With still more than a month to go before the school year begins, I have already dived (dove? diven?) into next year’s lesson planning with blue pencil in hand, updating and moving things around and generally trying to improve matters for all and sundry. One interesting question is, where to start, exactly. I mean, there’s this small gaggle of novices staring up at you with those big Wall-E eyes, waiting to fall in love with debate or be convinced that this is their ticket to a college one notch up on the scholarship-for-life scale, and there you are knowing that first impressions are lasting impressions, and that if you don’t hook them early, they may run off forever. I have no great answer to this predicament. I do think that explaining the parts of a debate round is not the way to start, any more than explaining how a fuel injector works is the starting point of drivers’ ed. The topic that we are presently debating, whatever it is, will have some appeal, but the upperclassfolk will be talking about it in Prakrit as far as the newbies are concerned, so a little of that is okay but a little is enough. After that, there are the various aspects of ethics and philosophy that are the bread and butter of the activity (have I used enough metaphors in this paragraph yet?) and somewhere in here seems the right place to begin. In the past I’ve kicked off with rights or the social contract. This year I think I’ll kick off with justice. Certainly everybody understands some concept of justice by the time they’re a freshman in high school, so this will both build on and challenge what they already know. It’s a good a starting place as any (until it bombs, and I try something different next year).
This is also the time of year when I begin meditating on next year’s officers. Captaincy has its own weight on any team, and we additionally have appointed Novice Directors (not unusual) and a Hardware Engineer, a unique position which over time has become the most dreaded among the Sailors. Hardware Engineering originally arose from a need to have someone collect trophies for display during Bump, since the school has no permanent hardware case for us. My original hardware engineer having performed this task so well, other tasks were added to his responsibilities, always revolving around a thing of some sort or other that could be considered hardware. This job has evolved over time to include reserving classrooms and submitting bus forms and collecting ballots and, generally, every damned thing nobody really wants to do but that needs to be done. In actuality it is a job of great responsibility that cannot be shirked, and with only a few exceptions, our Hardware Engineers over the years have been young men and women of literal steel who went on to become great captains of industry, soldiers of fortune, and, in a couple of cases, circus roustabouts. I am happy to say that this year the mantle of Hardware Engineering will be taken from the shoulders of the legendary Peanuts, and draped over—
No. I’m not going to spoil the surprise.
I have a couple of other organizational surprises as well. I will save them for the Sailors, who should hear them first in person. And no, I’m not quitting/retiring/entering the old age home. I’m just stirring things up a little bit.
When I haven’t been working on the Cur, I’ve been intensely studying the modules O’C so helpfully posts over at WTF. I’m assuming that he posts these for the participants themselves, and not a waiting, wondering forensics world. Don’t they have a bulletin board there they could pin this stuff on? Buncha cheapskates, if you ask me. Thank God the camp is free—
Oh. It’s not? And I’ve now hung two em dashes? Time to sign off, Magoo.
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