In the last 6 months or so there have been quite a few articles in the Rostrum attacking fast, national circuit policy debate. I was going to write a response for the NDCA coaches corner but in the interim several other response pieces were posted, so having my thunder stolen I decided to write something else. Below is some of what I wrote in a rough draft for the article.
Not so fast Mr. Clark. Yours is the latest in a series of articles I have noticed in the Rostrum decrying the state of policy debate as it is now practiced on the national circuit. I won’t rehash the old arguments about critical thinking, psychological studies on rate of delivery etc. that demonstrate fast debate is more educational. Instead I want to start off talking about basketball.
As a first time basketball fan with no previous experience playing the sport, I was somewhat amazed at the success of the San Antonio Spurs in the 2003 NBA playoffs. As far as I could tell they didn’t have any elite superstar players, and played a style of basketball that was quite boring to me. “I don’t understand this!” I proclaimed, “Why don’t they play basketball the way I want them to play basketball!”. A friend then explained to me the many reasons for the spurs success using lots of jargon like “pick and roll” that I didn’t understand. I had always assumed basketball was a random chaotic game where 10 people ran around as fast as they could trying to get an open dunk, but now I was being told there were actual plays and strategies going on that I just wasn’t seeing. This seemed like nonsense to me, however, since I was totally inexperienced and was being schooled by someone with much more knowledge then me, I decided to investigate further before reaching my conclusion. This process of researching an issue before I formed an opinion was something I learned doing fast national circuit policy debate. It is always interesting to me when critics of this style of debate spout off the same old arguments about why its bad and in so doing indicate that they clearly have not carried out this process of research and exploration. The scene is usually something like this: I am in the judges lounge of a major national tournament that brings in students of many debate styles. In the room there will be a few people spread around with computers out preparing “canned” material for their students. There will be another group who sit their drinking their coffee, and discussing the educationally bankrupt style of fast policy debate. The truth is- fast policy debate is really really hard. Coaching it well is also really really hard. Sitting around complaining is very very easy.
Learning jargon is difficult, but as Condilac observed, “Every science requires a special language because every science has its own ideas”. That’s what debate is- a science. You wouldn’t walk into an organic chemistry class at Harvard and say “Slow down here, what is all this jargon”- or maybe you would. Jargon is useful- its an intellectual heuristic that makes communication among people educated in a particular field much easier. I don’t see why a person on the street should be able to understand every single debate anymore than they should understand every article in the Review of International Studies. Debate is about judge adaptation. When you have a judge who is knowledgeable about the topic, and about debate in general, speaking quickly and using jargon allows you to introduce and examine an exponentially larger number of ideas. Obviously if your judge is not up for it, you should slow down and avoid using jargon- but what is to be gained by making all debate homogeneously this way? That is the crucial issue- critics of speed and jargon don’t just want the debates they judge to be that way, they wan’t all debates to be their way because their way is the best. When was the last time you saw an article from a fast national circuit style judge decrying the lack of speed or lack of critical arguments from a non national circuit team? Critics of fast circuit debate hate what they don’t understand, what they can’t comprehend. Rather than put in the hours to learn, they wish that everyone else would simply forget. No one grows taller by cutting down giants.
Mr. Clark worries about the reputation of debate, and while I appreciate his concern, this is a bit like a freshman at Yale who doesn’t think his class about The Wire is academic enough worrying about the institutions reputation. Having such little experience Mr. Clark I do not believe you are in a position to worry. The issue of speed in debate is not one you discovered recently any more than Columbus discovered America. In a 1992 edition of Unger and Company a group of the top college coaches in the country got together to hash out this very issue (it was not new then either, but it is the oldest recording of such a discussion I can find). In it they discuss the doom and gloom prophecies of fast debate destroying the activity. Almost 20 years later, the sky has not yet fallen. Also in the video the coach of the Harvard debate team Dallas Perkins says that in an academic competition relying on critical thinking he will take his debaters vs any other students at Harvard and I have to say- I wouldn’t bet against that Texan coming down the stretch.
An implicit assumption of all these critics seems to be that all forms of debate need to be the same- homogenized mush pandering to the least informed and least adept. Last I checked, there were like 40 different speech activities and two other kinds of debate you could do at NFL nationals. If you don’t like fast, evidence intensive, complex debate about policy making you don’t have to. I don’t know of anyone from a fast circuit policy school deriding Public Forum in a Rostrum article for being too slow or or too accessible. As a wise philosopher once said, it takes different strokes. But more importantly than that, not only do the styles of debate not have to be the same, the goal of the activities do not have to be the same either. If you talk to policy alums from the 60’s,70’s, and 80’s who have moved on into business or law and ask them what it is about their time in policy debate that helps them in their careers now they won’t tell you its their “persuasion” skills. In their professions its rational, well evidenced argument that wins the day. Goldman Sachs doesn’t make investment decisions based on which analyst talked the prettiest, and the Supreme Court doesn’t rule in favor of smooth talking attorneys. So when asked what skill set does fast talking jargon filled policy debate prepare students with to enter the world compared to other kinds of debate I would have to say: the right one.
I’ll leave you with two closing thoughts. First, speed is not exclusive with other styles- people who go fast can go slow while the opposite is not true. As proof: in the last 20 years a fast, circuit style policy team has won every NFL nationals, no team eschewing speed and jargon has won the Tournament of Champions in that time period. Second, the reputation of fast jive talking policy debaters seems to be doing just fine: Robert Allen recent editor of the Harvard Law Review and future Supreme Court clerk, Michael Gottlieb former supreme court clerk and now associate counsel to the president, Colin Kahl- deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, Neal Katyal- principle deputy solicitor general, Larry Summers – chair of the council of economic advisors…
A closing quote from Michael Gotlieb- two time NDT winner, two time NDT top speaker, and one fast mofo:
For those of you judges who are moving towards hating fast debate, etc. PLEASE REMEMBER: many of you [not all] engaged in fast intense debates where you read tons of cards. You did this for a reason. Please ask yourself why you did it. I do it because IT IS FUN. I love doing it. I don’t think that we should be denied the opportunity to continue this practice. However, I’m pragmatic enough to recognize that if all judges want to discontinue the practice, than it will be so. I have no problem with judge adaptation, I grew up debating in Kansas. I just think, after sampling both forms of advocacy, that the fast intense one is a) more educationally rewarding, b) more intellectually challenging and c) more fun.
Good article. I totally agree with you and I think most people who read the 3nr do too.
http://www.wiforensics.com/2005/12/vssstratgame/
http://www.hsdebate.com/archives/theory/old/Korco…
Nice article. It might be worth reading about the common early criticisms of bebop as it relates to contemporary criticisms of debate. For example:
Parker's legacy is a misunderstood style called Bebop. In spite of other famous bebop players (Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie), he remains the primary figure of association. Bebop is considered by many (including some jazz fans) to be obnoxious, unintelligible and intimidating–terms used about Parker himself, in fact. To many it sounds like a flurry of wrong notes played at breakneck speed, and not at all like a song. Still, even those who hate bebop would generally agree something legitimate is going on, so far beyond their idea of music as to sound like a foreign language.
Parker would have liked that response.
At the end of the '30s, Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie decided they'd had enough of the sugary big band scene posing as jazz. Dozens of bands had slick-haired crooners singing simplistic, cutesy songs, the music punctuated by lame trumpet or sax solos purposely brief so as not to bore the dance audience. The big bands were diluting the music to where even the worst hacks felt justified in calling themselves jazz musicians.
