Come mothers and fathers

Throughout the land

And don’t criticize

What you can’t understand

Your sons and your daughters

Are beyond your command

Your old road is

Rapidly agin’.

Please get out of the new one

If you can’t lend your hand

For the times they are a-changin’

Bob Dylan

In recent years, the nature and practice of certain forensics events have become subjects of controversy. Just as the furor over speed talk, solvency dumps, and critical theory seemed to be fading in policy debate, these practices are gaining traction in Lincoln Douglas debate. In extemporaneous speaking, there is an ongoing concern over canned formats, shallow analysis, and excessive reliance on citations. Some complain that style has triumphed over substance in other individual events and place the blame on college judges and summer forensics institutes. Depending on which judge lounges one frequents, these developments may be portrayed as a crisis, or as progress. It seems to me that we must avoid jumping to either conclusion. Not so long ago, when many of us were young, Bob Dylan told us, “the times they are a-changin’.” Four decades later, Dylan’s words remain startling and inspiring, because he turns the notion of progress on its head. Here we find an optimistic and open-ended notion of progress that creates space for dialogue, and which elevates human agency. Dylan is being intentionally provocative when he tells parents that their children are beyond their command. By doing this, though, he spurs intergenerational dialogue. By rejecting arbitrary “command” he creates space for adults to reflect on the potent and lasting power of influence.

This past year I finally took time to reflect. I realized it was time for me to take some time off. After more than twenty years of teaching and coaching, I was simply worn out. My family allowed me the tremendous privilege of returning to graduate school. I highly recommend the experience. It has been hard work, but it has been worth it. I tell other students that I am the token geezer, brought in to fill the grandfather quota. The professors, though, have treated me like anyone else, requiring that I read more articles and write more words than I thought was humanly possible. I know now that I was simply out of shape. I have developed a new appreciation for the academic pressures our students experience every week as they balance tournament and exam schedules.

Some of my attitudes began to shift and evolve as professors challenged some of my most basic assumptions and forced me to justify my arguments. I chose to write several papers on high school debate. It quickly became apparent to me that the most serious problems we face in high school forensics are not fast-talking debaters or solvency dumps in LD. These are symptoms of much greater problems such as declining participation, budget cuts, and the diminishing number of coaches. It seems to me that before we train our guns on the young radicals of LD or the college students who predominate at summer forensics camps that we must take a look at the larger social context. We must strive to understand our students and the forces in society that help to shape their thinking. We must also scrutinize our own motivations and performances. Adults, not high school students are the ultimate gatekeepers of the activity.

There is little doubt that high school forensics has reached a transition point. The NFL has new leadership. Public Forum debate has sparked new interest in debate. And, a variety of people have garnered the attention of national media, including Tommie Lindsey and his students at James Logan High School in California as well as the coaches and students of the Urban Debate League. At the same time, certain concerns persist. Some NFL districts thrive while others barely hold on. Participation in policy debate remains stagnant. There is a wide variety of issues at play here, and each deserves to be considered in its own right.

However, before we can make progress on the individual issues, we must step back and reflect on the greater social context within which we do forensics. To that end, I suggest that it is crucial we understand: 1) We are living in what has been described as postmodern times, and our students, and the attitudes and habits of our students reflect this. 2) Forensics is a “habitus” of our own construction, and 3) If we understand the previous two points we are dealing not with a crisis, but with a tremendous opportunity. These issues will strike some as overly theoretical. I plead guilty to the charge, but beg their indulgence, hoping they might conclude that these ideas have very practical implications.

The Postmodern Condition
In 1979, Jean-Francois Lyotard published The Postmodern Condition, a thin book that is now considered one of the seminal documents of postmodern scholarship. “The central assertion of postmodern thought is found in the first sentence of the book., “Our working hypothesis,” Lyotard writes, “is that the status of knowledge is altered as societies enter what is known as the postindustrial age and cultures enter what is known as the postmodern age.” Put another way, the advent of omnipresent and intrusive technologies have radically changed mankind’s relationship to knowledge. In the information laden atmosphere of the late Twentieth and early Twenty-First centuries, all truths, everything that we may consider to be self-evident has been challenged. Lyotard, famously, defines postmodernism as, “incredulity toward metanarratives.” Of course challenging ideas and dislodging them are two very different things, and there have certainly been a number of cogent responses to the deep skepticism of postmodern writers such as Lyotard.

