Breaking news: Tiaras replace trophies in Northeast!

In his latest blog post, CP, the twenty-first century’s answer to Bert Parks, indirectly raises an interesting question. He talks about the decline of policy, and the potential and/or real decline of LD due to their inherent parochialism, making points with which I pretty much agree. But the question arises, given the general belief that PF is a good thing, why aren’t we getting ignition throughout the region? I see some schools who have had little or no debate but lots of speech tentatively taking to it as debate gateway, and one or two outfits have almost completely refitted their operations to participate (e.g. Regis), but most schools continue to field PF teams as, at best, afterthoughts.

Is a puzzlement.

The CatNat Pffft topic is: Resolved: That the US Government should increase social services for indigenous peoples in America. This is a fascinating subject, both in a historical and contemporary sense. The CatNat LD topic is: Resolved: That secondary education in America should value the fine arts over athletics. This is a topic of no value whatsoever, since it concerns a nonexistent dichotomy which, even if it were true would be peripheral to the real concerns of contemporary education. And these are not unique examples (although one might suggest that, traditionally, the CatNat topic is almost always the worst of the year, so it might be unfair to mention this particular example, but just because the Pope is in town doesn’t give them a bye, if you know what I mean, although given his infallibility, it might be better if he came up with the resolutions in the future). Most of the time the Pfffters get to argue interesting stuff at the level of that stuff, while most of the time LDers, if they don’t duck the resolutions altogether, work the same material over and over with little variation. This is not an indictment of the resolution choosing process, but merely an observation based on resolutions that reflect the nature of their arenas.

There is an interesting line in one of the actual indictments of LD abroad at the moment, in which coaches who consider the content of a resolution to have value are disdained as missing the point (as opposed to concentrating on analytic thinking). Being one of that number, maybe that’s why I’m attracted to PF, because every month there’s a new topic and you actually have to understand the topic and learn about it and then debate it. Quelle horror, as they would say in France if they didn’t speak French very well. But maybe that kind of coachean thinking is in the minority, and since everyone else in LD would prefer to argue the prestandards, the poststandards and the londoneveningstandards rather than what henceforth will be called the standardstandards, there is little interest in PF’s resolution churning because, ultimately, resolutions are the thing to be gotten around, not explored. In other words, we have an entrenched coaching establishment that supports whatever it is already doing, however it is doing it, rather than looking at new activities and evaluating them objectively and using them for whatever value they may possess. (And I agree with all that CP says about lay judging, which adds another dimension to this altogether.)

Let me put it this way. As I’ve always said, all forensics are valuable at the secondary school level. The learning required to interpret a poem is as valuable as the learning required to argue the rights of indigenous peoples in America is as valuable as the learning required to argue foreign policy with a partner is as valuable as the learning required to present a case for or against social actions as just or unjust is as valuable as the learning required to write and present an original oratory on, well, whatever, etc., etc., etc. You get my point. While students may be at an age where a fanboy attachment to their own activity blinds them to the values of other activities (and I don’t necessarily believe that that is true, but I pose it for the ensuing juxtaposition), coaches have no such biological excuse. And if a coach can’t offer everything, and there may be good reasons for this (e.g., in my neck of the woods, speech events are here and debate events are there, mostly, and I can not usually be both here and there, although I have occasionally been both hither and yon), then coaches must closely look at what they are doing and wonder if they should think about changing it. CP poses this dilemma for the Polician community. If may also become applicable to the LD community, as he suggests. I continue to question the death of LD, though, and to wonder if it may just be the isolation of the national $ircuit—a group which is blatheringly loud on the debatosphere and therefore hard to ignore—from the general flow of the LD community, which goes about its business as always, perhaps occasionally longing to go to Kentucky on Derby weekend, but not willing to sell soul, heart, and mind to do so. Or to redefine educational values to include the smallest number.

In any case, my team is small, but I will continue to attempt to get some traction in PF. Wait’ll next year! I honestly don’t care if my students do PF or LD, although I do believe that, given my own experience with the latter, we’re better off at least starting novices with LD and evolving into PF on a person by person basis, i.e., learning the boot camp basics in the area where we have lots of rounds available, and my own curriculum in place. But still, the void in the region remains. At the MHLs we get at best a handful of Pffffters despite our best efforts. A mere three schools fielded Pffffters at the Northeast Championships. Until we get more people out there week after week, learning by doing, we’re just not going to be establishing the activity as a viable alternative to, or welcome partner with, the existing debate activities. And that would be too bad.

Quelle dolorous, as those poor illiterate French folks might say.