In retaliation, Parker and Gillespie set out to create a style that would separate the fakers from the shakers. Bebop, a nonsense word that sounded like the playing style, became the jazz equivalent of a fraternity hazing. Popular songs like "I Got Rhythm" and "How High The Moon" were stripped of their attractive melodies and replaced with complicated new ones, turned into obstacle courses where a player had to prove himself by improvising at a 90 mph tempo over rapidly changing chord progressions, and with a new harmonic complexity boppers were just beginning to explore. As the onstage "cutting contests" proved, most of the top jazz players from the previous generation couldn't pass the test, let alone the big band wussies.
Not everyone, though, honored bebop and its stringent standards. A lot of jazz players and critics found the music so abrasively different they decided it was nothing more than noise, and began preaching how the damned stuff was steering real jazz straight into the ditch.
@K.Kallmye
Fascinating/awesome.
Can you post a cite(s) for this, “psychological studies on rate of delivery” and why its more education.
I totally agree with you. I feel that most people that argue that being fast kills debate were the people that could not compete with the best in policy debate when they debated.In all honesty, the laziness of the debaters and their lack of desire to put in the time to practice in order to get better at spreading, the lack of desire not to sit down and think about counter arguments to make blocks,and lack of desire to research is what can kill debate.
the spurs had tim duncan, arguably the best powerforward of all time
Scott, I think you are spot on about the value of fast/deep debate, but I think you're a little too flip about whether or not the "sky is falling."
Over the 20 years you mention, many regions that were once thriving policy debate circuits are now dead or anemic. This trend has many causes, and I do not think that mandating a slowing-down or dumbing-down is part of the solution, but the fact remains that as the years go on fewer and fewer kids have access to serious policy debate. I worry that Clark might get the last laugh on you.
Good article, I would say that the issue of delivery goes back much further than 1992, probably into the late 60s. Here are some cites I've got, I can also get you the pdfs if you are interested.
Brockriede, W. (1970). College Debate and the Reality Gap. Speaker and Gavel, 7(3), 71-76.
Bennett, W. H. (1972). The Role of Debate in Speech Communication. Speech Teacher, 21(4), 281.
Morello, J. T. (1980). Intercollegiate Debate: Proposals for a Struggling Activity. Speaker and Gavel, 17(2), 103-107.
Holllhan, T. A., & Riley, P. (1987). Academic Debate and Democracy: A Clash of Ideologies. Conference Proceedings — National Communication Association/American Forensic Association (Alta Conference on Argumentation), 399-404.
Rowland, R. C., & Deatherage, S. (1988). The Crisis in Policy Debate. Journal of the American Forensic Association, 24, 246-250.
Rowland and Deatherage argue that current practices in debate such as the fast rate of delivery are decreasing participation. They suggest that judges should develop a set of norms that they enforce over debaters.
@Sarah Spring
I've got an article from the 1920s somewhere that criticizes fast speaking in debate. I'll try to dig it up and post it.
If you've got the PDFs for those articles, Sarah, I'd love a copy; either email billbatterman@gmail.com or (if they're too large) post them on mediafire and email a link. Thanks!!!
Ryan:
I think it is incredibly important to distinguish between the practices of debate – fast, technical, etc. – and the ECONOMICS of debate – travel and resource intensive.
There are obvious linkages between the two, but it's entirely possible to support intellectual openness and economic protectionism. Travel and coaching costs are killing programs, not particular forms of argument. Certain UDLs and Midwestern circuits are pretty argumentatively open while economically protecting their base of students.
I blame the automatic conflation of talky speed with travel speed for driving the crisis in forensics. It's created unnecessary and irrational polarization. Bright young coaches who might otherwise see some of the benefits of stopping the arms race come to associate any constraint with anti-intellectualism. Older coaches who might be more open to new arguments automatically associate them with The Blight.
It's important to emphasize that other positions might exist; regional protectionists can be very intellectually open.
I could not disagree more, when writing this I edited out 90% of what I wanted to say in order to tone down the flip. It is really tiring hearing people assert over and over again fast debate kills debate. Nooch is dead on- money is the primary factor, the 2nd most important factor in the “decline” of policy debate is that we now have 2 other kinds of debate that people can chose to do if they don’t like fast policy debate. The “sky is falling” crowd lacks perspective- for the entire history of the activity regions have grown, regions have shrunk. A school won’t have a coach, then they will get a dedicated one, then that coach will leave. Having been in the unique position of working for several programs that were nonexistent 10 years ago,(and having gone to a HS that recently decided to abandon policy) having a bunch of people badmouth fast national circuit debate is not a good way to build institutional support for any kind of debate.
Alex,
The best power forward of all time is and always will be Kevin Mchale.
@Kallmeyer
Excellent quote, and I think very appropriate. I am sure that you are familiar with similar criticisms of rock and roll, rap, disco, sampling, and gospel. The same kind of criticisms of free form jazz were leveled at all of these types of music – that they were vulgar, abrasive and primitive. That they lacked refinement and talent, and instead played to instinctual emotions. That they sounded tribal or jungle. That they only appealed to the Wild Youth. That they were not "real" music.
Of course, all of these criticisms implicate race. Many of these forms of music have their roots in the african american community. Many of these criticisms mirror racist stereotypes or arguments. Many use explicitly racist terms like tribal or jungle (both since recaptured as sub genres of house music…). The atavistic fear is that african americans are tempting and corrupting white youth, with their "seductive jungle rhythms". What underlies this is both the fear of loss of market share, and the fear of loss of culture. As if those were zero sum – that if white children listen to too much rap, they will "lose" their white culture. Fortunately (perhaps) ultimately all of these forms of music become incorporated into the dominant music scene, because they can make enormous amounts of money. Maybe capitalism is more important to America than Racism.
I am not trying to make the argument that Clark et al are "racist" because they criticize fast debate. Beyond the scope of this analogy. There is, of course, another criticism of fast debate, an alternative "project" that establishes itself by saying that the fast style undermines participation particularly among low income and minority schools. Significantly, this alternative project is often dismissed as not being "Real" debate, that it prioritizes emotion over intellect, and that it lures youth away from "real" debate. The idea that "all forms of debate need to be the same- homogenized" is often used in an atavistic, traditional way in discussing this project.
I'm just saying…..
@TimAlderete
Alderete is just asking questions…
http://ccinsider.comedycentral.com/2009/11/12/eri…
“Cognitive Dissonance” occurs when a person is faced with two contradictory impulses or sets of facts, and the reaction to this contradiction is rationalization or denial (not an exact definition, but sufficient). Like when a lawyer faces the dilemma between truth/justice and “best interests” of his or her client, and reacts by convincing him or herself that the client is innocent. I will attempt to apply this psychological concept to the long standing discourse on fast debate. To start with, I face the following two “facts” or “impulses” that I believe are true:
Statement1. National Circuit Style Policy Debate is one of the most educational experiences available to high school students.
Statement 2. National Circuit Style Policy Debate is in the middle of a long term, perhaps terminal, state of participation decline.
I think that persons who believe Number Two look for ways to Deny number one – that persons like Clark feel that they, and others like them, have been driven out of Policy Debate because the “Style” of debate has changed from one that focuses on persuasion to one that focuses on intense speed and research. When faced with the intense focus on research, they look to Deny the educational benefits of this style of debate. This causes them to ignore any benefits of speed or research. “How will it be used in the real world” – Really? How will extensive research and writing skills be used in the real world? Really? “It cannot be understood by the Average person.” When was That the standard for gifted education? “All block reading. No thinking on your feet.” Preparation allows you to think in advance, so that the thinking on your feet is Intelligent, not uninformed. Their point here is that this cannot be educational, because it is not “Real” debate. I agree with all of Scotty and Sarah and Gottlieb’s comments about the educational benefits of national circuit style. Crudely put, if debate is an addiction, fast policy debate is like Mainlining education.
