inequality. No, wealth is not a sufficient condition for TOC success, but it's quite causally important nonetheless, more than just a little bit. How to quantify that is tricky, admittedly.
I don't think this is necessarily a cap debate – there are lots of ways our society (and our Debate community) could be made more equitable without rejecting capitalism per se. I only meant these arguments to be reasons why we should all advocate for the kinds of incremental changes to the relevant political structures that would allow a more level playing field in debate in general. Antonucci is probably right that the TOC itself is relatively equitable. But getting there, or having the chance to, seems not so much. Kevin's reference to frequent-flyer miles may ultimately prove my point the best (albeit indirectly). The sort of person who already has access to customer loyalty programs is probably on the (relatively) privileged side already. Frequent flyer points are not going to help a kid at a school that doesn't have textbooks or desks.
And to respond to Whit, this is a "meaningfully relevant concession." Acknowledging the role of the natural and social lottery means acknowledging we all have some duties to create a more just and sustainable activity, to mitigate against the effects of the natural and social lottery. It means acknowledging that with that luck comes some sense of collective obligation.
And to Whit's response about kids who don't even know about the TOC: "If a tree falls in the woods and it hands out a national debate championship, have you missed out on anything?" I would suggest that if we've just had a year of debate about poverty, and *this* is our understanding of the lack of opportunities that poverty creates, that's a problem for our activity, even purely on educational grounds.
The idea that there is an analogy between a poor kid who doesn't get to go to the TOC because their high school doesn't have a debate program, and a tree falling in the forest and no one to hear it… seems to me to suggest that it's okay that poor people don't have opportunities if they don't know what they're missing. THAT is just unjustifiable discrimination, pure and simple. Sure – and residents of the developing world who lack access to drinking water, well, if they don't know what they're missing, what's the difference, right? Wrong.
Josh Brown – the kids this year actually learned almost nothing about actual poverty and how bad it is. Two large reasons
1. It didn't get anyone to extinction, so it wasn't viable.
2. The states counterplan.
We should stop calling it the poverty topic, because it was far from it, and a missed opportunity to debate about the intricacies of one of the largest problems America has today.
Nooch, we'll have to agree to disagree. Not an unusual outcome for most of our exchanges. I wholeheartedly believe that the narrative of "if you work hard, you can succeed," is a much better one than, "you're screwed, 'cause you're poor." The latter, is much more toxic. It encourages self-defeatism and the abandonment of all hope. There is no incentive for kids to work hard and try if their die was cast at birth.
It's a loose analogy (at best), but there was a common overriding theme to the comments of most black Americans asked to speak about Obama's election victory. It was something to the effect of "I've always told my children they can be whatever they want to be when they grow up. Now I can mean it."
Even if it isn't true (I still believe it it). Telling kids they can win if they work hard enough is a necessary lie. Kids are short-sighted. You and I know that the benefits of debate are intangible and unmeasurable, but they don't. Competitive Learning is the greatest trick educators have ever pulled. So I'll keep selling that lie (if it is one), because we're both in agreement that its best if kids keep buying it.
Josh Brown, I seriously think you are delusional. Just like I wouldn't give 20 oz prime rib to a child starving in Africa (…and before anyone shows ignorant outrage at that comment it's for health reasons, a meal like that would be a shock to a malnourished system), I wouldn't prescribe debate for a child in a school with no text books and desks. That school has larger structural problems that need to be addressed before anything like a debate team could be established. Debate is good, but it is only a supplement to a larger educational institution. Does it suck that some kids don't have desks and books? Yes. Is the greatest tragedy in their lives that they will miss out on debate? No. If you get caught in the tractor beam of debate, then who won the TOC matters to you. If you are the overwhelming majority of students across America (rich or poor), you could care less who won the TOC. That's the point of the "tree in the woods." Academic Bowl and Math Team are also excellent educational activities, but I couldn't begin to tell you who the best schools in the nation are at these things. You also won't find me shedding a tear for the unfortunate schools who don't have an academic bowl team.
@Josh Brown
Season 4 of The Wire is a good example, but Namond does go on to do policy debate in Season 5!
@ all interested in the conversation
Have tournaments ever considered lowering admission fees in order to allow teams that are underfunded to have a chance to go?
I know that admission fees help pay for a majority of the tournament, so maybe it isn't possible. But i know it's at least a minor solution that might help.
@Interested User
There are many tournaments will waive fees for UDL schools or other schools with certain circumstances
@antonucci
Antonucci – I think I should have emphasized the first sentence of my post a bit more. I agree that things in life are fundamentally unfair; it’s really hard to get money, and a lot of people have a far, far inferior chance at succeeding at debate than others. I also agree that this is a real, tangible, problem that reveals itself across policy debate, the educational system, and probably every institution in America. On a personal level, I do try to do things, however minimal, to try and aid it (this summer I’m both volunteering a large portion of it to working with ANSWERCoalition and then the Chicago Summer Debate Institute, which is a UDL camp that serves a lot of Title I schools in Chicago that have substantially less resources, as Josh Brown noted, than Whitney Young does).
