From the comments:
Lets say that in september of next year, a kid joins the debate team. Lets call this mythical kid, Joey.
He a smart hard working kid, who is lets say a junior. His coach, is a brand new teacher who has just been assigned to coach the debate team, and is the sole coach. The kid, being new, did not go to an institute, and never will because his parents do not have the money. He certainly cant get a private coach. But otherwise, we have a talented kid. Joey is a well rounded kid who likes debate, but also is involved in other activties, say he plays on the baseball team.
In 1995, that kid could have gone as far as his talent and work ethic would have taken him. Yes, there would have been a learning curve but once he gained some experience, his sucess probably would have been dictated by his abilities. The lack of a summer institte, asst. coaches, and the fact that he does another activity outside of debate, would not necessarily preclude him from local or national success.
There is a Joey at every high school in this country.
Would someone under those fairly common circumstances succeed in the LD of today?
Define success.
One of the things that I’m not taking into consideration is the world of LD outside of the northeast and the $ircuit. I can’t speak to what happens in California or Nebraska or Iowa or Texas. For all I know, there may be a broad base of LDers debating like it’s 1995, and they all get together at NatNats to duke it out. (Although in recent memory, the debaters in late rounds at NatNats were mostly $ircuit folks, although they modified their styles for the more general judging pool.) If that’s true, little Joey is all set, unless he moves to the northeast or wants to win TOC.
In the northeast, though, there are few schools that don’t know about, and in LD, to some extent aim for, TOC (although there are some that, in fact, specifically bar it). At the point where, at any tournament, a sizeable number of the debaters are trained at institutes and in their competitive experience often come up against others of that ilk, and where the judges are preferring that style/content and those kids are winning, it is natural that this will be the content/style emulated and that it will eventually dominate. That always happens, no matter what, exactly, the content du jour might be.
And here’s where a lot (and I mean a LOT) of people make a big mistake. If a tournament were not to reward a specific behavior, that behavior would not rule. Look at NatNats. It is not TOC, and even the TOC debaters who attend do not debate as they would at TOC. At invitationals, especially at the colleges, where the field and pool are large, and we offer MJP, the coaches who do not wish to see $ircuit style debate dominate have an opportunity to do something about it. If they put in their preferences, then the judges who are not 19 years old might pick up some bubble rounds and make a difference. When only the $ircuit style is preffed, the $ircuit style will dominate. Simple math. As a general rule, the coaches who are most vocal about the demise of LD when it comes to cocktail party blather, so to speak, are the least likely to use MJP as the tool that it is to turn their opinions into action. Only the most $ircuit influenced schools pref. It’s a fact of life. As MJP extends to more and more tournaments, small and large, the longer coaches believe mistakenly that MJP is the tool of the devil, they will dig a deeper and deeper grave for the styles and content that they themselves prefer.
Next year, where I can, I’m going to send out a long screed on this to get these schmegeggies off their non-MJPing butts and stop blaming the tool that could get them what they want for getting them what they don’t want. I, for one, have often noticed that when I don’t use a spoon to eat my soup, a lot of it ends up in my lap. Non-MJPing coaches are spilling the soup of LD on their laps, with the obvious result that $ircuit styles dominate, and I am forced to resort to ridiculous metaphors to make my point.
Oh, the humanity.
3 comments:
I don't see how MJP could help a team that prefers the non-dominant style of LD. You have a great deal more experience with it than I do, but whenever I have encountered it at a tournament I could only use my "3"s and "2"s on a few judges at most. Leaving most of the pool a default "1". When I paired this with the fact that many judges do not have published paradigms I was at a loss as to what to do. Do I use my "3"s on unknown judges simply because I do not know them? Do I use them on likely $ircuit judges? There were so many $ircuit judges that it seemed to me that in a round where the opposing coach preferred $ircuit judges that all that would happen is that my "3"s would be passed over in favor of another "1" which my opponent prefers and who is still likely to be a $ircuit judge.
So, to summarize, I have two problems with trying to influence the judging pool through MJP. 1) I don't have all those private coaches, or a large team, or the years in the activity to know all these judges and so am largely preffing blind. and 2) I don't see how to use my very limited preffing to influence what is a majority position.
Has anyone ever considered making the default pref a "2" and then only giving limited numbers of "1" and "3"?
My chief objection to MJP isn't mostly the current style in LD (though I don't care for that style). It is that it encourages people to specialize. Saying that students should be able to convince any judge, for me anyway, is shorthand for saying that students should be generalists in their high school education. So sure, people in the Northeast are often far more attracted to TOC style debating than other types, that is made easier by the fact we are a smaller community in LD, and if you were people who participate in LD, for whatever reason, the easier it is, the more competitively necessary it is, to specialize in order to win.
I happen to believe that high school students should not specialize be it in music, a specific sport or any other activity. If they are going to get a full ride scholarship fine. If they are going to go to Juilliard or play quarterback for some division one football factory ,fine.
Otherwise, like Captain Spaulding, I'm against it.
Robert Heinlein said that specialization is for insects and I think that's true for debate as much as any other activity.
Anonymous - I am intrigued by what you mean by a "default 2." Do you mean making 2 the largest group?
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