I likewise think that persons who believe Number One look for ways to deny Number Two – that people who believe that national circuit style debate is an intense, enormously powerful, educational experience have a Blind Spot about participation collapse. Denials like “This has been predicted for decades” or “Numbers always fluctuate” or “There is no causal link – there are alt causes” fail to confront or face directly Serious Participation Declines. I think that this decline has been long term – people have been predicting it for decades, and it has been occurring, as predicted, for that time period. I don’t have national numbers, but the states where I have coached previously, Illinois and Michigan, have both Substantially declined since the early 90’s (the time period I have been coaching). In response, people always say “What about this or that new program” but examples don’t refute trends or numbers. There were 40-50 schools participating at the Illinois State tournament when I started, and many more than that who didn’t attend the tournament. Even if there are always 1 or 2 new programs, usually from the CDC, each year, the overall numbers have collapsed into the teens. Michigan is Much Worse. When I started there, there were three divisions with 15-20 schools in each at the state tournament, and many more that went to the District Qualifiers. It is my understanding that MIFA is currently deciding whether to host a state tournament anymore, and district qualifiers were abandoned years ago – anyone can go if they want.
From the discussion on this post, the primary denial is that “Fast Talking didn’t Cause the Decline.” Which I think is attacking a straw person. I don’t think that anyone claims that “Fast Talking” is the sole and proximate cause of the entirety of the decline. I think that most people who make this argument would say “National Circuit Policy Style, which includes fast talking, is A reason for participation decline.” I think that the response from Michael or Scotty above would be “It would be more accurate to say that “Fast talking is only A Tiny reason for participation decline.” I think it would be more accurate to say that most of the reasons for participation decline are interrelated with national circuit policy style.
Take, for example, Michael’s argument that a different reason for decline is the increasing number of options – LD and PF. The creation of Both of those events is pretty directly linked to the Style of arguments in policy. LD began when sponsors for NFL debates saw a policy round in the late 70’s and were horrified by their first impressions; and to an unsuspecting outsider, the speed and card reading are a big part of ones’ first impression of debate. So they created an event that would minimize speed and the need for constant research. PF began as a similar reaction, when LD began to get faster and read more cards, and once again, the need to show outsiders a debate for funding purposes became necessary. Speed, at least in part, and I would say a Large part, drives the creation of alternative formats which undercuts policy participation.
Similarly, funding is not divorced from style issues. I’m not just talking about Large Sponsors for NFL – every program depends on funding sources that can be affected by style. Parents and Administrations who watch debates and cannot follow them may not be willing to make the everyday funding decisions that make programs viable. We may not want to depend on lay persons to judge our debates, but we do have to depend on a whole lot of lay persons to Fund our programs. And if a debate is unintelligible to them, they may be less inclined to fund them, or pay for their children to participate. This is not an absolute either/or situation – its not like one day, an administrator sees a fast debate and the next day, the program is cancelled. And it is not as if Every single administrator or parent will react negatively and cancel a program. But over time, incrementally, if the Style of debate that we use is not accessible to many Everyday funding sources, then programs, regions and States will gradually fade out.
A subset of the Funding argument is the coaching argument. I think that one of the primary reasons that programs collapse is that it is very difficult to find replacement coaches. When a coach retires or moves, too often a program dies. Part of this is funding, but also, part of this is our collective inability to bring in new people to coach the activity, and one of the things deterring new coaches is the inaccessibility of the national circuit style. It is very hard to find coaches from any pool other than former debaters, and that pool is usually temporary, as people coach debate while in college or before they go into “the real world.” We don’t produce enough coaches from within the activity, and the speed, jargon, travel and intense research of the national circuit style make it difficult to recruit from outside the activity. Seriously, think about how intimidating it would be to go to your first tournament as a new coach. Even if there were more money available for programs or coaches, how many people would be willing to do it? I don’t think that this is “conflation” – I think that it is recognizing interrelations within a complex situation. In this situation, I think that denial is less productive than conflation.
I attended an NDCA meeting the argument was advanced that the problem was with Salesmanship – that what we needed to do better as an activity was to convey the educational benefits of policy debate, and that this would ensure a program’s viability. The example given was a local public school that had grown from nothing to national prominence in 5-6 years, and that they were able to demonstrate the value to their administration by competing as well or better against private schools. Again, I don’t think that this is divorced from style. The ability to “sell” a product is dependent not only on the advertising, but also on the product, and if we only look at our sales job, and won’t consider whether the Product itself could be affecting Sales, then we would always fall behind.
I don’t think that Speed is the only aspect of the national circuit policy debate “style” that causes this – the jargon, the intense research burden, the travel, the informality, and the “nuclear war impacts” are also a part of the “style.” Again, I see of these all as interrelated – they are all aspects or consequences of our collective decision for decade to focus on Content over Form. I think that this is the defining characteristic of “National Circuit Policy Style” – the intellectual freedom to argue most any argument that you can prove with research and win on it, irrelevant of judicial agreement, if your opponent doesn’t respond to it. Ultimately, that may be a restatement of the Traditional Complaint – “debate has changed from one that focuses on persuasion to one that focuses on intense speed and research.” While I think that this focus is the root cause of almost everything that I find Educational about debate, it is also a primary, contributing cause to our participation crises. It is the core of our Elitism, in both the good and bad senses. National circuit policy debate is elite in that we have made it as hard as possible – it is intentionally educationally challenging, like no other activity or event. It is literally a bottomless pit of a research assignment. This difficulty, this challenge is what makes it so educational. After this, everything else in school is easy. It is also what pushes people out – if many people don’t find it accessible, then they do not feel it is worth the time and money investment. (Think SEAL training – it is intended to be elitist – to weed out people and whoever is left is battle hardened.)
Which is more important – participation or educational intensity? What is the minimum sustainable level for each? What is the magnitude of the link to each of these impacts? I think that all of these are important topics for discussion. I don’t think that cognitive dissonance is inevitable in this discussion. Fast policy debate is an enormously educational and intense activity that is Transformational to many who participate. I don’t think that it is necessary to Deny the participation crisis in order to Defend the educational benefits of the national circuit policy debate style.
Alderete,
I could go on and on about this but I will just respond to your concern about coaches since this particular gripe drives me up the wall.
Yes it sucks that people with no experience can't just show up and instantly be good debate coaches, but this obviously is not unique to debate. Someone who has never played football coaching the vasity team would probably have a problem with all the "jargon". God it is so hard not to go of on another rant about this but are people really listening to themselves when they articulate these complaints? This isn't dissonance this is an actual trade off- do you want debate to be complex and hard, or easy and accessible. I don't know why people think debate has to be everything to everyone. But lets say it does- if "style" is even part of a problem, why aren't there hundreds of PF squads in Michigan now?
I only have anecdotal to support this claim, but I suspect that alternative forms of debate have not grown debate, but, at best, have only stopped the bleeding. For example, Minnesota has a home-grown "classic" alternative to policy debate. They initially were able to grow debate to schools without programs, but there numbers have tapered off and have flat-lined. Mostly the schools that do classic debate are former policy schools who have found the format more livable. The programs that do the best in classic are the former policy schools. The evolution of teq is inevitable .
Rejection of elitist politics risks extinction
Sam Harris, 9/20/08, Founder – The Reason Project, “When Atheists Attack,” http://www.newsweek.com/id/160080/page/1
The prospects of a Palin administration are far more frightening, in fact, than those of a Palin Institute for Pediatric Neurosurgery. Ask yourself: how has "elitism" become a bad word in American politics? There is simply no other walk of life in which extraordinary talent and rigorous training are denigrated. We want elite pilots to fly our planes, elite troops to undertake our most critical missions, elite athletes to represent us in competition and elite scientists to devote the most productive years of their lives to curing our diseases. And yet, when it comes time to vest people with even greater responsibilities, we consider it a virtue to shun any and all standards of excellence. When it comes to choosing the people whose thoughts and actions will decide the fates of millions, then we suddenly want someone just like us, someone fit to have a beer with, someone down-to-earth—in fact, almost anyone, provided that he or she doesn't seem too intelligent or well educated. I believe that with the nomination of Sarah Palin for the vice presidency, the silliness of our politics has finally put our nation at risk. The world is growing more complex—and dangerous—with each passing hour, and our position within it growing more precarious. Should she become president, Palin seems capable of enacting policies so detached from the common interests of humanity, and from empirical reality, as to unite the entire world against us. When asked why she is qualified to shoulder more responsibility than any person has held in human history, Palin cites her refusal to hesitate. "You can't blink," she told Gibson repeatedly, as though this were a primordial truth of wise governance. Let us hope that a President Palin would blink, again and again, while more thoughtful people decide the fate of civilization.
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Scott Phillips :
Alderete,
I could go on and on about this but I will just respond to your concern about coaches since this particular gripe drives me up the wall.
Yes it sucks that people with no experience can’t just show up and instantly be good debate coaches, but this obviously is not unique to debate. Someone who has never played football coaching the vasity team would probably have a problem with all the “jargon”. God it is so hard not to go of on another rant about this but are people really listening to themselves when they articulate these complaints? This isn’t dissonance this is an actual trade off- do you want debate to be complex and hard, or easy and accessible. I don’t know why people think debate has to be everything to everyone. But lets say it does- if “style” is even part of a problem, why aren’t there hundreds of PF squads in Michigan now?
Scotty – I don't think that you understood my response, so I will try to repeat the parts that we agree on. We agree that debate is more educational when it is harder and less accessible. We agree that the good aspect of it being hard to coach is that it is part of a style that that is intensely educational. We agree that the use of jargon for a specialized activity is educational. We agree that elitism is good, in this respect.
Why is it then necessary to deny that this decreases participation. In your response, you do admit that it is less accessible – but in your first post, you called people who make the participation argument "The 'sky is falling' crowd" who lack perspective. You make one of the arguments I identified above – the fluctuation argument "for the entire history of the activity regions have grown, regions have shrunk. A school won’t have a coach, then they will get a dedicated one, then that coach will leave" that denies by ignoring the rather marked trend towards declining participation. That was the part that I was critiquing. Similarly, when Michael makes the argument that speed doesn't hurt programs, costs and travel do, this is just denial. Why not go ahead and admit that national circuit style reduces participation, so that you can compare the good aspects of it to the bad aspects, and maybe find a way to resolve the bad aspects without removing the good aspects? This is well covered ground in the education community. The "Teaching to the Top" discussion makes many of the same arguments about the same trade offs, and draws some conclusions about important questions.
I'll try to engage that with respect to coaching, because that is the example that you focused on from my post. It is inevitable/good that it is hard to coach a challenging activity. Have we made it Too hard? Obviously, you don't think so. Obviously, people like Clark disagree, although they would object to my phrasing. I'll answer by asking another question – Do you think that we are below the Replacement Rate for coaches? By that, I mean that the challenging nature of coaching makes it so new coaches are virtually required to have debated in HS and/or college. Do you think that this produces enough coaches to replace coaches when they retire or move on? I don't think that it does, and while I laud all of the elitism and challenge of the national circuit style, I Do think that it is a problem that we don't have enough coaches to replace retiring ones. Asking this question first makes a difference in determining solutions.
For instance, one solution is to make the coaches better. To give new recruits training and materials and scholarships to summer camps where they can learn about national circuit style of debate. Whether this solution Works or not depends on what the Problem is. If the Reason it is hard to recruit new coaches is that Policy debate is overwhelming and a Huge time investment, then offering to send them away for two weeks of their summer vacation and give them extra training programs may not work – they may seem even more overwhelming. By contrast, league mentors who can share the workload and answer questions/provide guidance may be more successful. Or maybe targeting summer opportunities to semi-new recruits who have already had a couple of years, and have made the decision to stick with it.
So that's what I think about it.
.
I know this is an interminable discussion which I at least have been having with different people in different contexts the entire time I've been involved in Debate – so I'll just share a few random thoughts.
One – Scott's analogy to other sports/what's needed to coach them overlooks the obvious – that those sports are spectator sports which draw large audiences and serve as significant sources of revenue for their sponsoring institutions. There are plenty of football coaches, even given the complex jargon needed to master football coaching, because there are a ton of "outsiders" who are intuitively interested in football coaching. Perhaps for bad reasons – but nonetheless, people want to do it. Not many people watch football games and say "this is too complicated – why don't we simplify everything?" People do watch debates and have those thoughts. We may think they're wrong, but we cannot deny that outsiders do have that reaction. I don't know if there's much we can do about it.
Second – I think similar things are true about all forms of elitist academic study. (even if they're really important to our continued existence, a la the Harris evidence Whit cites above). Law schools, business schools and medical schools are the "Public Forum" of post-graduate study – they often raise the money that allows humanities and social sciences programs to continue to exist. My experience in a philosophy program left me feeling ambivalent about the discipline. Yes – it's academically rigorous in a way that few other things are. But also – it's not accessible or self-sustaining. Perhaps because it's so intellectually rigorous.
Third – _The Wire_ showed me something similar (albeit fictionally). The people interested in investigating anything in any sort of complex, intellectually honest way will always be the ones on the chopping block when it comes time for institutions (police departments, schools, newspapers, unions and drug cartels) to make decisions about scarce resources and influence. I'm not sure but I'm guessing David Simon's new show will lead me to similar conclusions about music (though I've probably already reached them).
Yes – I love debate for its intellectual honesty and complexity. But I also hate the uphill battle this creates for fundraising, public relations, and so on. Tim is right that we are tempted to deny one or the other of these feelings, but they're both important.
I think there should be a few prerequisites to participation in these discussions:
1. You have to admit that policy participation is declining. I just think even engaging the uniqueness debate here is disingenuous.
2. Take a position on that. Either:
a. no cp/alt – a 20 school circuit is fine or
b. some sort of CP.
I've generally been really ready to roll out proposals, of whatever quality. I'm not frustrated by any negative reactions to those, but I am frustrated by implicit attempts to defend the squo. I think that being a policy debate coach in this day and age actually demands a response to this dilemma. I'm also frustrated, frankly, that everyone gets all up in arms about Skarb, but boots on this question. Population die-offs are a way bigger deal than Skarb.
Every HS policy debate issue is a sideshow to this one.
Rigorous policy debate is, numerically, in a very bad way. That may demand a variety of responses, but squo defense is just a non-starter.
It's hard to engage all these disparate comments without a text to the alt – even if that alt is "do nothing." Can we get a text here?
I have written about 50 responses to this,all of which were probably over the top. So i have taken the last version and basically deleted everything that wasn't straight and to the point:
Alderete: I get your point, you are wishy washy on each side. I don't have dissonance, I straight up reject 2. You are right- you have no data. State tournament participation is anecdotal, and furthermore not related to the issue at hand of fast circuit debate being the cause since everyone knows state tournaments are lame. LOL @ Michigan decline being caused by anything other than economics. Past viewed with rose colored leave it to beaver was a great time glasses. UDL alone makes claim of "population decline" impossible. As does summer camp explosion- more of them, more kids attending. Camps self financed points to $$$ being key factor. Just look at what schools are still around in the 2 states you mention. Participation has multiple meanings- debate being hard at top level does not cause schools to shut down programs, does cause half assed kids to maybe not do it. Tech inevitable- LD becoming policy, prophecy fulfilled- this has happened before and it will happen again, wanting to go fast is genetic-at least for Americans. No coaches? Money. Qualified individuals make more in other fields, not true of ex-athletes who didn't make the pros/have no skill set/coach 8th grade soccer.