I never pretended that this wasn’t the case.
However, I disagree with your argument that this rhetoric is “toxic”. You have persuaded me somewhat that it is probably not very useful; these teams are the exception, rather than the rule. Nonetheless, your concluding sentence to the words you put in my mouth about how “if you’re not as chill as Westlake you should shut up” was not the point of the original post. At all. These are examples of teams barely if at all had debate programs. The policy debate program at my school was very new when I signed up; if I had started debating in 7th grade (my school is 7th-12th), I would have been on a team of novices.
The examples that you seem to detest with vitriol, in which you quote more casual linguistic elements of my first post, are true. I never said that “being as chill” as Westlake was a factor; I said that Westlake is an example “chilled at” (i.e. stayed at, roomed at, I apologize if the casual language was confusing) houses and hotel rooms of other teams (for example, ours’) because they didn’t have money for a hotel room. They’re by no means the only team without money. I wrote a paragraph about Beacon, from New York, that fundraised thousands of dollars on their own and has a completely student-run program that dedicates itself to sending a lot of teams across the country.
I think that propagating stories about “creatively innovating resource inequities” is productive. It shows people that others have succeeded in climbing a very, very hard mountain that is skewed against them. It shows people that they can succeed at being the exception. Before my senior year, due to the resource inequities that affect Whitney Young (this is before we had a coach with national circuit experience on our staff; all joined basically for free through the course of the senior year), an alumni from our school told me that me breaking at the TOC was a thousand to one and winning the TOC was a million to one. This number is important to keep in perspective; those odds are astronomically higher for million of kids across the country, and I recognize and accept that I comparatively am in a position of extreme privilege compared to them, so perhaps you’ll discount my personal experience.
But I don’t think victimizing them and telling them that they can’t creatively innovate around them is counter-productive. Perhaps I’m just too naive.. I do think that two kids from a new program in an urban debate league or a rural community who work really hard to fundraise for themselves, get scholarships to camp, and really invest themselves in policy debate can win the TOC. I think that the odds are indeed astronomically low, and perhaps it is almost a fantasy. I think, that given current material and funding constraints, that it’s worthwhile to continue it.
Moreover, although I did think about it throughout the entire day (hence the long time I spent writing this comment) and was initially quite persuaded by your argument that these scenarios make people “shut up” and become self-loathing, I think you’re somewhat incorrect about this, and would like to see any empirical support, anecdotes, or examples you have to back it up (obviously there are no statistical studies about this). For the past two years, I’ve gone to the National Urban Debate League Tournament, and for the past three a ton of different UDL tournaments. These debaters pretty much all know what the TOC is, what bids are, and know that it’s hard to get them. Some, like a team from University on the Alternative Energy topic who was the top seed at Bronx, like a team from Walter Payton on the Africa topic and then another on the Alternative Energy topic, and a couple of others actually got bids. Most didn’t.
Still, none of these students at this tournament were disillusioned or self-loathing. They all tried their best and knew that it didn’t translate to winning the TOC. But they all still loved debate, gave speeches supporting it, and showing that their future included college and would be greatly influenced by debate. And, seeing as you and Josh Brown have a flair for discounting experiences of debaters as “over-priveleged just because they’re debating”, I can tell you that these debaters did not have the privelege level of a Whitney Young or a Westlake or even a Beacon. A lot of these debaters are from Title I schools. Some of these debaters have a lot of gang violence in their areas that makes going to school tough. Yet speech after speech (a representative debater from each of the 25 or so cities at NAUDL gives a speech on the first day) talked about how much they loved debate. Hopefully, many will be very successful in college or any subsequent years they have in high school.
Your last few paragraphs are ones I find much agreement with. The benefits of debate are indeed about the journey, rather than the destination. I don’t think that telling people that they can strive to win the TOC against great odds – even if they come up short – will make them have this reaction: “Well, if resource inequities screen some people out of debate, why is it still a worthwhile endeavour for me? My school doesn’t invest heavily in debate. I don’t have much coaching. Why bother?”.
I guess you think that’s “toxic” and “absurd” to tell these and thousands of other students that they have a chance to win the TOC. But I really dislike any alternative, because it leaves all prospects of equalizing debates to the hands of external agents to accrue funding and support in a more equal way for all debaters.
@jb
I think this comment was made lightly, but for some reason it really bothered me. I disagree with the sentiments of this comment.
1. The poverty topic wasn’t awful because it didn’t have high-magnitude impacts. It was awful because “social services” is somehow even less conclusively defined than “public health assistance” (which you really have to try to get to), other than definitions that involve in-kind assistance that exclude what’s obviously the core of the topic – Food Stamps, TANF, etc. It was awful because there’s not a neg literature base that comes from sources other than CATO, Heritage, and other right-wing and libertarian sources; that’s not a really even debate.
2. States v. federal government *is* actually an important consideration in poverty debate. To be honest, most generic negative literature will just say “let the states handle it”… Maybe you think there are some fairness or logic problems with the states CP based on the notions of how it is fiated, but I don’t think that distracts from the education provided by the topic.
3. I think every hard-working debater in the country (everyone from Westminster to the UDL teams that tried to win their city tournament to students in Kansas who worked really hard but literally can’t go to the TOC) has learned a ton about poverty policy, from what percentage of a school needs to be under the federal poverty line for it to be considered a Title I school to the difference in services and poverty restrictions between Medicare and Medicaid to whether or not farmer’s markets accept food stamps. That doesn’t mean every debate should be a narrative on how awful poverty is…
@Kevin Hirn
My post wasn’t a response to you. It was a response to Whit Whitmore.
In the same vein, I’m not sure your post is a response to mine – you’re largely disagreeing with things I hope that I didn’t say.
I struggled to find the place where I’m “discounting experiences of debaters” – with or without flair? I also struggled to find the place where I claimed to dismiss any opinion as suspect because the source is “over-priveleged just because they’re debating.” I don’t understand the quotation marks around that statement, because I didn’t say that. I do feel that it’s a mistake to read the listed exceptions as typical or easily replicated, but I don’t feel that’s a dismissal.
I said – and maintain:
1. Debate doesn’t distribute competitive goods very equitably. Resource inequities have a substantial competitive impact. Initial access is the clearest example of this disparity, but certainly not the only one. (We seem to agree on this.)
2. At the same time, debate distributes educational goods fairly equitably. Access is a problem, which many intelligent and well-meaning people (including you) strive hard to address. If you’re debating policy, though, you’re reaping many benefits regardless of your precise TOC record or even your TOC attendance. Hard work and fearlessness amplify these rewards. (We seem to agree on this.)
3. Given this gap between competitive and educational equity, debaters should strive hard to do well. They should be hard on themselves when they are not giving it their all, but easy on themselves when the ball doesn’t bounce their way. A debater from a less privileged program should work hard to compete in fora such as the TOC and feel pride in their performance, but feel no shame or inadequacy if the odds catch up. I don’t think that these attitudes are incompatible with the mature recognition that debate’s probably the best game in town, but the dice are a bit loaded.
(I am not totally sure if we agree or disagree on this. I did not find anything in your post that appears to disagree, but perhaps I am misreading. I will explain slightly more below in response to W2.)
4. I believe that certain versions of the “bootstrapping myth” are very toxic – partially in debate, and, more importantly, in the broader American social sphere. Josh said it well when he said “it serves a convenient ideological function for poor and rich, validating systems of inequality by romanticizing the exceptions to that system.”
This seems to be your primary source of contention. I’m not completely sure our disagreement is as stark as you make it out to be.
I don’t think it’s useful to tell debaters that they are “screwed” if they’re resource-poor or that they should give up. I am pretty sure I never said that, and I think I put in some safeguards against precisely that misreading.
I think, however, it is very dangerous to tell debaters that the dice aren’t even a little loaded. To claim that all competitive barriers are surmountable – that debate perfectly matches results and individual efforts and talents – risks gross arrogance among the top of the bracket and despair among the bottom and middle.
I could certainly give you examples of both that arrogance and that despair. I choose not to, because I think it’s unseemly to make individual debaters and coaches the subject of serious-ish public discussion without their consent. I thought it was unseemly of the original poster and it would be unseemly of me. You can trust that I’m telling you the truth or not.
By the same token, I really do think that the individual exceptions you tout got, well, a little lucky. Those debaters struggled and worked hard hard hard and displayed rare and admirable fearlessness, and I wouldn’t take a thing away from that. I don’t want to catalogue angels on their shoulders; argument about biography tends to descend into gossip. Not going there.
You describe a number of debaters at the NAUDL who love debate, and aren’t particularly fazed by the TOC, and don’t calibrate their success purely by that standard. We both agree that’s good, right?
5. Finally, I think that all highly successful debaters (and elite individuals in general) should be willing to say:
“I’m smart – I’m talented – and I worked hard for this. At the same time, I got a little lucky in a few key places along the line – and that luck invests me witha very real responsibility to the rest of my communities. My sense of obligation should be equal to my sense of pride.”
Do we disagree about that? I suspect not.
@Whit:
I’m glad that Obama won. I don’t think that means we either could or should use that victory to presume that the playing field’s level – that racism finally “went away.” (That was the immediate post-election Fox News meme, of course.)
Racism’s still quite real, and loads the dice in important ways we should acknowledge.
It may be useful to strive toward a race-neutral meritocracy – but are you somehow implying that it’s beneficial to pretend we live in one now? That would appear to be the logical endpoint of your analogy…
re: shhhh, quiet, don’t tell them!
I don’t believe in lying generally. Lying to debaters seems especially ill-advised, because they are smart and good at calling shenanigans. If they’re easily duped, we suck.
Kevin’s description of debaters who understand the TOC structure, but don’t really feel that’s their personal metric for success, would seem to belie the necessity of maintaining some sort of pedagogical deception.
If you are fostering an illusion of competitive equity to sustain interest, isn’t outing yourself an a very public blog more or less the worst possible tactic?
@Interested User
The primary financial barrier to TOC attendance is travel and hotel costs. These swamp entry fees.
Nooch -
As someone who is still running from the shadow of poverty, I tried to place myself in a situation where I was on the precipice of realizing my dreams only to have someone pat me on the back, and tell me it wasn't going to happen. "I'm sure you worked hard, but it just wasn't meant to be," this person would say. Adding, "you should consider yourself lucky to have made it this far."
I can't imagine a scenario where I don't harbor anger and hostility towards that individual, even when I imagine that person being one of the many mentors who have helped me get to where I am today. It still comes across with a feeling of condescension or as an attempt to placate. I, and I'm sure many others like me, need to believe there is light at the end of the tunnel. It's the reason why we strive. The loss of hope that accompanies a failure of this belief is the respite of robbers and thieves and drug dealers. A path that I came dangerously close to in High School. The desire to get ahead doesn't change. Just the means to which you are willing to go to.
I don't link we live in a race neutral society. Never said anything close to it. I don't think Obama becoming president ended racism. That would be silly. But I do believe that for millions of Americans it validated their hope.
I don't believe it's a lie, but I hope that to the extent that you interact with underprivileged students you would sell my story instead of yours. Even if you don't believe its true.
Whit -
I don't think it makes me "delusional" to think policy debate could help high schools with severe resources shortages. I've never thought of Debate as just another activity, like scholastic bowl or whatever. Policy debate simultaneously teaches reading, writing, speaking, listening and research in a way that none of those alternatives do. I don't deny that those schools have bigger problems; I mostly was taking exception to your idea that if they've not heard of policy debate it didn't matter. I don't think that's a delusion.
And Kevin – I don't mean to discount debaters' experiences based on their "privileged" nature. I just think it's important to *acknowledge* one's role in systems of privilege when talking about them. As you know, I coach a basically middle-class Debate team; we have fundraising issues but certainly I'm not under any illusion that I'm speaking from some sort of proletarian standpoint. Otherwise, I basically agree with your position. I didn't mean that I'd claim something was "insurmountable" in the face of inequality, just *difficult* to surmount, and difficult in a meaningful way, and that I've found that being realistic with students about such difficulties can be empowering, not demoralizing.
Also to Kevin – I didn't mean to imply that no one had learned anything about poverty this year just because every round wasn't a narrative. What I meant was that comparing lack of opportunity to debate with not hearing a tree fall in a forest *did* seem to demonstrate a strange lack of such knowledge.
As for the broader issue of affirming a story regardless of whether I think it's true – I agree with Antonucci. I don't believe in lying generally. There are narratives that acknowledge the reality of privilege without making privilege into an excuse to be wielded in the face of failure. In fact, Whit, the only real difference in the narrative I tell my students and the one you seem to be describing is that, from time to time, I do remind students that there are resource inequalities that need to be acknowledged and fought, in whatever way feasible. That's different than saying "you're poor; things will never work out for you."
And I *have* worked with students with significant financial barriers, so I deny your claim that had I worked with more poor students I would understand more what you were saying. As I said a while ago on this thread, appeals to anecdote seem unproductive, though, so I'm not really concerned to work out who has more "real world experience" in this vein.
And Campbell – it warmed my heart when I saw Naymond delivering a speech about subsaharan Africa. But let's also remember that for all of Naymond's other friends, life will likely not go well. What I liked most about _The Wire_ was its willingness to square the narratives it generates with the social reality it seeks to represent, as opposed to the willfully delusional inanity of movies like _Freedom Writers_ or _Dangerous Minds_, that often choose to focus exclusively on "inspiring exceptions." Of the five kids centered upon starting in Season 4 (Randy, Dukie, Naymond, Michael and Michael's brother) one (or maybe two) of them ends up in favorable circumstances. So it's not impossible, but it's realistically unlikely – Bunny Colvin seems to recognize this, and want to help his students by starting with the acknowledgement of that reality, and is accused of all the same things Whit has accused me of. And Bunny Colvin is the one whose adoptive kid ends up doing Policy Debate.