“So,” some are asking, “what does this have to do with high school forensics?” Plenty. First of all, if we understand the skepticism that permeates postmodern thought, we are also more likely to understand the forces that influence our students. LD debaters and judges are asking us to explain what is meant by the word “value”, why critical theory should be verboten, or why there should be a speed limit in LD. In a similar fashion, competitors in individual events push the limits of movement and challenge taboos regarding introductions and the performer’s relationship with the audience. All too often, we have simply dismissed these new ideas or practices out of hand. It does not matter, though, whether these ideas are clearly wrong (and some are), we dismiss them at our peril. For example, given this postmodern zeitgeist, it is not surprising that debaters might question the priority of abstract values.

Neil Postman writes that a deluge of information has made the world, “very nearly incomprehensible to most of us.” In such a world, moral and intellectual order seems to evaporate and, “nothing is unbelievable; nothing is predictable, and therefore, nothing comes as a particular surprise.” Rhetorician Chaim Perlman claims that in uncertain times the most productive and important debates will focus on values. We must help our students to understand this, but first we must begin the conversation. We must remember that this postmodern generation is a lot like we were. They have an ear for hypocrisy and tend to be curious about the reasons behind the reasons. They also have a critical advantage over previous generations – a glut of readily available, computer-generated information.

Some of the arguments put forth by these young debaters and judges strike me as glaringly wrong, but some are not. We dismiss their questions at our peril. If they ask tough questions, so be it. It is our responsibility to think carefully, to listen well, and to make an effort to keep up with the activity. By “keeping up”, I do not mean unquestioning adaptation to current trends. This should be apparent as we consider the next topic.

High School Forensics as a Habitus
“Habitus,” writes the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, “is a socialized subjectivity.” This definition may seem obscure, but he is referring, in part, to a concept that nearly all LD coaches and debaters will recognize immediately: the social marketplace. Bourdieu’s conception of habitus, however, goes significantly beyond the economic, market based model posed by writers such as Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill. His model claims a middle ground between inflexible social structures that limit human agency and minimalist social models that prioritize individual human agency. Social systems, claims Bourdieu, constitute a “habitus” in that they are the sum of our habitual behaviors, beliefs, decisions, etc. This habitus is fluid in the sense that it is characterized by agency and contingency. It is a complex social game in which we are all active participants. Educational systems, Bourdieu claims, provide, perhaps, the clearest example of the great dangers and opportunities inherent in all social systems.

Northwestern University sociologist Gary Alan Fine provides a persuasive example of how this game plays out in high school forensics. Fine spent a year chronicling the activities of two high school debate teams. Although he confesses an acquired admiration for the activity, Fine also admits that debate as practiced in high schools in the United States, “is linked to the American system of politics and law with their emphasis on game-like conflict and winning at all costs, even if the greater community is harmed”. For Fine, whose son was a TOC champion policy debater, the competitive aspects of debate must be weighed against the clear value of the activity as an educational tool. There is clear evidence, he believes, that debate is beneficial for students in the traditional academic sense, and also provides a uniquely valuable atmosphere for the development of a wide variety of communicative competencies. He argues that if debate were to be made part of the curriculum of all schools, it could be a powerful tool for teaching democratic values.

Despite these demonstrated and potential benefits to students, he argues, high school debate programs of all types tend to be concentrated in affluent suburbs in what he terms, “a doughnut pattern.” Urban and rural schools, which lie within or without the boundaries of this geographical doughnut, rarely participate in LD or policy debate. The net result, notes Fine, is that debate tends to exemplify what sociologist Robert Merton terms, “the Matthew effect,” in which those who are able to accumulate initial advantage tend to enjoy continuing advantage over those born to a position of disadvantage.

