Jurgen Habermas died recently. Not exactly a mainstream celebrity, he was definitely a debate celebrity. Once upon a time high schoolers in debate may have learned about the Enlightenment for ethical purposes, with a side order of Empiricism, and that would suffice. Admirably, I would add. But around the turn of the milliennium people who were alive when the horseless carriage was first seen coming down the road started getting into the conversation. I knew a couple of students who liked to go stare at Sandel’s and Rawls’s faculty mailboxes during the Harvard tournament. Once you threw in critical analysis, all bets were off and kids were learning things so “radical” that nowadays the government is trying to cut off their teachers at the knees.
It is so nice to be a part of that, albeit no longer active at the front lines. If that’s not what it’s all about, then I don’t know what is.
Meanwhile, for reasons of simply wanting to help Catholic Charlie out if possible, I volunteered to work with him at an NCFL middle school tournament. I didn’t even know they had a middle school tournament, and it turns out that this is the introductory event. I like the idea of MS debate because basic education these days doesn’t strike me as going out there and expanding minds. These MS years are serious ones of growth and maturing; giving MSers some interesting ideas to chew on sets them up to learn how to learn, which is what our extracurricular activity is all about (and what the curricular activities should be all about).
Nevertheless, I do worry about a couple of things. First of all, I don’t like a tournament that mixes HS and MS kids. Being of MS age is hard enough; being of MS age in a cafeteria full of HSers borders on too much. It is one thing to perform maturely in front of a judge in a strictly defined situation, and another thing altogether to be surrounded by HS juniors and seniors in that particular universe of theirs. There’s time enough for that in a couple of years. The other thing I worry about it hyper-competitive parents. Debate is a pathway to great thinking. Competition is a means to that end. When competition becomes the end, things are off. Winning is great, but if you’re only doing this to get into the right program/prep school/college, you’re missing the point. And you probably won’t get into the right program/prep school/college. As I always pointed out to parents who insisted that their kids go to the Harvard tournament, going to the Harvard tournament was in no way, shape, or form connected to going to Harvard. Winning the Harvard tournament was in no way, shape, or form connected to going to Harvard. What I’m saying is that the introduction of MS kids to good competition must always remember that they are MS students first. They’re like one noodle over the line from just being little kids (and if you actually see them, some of these little folks have yet to even get their noodle).
I’ll be curious to see how my thoughts play out at the tournament next weekend.
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