Brown- No idea what point you are making. High school JV football not a big money maker. More people overall play sports= bigger pool of potential coaches for finite number of positions. Sport coaching limited to at most 2 hours a day/very little weekend activity- debate harder.
Antonucci- prerequisite concept unique moment of intellectual fascism from you- "you must agree with me before we can debate". Lame. CP- More money money money money money money.
All who claim "terminal decline inevitable"- I offer Ehrlich style bet, if in 10, 20, or 30 years national fast debate has died, I will pay you 10k. If not, you pay me 10k.
Can't speak for the nation, but since Scott and I debated around the same time in MN I thought I'd list the policy teams that no longer exist that I can recall since I was debating circa 2001:
Stillwater, South St. Paul, Roseville, Grand Rapids, Anoka, Hopkins, Moorhead, Forest Lake, Minnetonka, St. Paul Academy, Blaine, Minnehaha Academy, Eastview, White Bear Lake, St. Francis, Mounds Park Academy, Mankato East, St. Thomas Academy, and Richfield (the squad for which I was the last debater ever).
For comparison, here are the teams that competed in policy in MN this year – less numerous than the squads that have disappeared during the 2000s:
Blake, Minneapolis South, Minneapolis North, Minneapolis Washburn, Edina, Eden Prairie, Wayzata, Bloomington Jefferson, Eagan, Rosemount, Mankato West, Henry Sibley, St. Paul Central, St. Paul Highland Park, St. Paul Como.
I think that the HS caselist and the open evidence project have been recent bright spots that have definitely helped mitigate economic privilege, but I wish there were a way to substantially increase access to camps. The cost of camp dwarfs the cost of even extensive national circuit travel – and the unfortunate reality is that kids who can't go to camp will never be able to hang anywhere near the top levels of the activity.
What could be done about camp accessibility, I don't really know. But I think it's the fulcrum of the economic inequality that pervades the activity.
@Phillips: You can disagree with me; I welcome it. Just be clear on that one issue – what is to be done about rapid numerical decline? If squo, your arg is bad, but I will engage.
I won't engage you if you say "the number of policy squads is INCREASING" because it's impossible to argue with someone who won't admit basic facts. 2+2 =/= 5.
(Also, forcing agreement paves way for steady state, which is obvi good. "Intellectual fascism"? What's next, dreads and an acoustic guitar? I see a quality photoshop in future.)
Your cp is not very good because it will not happen – the decisions of school administrators and the state of the economy is well beyond your fiat power. The stance of "wait for some money" seems unrealistic, especially in today's climate.
@Kauppi: disagree with your factual premise (although agree with many of your sentiments). The cost of camp does not "dwarf" the cost of extensive national circuit travel.
Take a camp tuition, multiply by 2, then price out 3 plane tickets for 7 majors + hotels + car rental. One might argue that you'd probably have to pick up a hired gun to have a real shot at it, so price that in too.
Obviously, location affects that total bill, which is why circuits tend to to die off in regional waves; this quirk insulates Dallas and Atlanta area coaches from the blight in the periphery.
If money= won't happen, what will? Speed police?
Well, it is actually more pragmatic to advocate a change in judging practice within an insular community than to imagine magic money. Judges could stop calling for cards, and rely on their notes on the presented evidence. Such an advocacy isn't unrealistic.
That said, I agree with your impact turns to the CP, so that's pretty moot.
Are you asking me for my concrete proposals to reverse numerical decline? I'd lay them out in mindnumbing detail, but the likely response would be "tl;dr." I'll skip the 1ac and move straight to the executive summaries:
GOOD
1. Stop being half-***ed about open source. The half-measures helped, but they ain't enough. My position on this has been rehashed extensively. Reduces entry barriers, and also lets administrators see a concrete comprehensible product that they might enjoy or at least feel dumb about not enjoying. I think of this like health care and entitlement programs – initial cries of socialism followed by mass embrace upon adoption. Game changer.
2. Tweak the TOC rules to force a degree of re-regionalization. In addition to your national bids, you have to achieve a certain number of regional bids within a given zone. No doubling. Game changer.
3. Examine and potentially support planned debate economies. Kansas worked. The UDLs worked. Private school leagues seem to work. The free market is failing, unless you consider a 20 team circuit good. Acknowledge this as significant and move from there. Every real sport has planned circuits and conferences. Possible game changer.
4. Re-engage the discussion, at least, on degrees of limitation over coach preparation of packaged materials. I realize my phrasing here is cagey, but a full defense would provoke a lot of mindless outrage. I think we can all agree that the specter of debaters who only read prepared materials, not source materials, is problematic, raises resource constraints, and seems increasingly possible if not manifest. Such debaters always existed – now they win more.
Dunno if that's a game changer – it would have to be pretty draconian.
5. Challenge institutes to push their materials and lectures online. This is happening now, but it would be useful to introduce some pressure on the holdouts. You know, from within, possibly? (This is not a game changer, but deserves mention.)
In addition to this, reject a few terrible dominant memes:
BAD (deck chair rearrangement)
1. Squo is working to prevent declines. No – it's just not. The UDLs are a arg against a free market, not for it; they succeed because (among other reasons) they solicit public support and engage in a planned economy.
2. Paperless solves! Paperless is good; I support it despite my vague irritation at the new mandatory "awkward time." The suggestion that luggage fees were the driver of decline is mindbogglingly stupid.
3. Salesmanship solves! Salesmanship is very good. The suggestion that its absence is the root cause of decline is, in my mind, an odious version of the bootstrapping myth. It suggests that the schools who have been able to hold onto their debate resources did so by simple virtue of being more administratively clever than their opponents. (Poor people get what they deserve!) This is a privilege blind spot translated into a bad argument.
While all of my suggestions are potentially subject to claims of idealism, I think I've done a reasonable amount on 1 and 5.
SIDE NOTE: ALDRETE: I think you might have described some of my arguments in your posts. I am not 100% sure, though, because there are two Michaels in the discussion – MG and MA. Which do you mean?
Nooch,
I am confused as to why I am defending a "free market". Obviously the UDL works because a group of people raise a lot of money for it.
Me too. I am not totally sure of what you're defending, so it's possible we entirely agree.
Numbers are crashing? What's to be done? You say "money." This is unclear – money from where distributed how? Do you think programs are turning away available money now?
The UDL works in part because they raise money, of course. Also, they're a planned economy. If the UDLS had just started off traveling the TOC circuit, with no distinct protectionist league structure, they would have failed.
In the end there are too many variables contributing to why policy debate is declining.
technical v ecnomomic is an important distinction. i'll start with technical.
No one is giving enough credit to Scott's arg about alternate types of debate. Public Forum is less than 10 years old but already becoming the most popular format of debate in HS.
I debated in missouri. Debate is slow and done in front of unqualified judges. I wasn't aware of the existence of a) debate camps or b) fast debate until i got to college-that is how insulated missouri was from the 'national circuit.' no matter how big the pool was, you debated 4 rounds, no speaker points, and it broke to a quarter final. I remember the hillcrest HS tournament in springfield one year had over 100 teams and broke to a quarter.