It is at this point that we discover the source for many of the current controversies in high school forensics. “Existence,” claims Sarte, “precedes essence.” When applied to the present context, this suggests that, the contingencies of forensics can be manipulated to serve the ends of a privileged societal discourse. A student whose family can afford the cost of traveling on the national circuit is not necessarily smarter or more talented than many students in rural Montana or Spanish Harlem. Yet, it is well documented that the privileged few who are given the opportunity to participate at the highest levels of this extraordinary activity have a significantly greater chance of being accepted into prestigious universities, thus allowing them ready access to the privileged upper echelons of the new global economy. Bourdieu argues cogently that a similar process is at work within the secondary schools of France.

Several years ago, a veteran coach with deep experience on the national circuit told me that we coaches have only ourselves to blame for the current state of forensics. “We have stopped coaching our students,” he said. All too often he claimed, we have allowed the staff at debate camps to be the real teachers. It seems to me that this over-simplifies the situation. Summer camps are not perfect educational venues, but they, and their energetic young staffs also provide an invaluable service. The extensive research of professor Fine, however, suggests that there is some merit to this veteran coach’s assertion. Students from highly competitive programs located in high-income communities are more than twice as likely to attend debate institutes. These institutes, Fine claims, can provide extraordinary resources, but they also play an important role in the development of what some see as a, “world of cliques,” with well-defined boundaries. “Outsiders,” Fine writes, “see this wall more clearly than do insiders” (p. 179). Given this atmosphere, it is not surprising that students might be dismissive of coaches. “From the perspective of debaters,” he writes, “ignoring coaches makes perfect sense.” Ultimately, they must make the arguments.

Everyone in the forensics community should read Fine’s chapter about debate coaches. He describes them as hardworking, talented people who serve as teachers, fund raisers, chauffeurs, and surrogate parents. Most are paid less than athletic coaches and work without assistants. There are, of course, exceptions in every case. There are certain schools and certain events that fare better than others. In general, though, debate coaches work grueling schedules, and are rewarded haphazardly. Increasingly, coaches of individual events find themselves working under similar conditions. To anyone who doubts this, I ask – how many of the finalists at NFL nationals in the last decade did not attend a summer camp or compete at national circuit tournaments?

So, how have we arrived at this present state of affairs? Whether we realize it or not, we are all responsible. The current state of forensics is the result of our collective decisions. There is no one to blame, yet we are all to blame. By “we” I mean all of the various participants in this game we know as forensics – the coaches and principals and school board members and judges and tournament directors and students. A habitus, claims Bourdieu, is constructed intersubjectively. Put another way, it is the cumulative result of countless personal and social decisions. There are numerous overt and implied examples of this in Dr. Fine’s research. Coaches, administrators, and universities, for instance, decide to host tournaments and/or summer institutes. School boards, taxpayers, and administrators decide to fund travel or to slash budgets. Parents, students, and various counselors plan strategies to gain entrance into Ivy League schools. Debate leagues, tournament directors, and judges decide which rules to follow and which to ignore.

The complexity of the situation becomes even more clear when we look to the event that is the greatest source of recent controversy: LD debate. Why are students talking fast, ignoring rules, and putting us through yet another debate crisis? Because we, the adults in this activity have allowed it. Students are spreading and using arcane topicality strategies because they win rounds that way. College students have come to dominate many summer institutes because they comprise a convenient and extraordinarily resource and because there are no official standards for summer institutes. There are not enough coaches because few colleges offer classes in how to coach, because coaches are overworked and underpaid, because budgets have been slashed, and because some see no place for themselves in what they perceive to be an elitist and exclusive activity.

These situations overlap and intertwine and are often difficult to sort out. In the end, though, we can see that we, the various participants, have built this activity, this habitus we call forensics through our conscious decisions. When we come to understand that, we can also understand that it is possible to make different decisions in the future. There is no doubt that certain decision makers have greater leverage and greater responsibility, but every decision maker can make a significant impact. The times may be “a-changin”, but that is good news. It means that change is possible and our decisions matter.

Optimism
It seems to me that even a cursory review of the last two decades would provide several reasons to be optimistic. The NFL rose from the ashes and continues to grow. Public Forum has attracted scores of enthusiastic new debaters. