Tsotchke Wars

There seems to be much angina over at WTF over some school banning NFL honor cords at graduation. I read the article when it was posted a couple a days ago, and admit to reading none of the comments, which a moment ago were up to 66, which means the subject has hit deeply. (For all I know, it may have been solved by now, so forgive me if I’m commenting on speculative history rather than current events, but there’s an interesting issue at stake here.)

I’m probably the worst person to bloviate on this. First of all, I don’t go to the Sailors’ graduation ceremonies. I do not wish them to get the idea that leaving the school somehow means they have eluded my clutches. I do not see them as former debaters. I see them as prime judges. As far as I’m concerned, they’re not going anywhere. Even the stinkers like Emcee who went as far away as Emory to get out from under is still expected to show up regularly. Anyhow, I wasn’t particularly sentimental when I graduated high school, or for that matter college (a ceremony I didn’t attend, as I already had a job to go to), so I’m not particularly sentimental when others do. Call me a cad on that one. So the idea of augmented graduation paraphernalia doesn’t register much with me. For that matter, paraphernalia per se doesn’t register much with me, unless it features Darth Tater. The NFL sells more tsotchkes that I personally can shake the proverbial stick at. Rings, shirts, cords, hats, whiskey—for all I know, they even have Darth Tater wearing an NFL hoodie. My theory is, I pays my ninety-nine bucks and get points for people (woo-hoo) and that’s the end of that. NFL does not play a big enough role for the Sailors for them to label themselves as NFLers. They could conceivably want to label themselves as forensicians, but they don’t compete at any NFL-sanctioned events other than Districts, and they are unlikely to choose NatNats over their final exams or graduation exercises, so the symbolic connection of Sailors to debate via NFL is not hardwired.

As far as the controversy of the banned cords, I get the impression that the crux is not that the administrators are anti-debate or anti-NFL, but simply that the students didn’t follow procedure. That’s always problematic. There’s rules, and then there’s actions that may or may not conform to the rules. One can question the validity of the rules, or one can question the adjudication of the action vis-à-vis the rules (which sounds an awful lot like a case structure). Any way you do it, it’s a mug’s game.

There is comfort in rules and regulations and standardized process. But there is also often efficacy, and, presumably, maximization of final results. At the point at which we don’t have to worry about how to do something, because how to do it is prescribed, we can concentrate on the thing itself. (This informs my opinion of theory debate: at the point at which we’re arguing how to debate, we’re not arguing the content of the debate itself, and the two are separate and should be dealt with in separate arenas. The debate round is for arguing the content of the debate; NFL forums and the like are for arguing the structure.) Administering secondary schools is a complicated business. Obviously education of the students is prioritized, but there are almost infinite factors complicating the process. Not least of these is the nature of the students themselves. Adolescents are almost instinctively anti-authoritarian at a point in their lives when valid authorities are perhaps as valuable as they will ever be. There seems to be a tendency of the parents who have the most problematic students to be the most problematic adults. There’s the issue of insuring that the teachers at a school are doing their job; just because someone has a certificate doesn’t make that person an educator. The rules set out by administrators attempt to negotiate these various shoals on which a student’s education can be shipwrecked. If enough good rules are in place to regulate the predictable problems, it will allow time to handle the unpredictable problems, of which there are many, which would mean putting the students’ education first in situations where that prioritization requires hands-on analysis, while not having to waste time on the everyday issues.

So I don’t have any answers, but at least I understand the question. The resulting dilemma in the NFL cords situation probably makes no one happy in the administration in question. Their rule, intended to maintain a certain decorum at graduation, has inadvertently blocked a perfectly decorous activity from being recognized. To cede the issue would undermine the authority of the rule that is of necessity maintaining decorum over the long term. To allow that there can be exceptions diverts the concentration of the administration from important issues that can’t be adjudicated by the rules; there is a process at the school for getting approval for various honors at graduation. On the other hand, the students apparently have a strong interest in NFL as it has informed their high school careers, and feel that an obscure (at least to them) rule is capriciously mitigating against their self-image, and they know that without batting an eye the administrators could easily grant their approval.

The good news is, I’ve got my own problems to contend with. I’m happy that this one is not mine.