Flash forward to 8 years later and policy debate is basically dead in missouri. Public forum, however, is thriving at or above the level policy was at when i was in school. The number 1 factor is coaching. Missouri coaches didn't like national circuit policy debate because it was fast, evidence oriented, and required specialized knowledge. they viewed debate as some sort of act or pure rhetorical persuasion.
now i don't think these rationales for the transition to public forum are unique to missouri, and i want you all to think about them. they didn't like it because it required students to work hard, do research, and intensively practice their craft. they preferred an activity where you get up, flap your suspenders at a random parent, and take the most conservative position possible because it's the easiest to explain.
i think what scott is saying is that nucci et al are resting on the false premise that we ought to value all participation in debate as meaningful. i don't think that's the case-not all participation in policy debate is important. a kid who does debate to hang out with friends on the weekend, never cuts a card, doesn't take an interest in learning new arguments, and never practices is not getting much out of the activity. if a football player didn't practice, work out, watch game film, or do position drills they wouldn't be getting much out of it.
in the end i think that decreases in participation due to the technical nature of the activity are not destructive. kids want to win. more kids will do an event that is easier, but are those the kids who were getting much out of policy debate in the first place? Scotty is right when he says that people who want to change debate to make it focus on slow, rhetorical persuasion that is accessible to lay judges ALREADY HAVE another format that offers it to them.
if those are skills you want kids to develop have them do public forum. There are of course middle ways, but in a competitive activity those aren't viable. the desire to win means that both students and coaches will gravitate toward practices that allow discrepancies in effort and research to manifest themselves in a tangible difference in wins and losses.
Now beyond my missouri example, there is the college example of ndt ceda. CEDA had the numbers. Post merger, when CEDA and NDT started debating the same resolution, many of the norms of the NDT were adopted. 1 resolution all season, increasingly technical and detailed resolutions, and an overall more research intensive policy activity.
People in college talk all the time about how policy debate is dying because so many of those CEDA schools don't have programs anymore. The reason is most of them went on to parli. Why did they go to parli? because it was EASIER. it requires no real research, and kids who couldn't win a JV tournament in policy debate can win the national championship in parli.
i have typed too much and won't address economic factors right now. i coach a college program. i think that debate is a 2 way street-you give and you take. a lot of the participation that is lost because of the technical nature of debate is not meaningful. it is participation of kids who want to take but never give. it's why i won't invest thousands of dollars into a student going to the WFU tournament (which is egregiously expensive) if that student has put no effort in.
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malgor :
i think what scott is saying is that nucci et al are resting on the false premise that we ought to value all participation in debate as meaningful.
I agree with a lot of your post, MalGor. That said, that quote's not really my position. You should not mistake me for the bumbling Ozark monsters of your youth.* I am an elitist. I think people who work harder and smarter should be rewarded. I do not think debate should be reduced to the lowest common denominator.
That said, I draw a strict distinction between *meritocratic* elitism and *economic* elitism. I worry a great deal about policy debate die-offs, because they often punish talented and gifted students for the lazy or bitter decisions of their administrators and coaches.
The real question is this: where does the sort occur? *In* school or *by* school?
I think the internal sorting for elite participation should occur WITHIN the school. Thus, if Forsyth East offers both policy and public forum, I'm very persuaded by the argument that the students will sort internally according to the amount of effort they want to invest and the quality of their suspenders, and they'll reap appropriately different rewards.
I am not, however, at all comfortable with the idea that we should say good riddance to the *schools* that bail on policy, because there are certainly bright and hardworking students within those school systems. They didn't make the decision – debate demographics made the decision for them, and that just blows. I can point to many excellent past policy debaters from schools that transitioned into PF. Their debaters didn't just take – they gave a great deal. New students at many of these schools do not have the option of a rigorous and research-intensive form of discussion, and I think that's a great loss. I think that loss vastly outweighs the interesting minor tweaks we generally talk about in spaces like this.
(*Note: no part of my post should be construed as a slam on the fine Americans of the Ozark mountain region.)
not everyone can debate. if the reasons programs are not funded are because decision makers "at the top" disagree with things that are fundamental to unique benefits the activity offers, then that is a bad decision. it seems there are two things that might be at play here:
first, programs are cut because the administrators don't see the value in presentation and style of debate because they can't follow it. that means they are making bad decisions. they are making judgments that conflict with the best parts of debate in terms of the unique values policy debate can teach students. this is why it makes no sense to me that you are so concerned with placating them. if you do it at the cost of the uniqueness of policy debate, you are the santos card-kill to save mentality.
second, it's the economics of it that administrators don't like, not the presentation. big policy debate is just too expensive. that might explain a decrease in national programs but regional travel is a budget friendly alternative. you say policy programs are gone period. economics alone does not explain that. i agree with scotty that economics are probably the biggest factor in a decrease in national travel, but don't think it applies as much to regional.
and yes your perspective is one of someone who has been doing this a long time, and it is your livelihood. that is why when i have this discussion with many who have been around for so long they get offended at my saying that debate doesn't benefit every student who does it. it's true. you have had 100s of students over the years whose lives you affected in no tangible way. that's not a knock on you or your profession or the activity, it's just the way it is. i'm sure you also had 100s who did.
you are right that the tragedy is many students who would be good at debate don't get the opportunity when the program dies, but that is not a defense of changing styles. honestly i don't even know what you are advocating at this point.
yes debate is decreasing, no it's not terminal. it's 1 activity amongst many. we are in tough economic times. there are alternate formats available to students. the numbers will fluctuate.
finally, in missouri it was students and coaches who abandoned debate and they did so because they didn't like all the awesome things it did to educate kids and make them good researchers. literally nothing you said acknowledged or even defended this perspective. it would seem to take all the weight out of your belief that it's all administrators making the decision. it's more students and coaches than anything else.
parents more often than not will support whatever their kids are interested in. parents don't try to cancel programs that all their kids pour their hearts and souls into. that makes no sense and you have provided no reason it's true.
To Scotty –
One of Scotty’s primary arguments is that fast policy debate isn’t declining in numbers drastically. Malcolm’s post makes it Four states (MN, Missouri, Michigan, and Illinois) that are facing dramatic declines just from anecdotes from this thread. This may only be anecdotal; but that doesn’t make it useless. Are there Any anecdotes going in the other direction? Are there any states that have increased policy debate participation over the last 10-20 years? Scotty’s Erhlich-bet challenge only works for him if he gets to define the bet in black and white terms – either debate is “Dead” or its “Healthy” – I don’t know anyone that thinks that there will be ZERO fast policy debate in 10-20-30 years. But, on the other hand, I don’t know anyone other than Scotty, or any trend or anecdote, that Doesn’t think that fast policy debate will dramatically decline in participation over those same time periods.
I think that Malcolm’s post also answers Scotty’s alternative forums argument, rather than supporting it. Scott’s public forum/LD argument seems to be this – that speed doesn’t decrease policy debate numbers, public forum/LD does. The responses to that are that Speed, at least in part, has caused both public forum and LD to be started, and that Speed, at least in part, has caused some programs to shift from Policy to public forum/LD (and now from LD to public forum, as LD gets faster). At least in part, that is what Missouri coaches decided, according to this post. Of course, speed isn’t the Sole factor – there is a whole range of national circuit practices that make up the reasons why coaches and programs come to dislike policy, but Speed is at least One of them, if not the most Visible one.
Scotty’s other Alt Cause argument is money – that Only financial considerations are driving the decline in participation. “LOL @ Michigan decline being caused by anything other than economics.” This is too simplistic. Money and Style interrelate; as debate becomes more expensive, coaches and administrators will only support it if they see its value. If they perceive it as declining in value, the rising cost of it means that they might opt out of it. I don’t mean that it IS declining in value – we agree that fast, national circuit policy style is The Most Valuable format. But if parents, administrators, coaches and Potential coaches don’t think so because they are put off by the entry barrier that is Style – if they can’t see past the speed, which Clearly many cannot – then they will decide that it is not worth the money.
To Malcolm:
I don’t think that this is a very good argument. That probably reflects my bias as a HS teacher and coach for 20 years, but I also don’t think that it accounts for program or regional declines. If you are right, that most of the participation decline is because Students don’t want to put in the work to stay competitive in the national circuit style, then I would think that the declines would leave us in a sustainable state. That, however, isn’t the premise or argument that Anyone has made or is resting on. Students aren’t choosing to not compete – parents, teachers, administrators and potential teachers are. Students aren’t declining, Programs and Regions are. Students who would choose policy and would work hard are not given the opportunity because existing coaches opt (at least in part) against this style, and new potential coaches find it inaccessible due (at least in part) to Style. That Isn’t sustainable – it is short sighted. Because even the programs that do opt to stay in policy have fewer tournaments or programs to compete at close to them, forcing teams to either travel solely nationally, which magnifies the financial pressures, furthering the cycle.
Scotty’s version of this claim is something like “Look at the programs that are left” – implying that only the good/hard working ones are left. In Illinois, the programs that have disappeared – Downers Grove South and Niles West (both TOC winners in the 90’s) Evanston, Niles North, Pekin, Peoria, Peoria Manuel, Elk Grove, Buffalo Grove, Highland Park, Chicago Lab (are they back?), Oak Park (for about a decade – back now – another TOC winner). In Michigan, East Lansing, East Grand Rapids, Eisenhower, Stevenson, Holland, Detroit Catholic Central, Holland West Ottawa, Wayland, Portage Central, Grand Rapids Christian, Seaholm, Henry Ford II. The point of these lists is that all programs are vulnerable to program cuts, no matter how hard working or successful. And that the teams that are left are worse off, because they lose regional competitors, and are forced to only travel nationally. Scotty, I know you think that the only reason for losses in Michigan is due to the economy, but I think that the majority of them came when a coach retired or left, and it was difficult to find a replacement. Part of that is money, but as someone who tried to find a replacement at EGR, that wasn’t the Only factor. The style of debate also made it difficult to get someone who was already a teacher at EGR, even though there was money for that, because none of the teachers wanted to. That is only an anecdote, but I would be amazed to find that it is atypical.
I don’t want debaters to revert to only doing some non-national circuit style of debate. But I don’t see the need to continue to Deny that participation is declining, and that this decline is disadvantageous. That doesn’t seem productive.
Alderete,
I am starting to think you are not really reading anything anyone is saying, so I’m not going to bother anymore, just point out one example of what I mean. You say
“Malcolm’s post makes it Four states (MN, Missouri, Michigan, and Illinois) that are facing dramatic declines just from anecdotes from this thread. This may only be anecdotal; but that doesn’t make it useless. Are there Any anecdotes going in the other direction?”
Malgor said:
“I debated in missouri. Debate is slow and done in front of unqualified judges. I wasn’t aware of the existence of a) debate camps or b) fast debate until i got to college-that is how insulated missouri was from the ‘national circuit.’”
And that is an anecdote for your side?
@Malgor
I imagine that most of your post is addressed to Aldrete. A few sentences stick out at me, though.
"this is why it makes no sense to me that you are so concerned with placating them [administrators]."
One should be concerned with placating them because they have the monies and determine whether programs live or die.
"that might explain a decrease in national programs but regional travel is a budget friendly alternative."
Unfortunately, many eviscerated regions preclude considering this as a fallback option. The death spiral that guts regions entirely, thus raising the costs of competition for the remainder, is precisely the problem in MI, IL, etc. There is no regional travel because there is no region.
"yes debate is decreasing, no it’s not terminal. it’s 1 activity amongst many. we are in tough economic times. there are alternate formats available to students. the numbers will fluctuate."
I am not totally sure about your advocacy – does this mean that it's ok and good riddance?
I do think Aldrete addressed the weird dichotomy y'all are promulgating between "no debate anywhere" and "healthy." I think each program loss is a bad thing. Also, the pattern of blight is larger, even if Dallas and Atlanta continue to host a few tournaments after all the other regions collapse.
"honestly i don’t even know what you are advocating at this point."
I can't speak for Aldrete. My advocacy is reasonably clear; I posted a long plan text above.
Debate should be fast – cheap – and out of control. (No, actually, just fast and cheap.)
The overall theme of my advocacy for debate: if smart-person debate's gonna survive, the community must be very pro-active about creating and sustaining viable competitive (and winning) options for teams that consist entirely of 2 students on a combined budget of $5000 or less for a debate season. Like, not the gold star and pat on the head, but the ability to win it all.
Right now, I don't think that's at all viable outside a few protectionist oases.
What is your advocacy, Malgor and Scott? That is not a grumpy question – I am just not 100% sure. You do not like this Rostrum guy being dumb – I feel that, he is dumb – but what's your alt again? Do nothing? Everything's fine?
Right, I got that.
If you're the c3P0 to Malgor's Wookie*, let me ask what's confusing me:
— Who is he arguing with? I def didn't say "make it dumb" and I don't *think* Aldrete did either.
— what is his advocacy? squo?
— Does he consider every word per minute like the life of a Cambodian villager? Would he make it like 300 wpm if that's what it took?
I agree that fast debate is smarter, but I think that's graphable as a curve, not a straight upward line.
*To be clear, that means I get to be Boba Fett.
Nooch-
Regarding your “they have the monies” point, I think what malgor is saying is
-debate is fast/technical
-admin hates it
-dumb it down so admin likes it
-now debate slow/stupid
means what is the point of debate? If we survive the monies war only to live as not so clever and incontent slow animals, isn’t that worse? SANTOS!
Ugh, I wrote a gigantic response to alderete/nooch and then hit submit and the browser crashed, FML. It even had a sweet Sarlac pit joke. Summation:
Alderete- really? Fast debate in other states was enough to send Missouri coaches running for the hills? Just the rumor of fast debate killed a whole state? We get your point alderete, you think people have to acknowledge both sides. I am more then ready to admit fast debate excludes people, I don't admit it kills states. You have no evidence it does. NONE. Zip. Repeat- you have no evidence. EVERY SINGLE extracurricular in Michigan has been ravaged by funding cuts, even football teams. Was that because the football games were going to fast? You say your solution is "do both styles", which is funny, since that was my whole point in the initial post. You keep responding to my "don't homogenize debate" post with "you want all debate to be fast!". The only people who want 1 style are critics. I will not yield them any ground/agree with any of their stupid BS made up points because the simple fact that they get articles published in the Rostrum is a bigger threat to debate than all the "bad" parts of fast circuit debate you think we don't see a downside to. Imagine if one of those Rostrums got put in the wrong mail box at my school, which is struggling to transition from LD to Policy and the Head of school read one of the articles about fast policy being the anti christ. ITS IN THE ONLY MAGAZINE OF DEBATE. What do you think their reaction would be? Now, if a head of school at a slow regional school read my article, how could that possibly harm their program? Do you see a difference?
Noochi
Money. Raise more money, pay coaches better. My point about the schools that are left in IL and MI is that they are schools that are either affluent/private, or public where coaches make a decent wage/they have a budget. The UDL works because a lot of people work hard to raise money, and then they use that money to hire qualified people to work for them. Coaches leave because the job is too much for too little, not because Kirshon's fem 2NC was too fast.
One thing that I left out after my post got deleted- a huge factor contributing to decline of policy- TIME. It takes a ton. When I was in HS just 10 years ago I could skirt by doing zero school work, in fact cutting cards all day in classes, and still (somehow) get into a decent college. Kids today take 10 ap classes by the time they graduate, are being told they have to do 20 activities to look good on college aps etc.
I thought that the application of the Missouri example was relatively self explanatory:
“policy debate is basically dead in missouri”, and then:
“The number 1 factor is coaching. Missouri coaches didn’t like national circuit policy debate because it was fast….”
From that I made the argument that the perception that fast debate is uneducational convinces Missouri coaches to move away from policy. I know that Malcom didn’t draw that conclusion; he just stated both facts. I drew the causation – I think that it is more than just a correlation. If your point is only that “Missouri didn’t Do fast debate”, I don’t think that is responsive – it just proves that national circuit style, pursued elsewhere, had an impact on the Missouri circuit.
Our spring break is over, so I am going to have substantially less time to spend reading this thread, so this will probably be my last. I don’t think that my basic position has even been recognized, much less responded to. I am not saying “Fast debate bad” or that we should dumb down debate. I am not agreeing with the solutions of any of the “Fast Debate Bad” articles. I am saying that people who defend national circuit style should stop pretending that it is flawless, and stop denying one of those flaws.
The way this discussion started was with several authors (conservative coaches) making absolute claims that National circuit style is only bad. They say that it pushes people out, and that it is not educational. Those authors are wrong – about the educational part. But because they have staked out their position, they cannot admit that there are Any benefits to fast debate – they take an absolute position, instead of recognizing the benefits and the flaws and comparing them.
Then Scotty responded the way many national circuit people do – making an absolute claim that national circuit style is only good. He said that it didn’t push people out, and that it is very educational. He is wrong – about the participation part. But because he has staked out his position, he cannot admit that there are Any flaws to fast debate – he takes an absolute position, instead of recognizing the benefits and flaws and comparing them.
I say that these are forms of denial – Scotty has made the argument that there is no decline; that if this decline is occurring is not because of speed; and that if this decline is occurring due to style, it is a good thing because it means only the most educational debate style is left. I think that the first two are just wrong. The third assumes that Students choose to leave, rather than programs and regions collapsing. Coaches/administrators/parents are Wrong when they think that fast debate isn’t educational, but saying “Don’t Placate Them” is head-in-the-sand absolutism – They control all of the funding decisions in our activity, which impacts participation of students, regardless of the student’s choices to work hard. It is Ludicrous to say that parents don’t make choices about what activities of their children they will pay for. I’m not saying parents will lobby the school to cancel a program – I’m saying that at most schools, most of the travel costs are covered by Parents, and if they don’t think that debate is accessible to them, many are not willing to pay the Hundreds of dollars that Each tournament costs. This is the way most HS travel Funded. Here is where the difference in years of experience and levels coaching makes a difference – I know what I’m talking about because I have had Thousands of discussions with parents about why or why not their students debate.
I don’t have a text of an “advocacy” other than that I think that this discussion (and I am not referring to this thread – this discussion occurs many times in many places )would be improved if the people who participated in it were willing to concede that their opponents had Some Truth to their claims, instead of making Absolutist claims. That is why Michael criticized me for not having a text, and why Scotty calls me wishy washy on each side. I Do think that trying to have the discussion where each side is absolutist leads to bad solutions – I think that both the conservative “Punish people for Speed” and the Malcolm/Scotty “Good riddance if they can’t hack it” solutions suffer from these blind spots, and would be improved if they recognized which parts which are harmful or beneficial. For instance, I think that any line of thinking that says “Don’t accommodate coaches/parents/administrators who oppose national circuit style because SANTOS” doesn’t reflect a pragmatic view of the long term health of the HS activity.
I don’t have a text of an “advocacy” other than that I think that this discussion (and I am not referring to this thread – this discussion occurs many times in many places )would be improved if the people who participated in it were willing to concede that their opponents had Some Truth to their claims, instead of making Absolutist claims. That is why Michael criticized me for not having a text, and why Scotty calls me wishy washy on each side. I Do think that trying to have the discussion where each side is absolutist leads to bad solutions – I think that both the conservative “Punish people for Speed” and the Malcolm/Scotty “Good riddance if they can’t hack it” solutions suffer from these blind spots, and would be improved if they recognized which parts which are harmful or beneficial. For instance, I think that any line of thinking that says “Don’t accommodate coaches/parents/administrators who oppose national circuit style because SANTOS” doesn’t reflect a pragmatic view of the long term health of the HS activity.
I did mention some solutions – changing the focus of summer workshops for coaches, and local mentorships for new coaches – as things that I think would make a difference in encouraging new coaches to overcome entry obstacles. I also think that local debate leagues can make a difference, because they substantially decrease the time lost from school/home of invitationals. More importantly, though, I think that programs need to emphasize doing both styles of debate – traveling to both the local and national circuits, and substantially adapting at the local tournaments, rather than trying to turn local tournaments toward national circuit style. That ideally should be a voluntary program decision, rather than a State organization making a Regulation, although I am concerned about the success rate of voluntary program decisions. My point is not that any of these would work, but rather that they are options that recognize that there is a problem to be solved, rather than denying that it exists.
Scott:
Yes – I should get more money, as should you. Neither of us owns a boat or even a jetski, and that is a travesty. Everyone agrees with you in the abstract.
I don't know how this translates into an *advocacy*, though. You might be saying a few different things.
You might be saying "well, we should sort of kick back and hope for money." This is potentially harmless, but if it's an argument for inaction, its futility is obvious. The community can't control that the job pays too little, but can potentially control the ways in which it demands too much.
You might be saying "program directors should raise more money." I'm pretty sure that they've considered this. Just dumping more fundraising responsibilities on directors is just an additional formula for inequity. (Not only can other programs hire more help, but you now have to really do two jobs.)
As someone with continuing ties to the Lexington program, which relies entirely on fundraising, I gotta say – be careful what you wish for. You might get it. Raising a bunch of money is time consuming, soul consuming and extremely difficult. Raising money in addition to running a debate program is very very very hard to manage.
The UDLs do raise money. The UDLs also worked to reduce costs. Schools in UDLs can generally maintain a full schedule without leaving the metro area. It's a protectionist model, which can easily be contrasted with the neoliberal/"free market" model of current "circuit" debate.
You keep saying "money" – well, sure, money, but cost reduction is much more feasible than magical revenue generation.
Maybe I've missed the mark, but I chalk that up to the vagueness of your alt. Who should raise more money? How? Who should get it? Sorry, I feel almost deliberately obtuse here, but I still don't get it.
@Anonymous
Kevin Garnett
Hey guys, a bit of my two cents on the issue of demographics playing a large part in the accessibility of policy debate.
I personally am a member of a 4 person squad in Arkansas… Yes, I know it already sounds atrocious.
My partner and I put easily 50-60 hours a week into debate each, and we debate "national circuit style" amidst a group of teams that debate very traditionally, no speed, no K's, etc. (Our circuit has about 10 schools). And the fact that we have a coach that isn't willing to learn the advanced nature of debate and move beyond the typical voting 100% on stock issues and only voting neg if the aff drops a topicality argument style of judging has tremendously hampered out potential success.
We aren't allowed to go out of state, we aren't allowed to expand, we aren't allowed to be given a chance to succeed. While I 100% agree that debating at the style that I do, and the rest of the nation does is definitely more fun and challenging/educational, it also does keep many people that are in the same shoes as me from being able to do anything with the activity that we enjoy. We're essentially forced to work our asses off and are never rewarded with it anymore than going to an in-state tournament and being voted down because we spoke at more than 150wpm and didn't "Sum it up in stocks" at the end of a round.
@Britain Kennedy
Thats your fault for spreading at a lay judge, and obviously people dont get equal opportunity, sorry about Arkansas
The point I’m trying to make is that 99.99% of judges here are “lay” (not as much lay as just stubborn.) It’s not one instance.
Also, that was a completely non-responsive post… The point I’m trying to make is that as much as I enjoy the “national style of debate”, it DOES push some people out of the activity… Whether it’s the student’s or coach’s choice.
Britain: On a different note, if you work 50-60 hours a week on debate, and intend to debate in college, please email antonucci23@gmail.com. Many programs would appreciate your efforts.
Thanks, I’ll do that tonight.
Fast Debate solves warming…
http://ducksandeconomics.wordpress.com/2009/05/20…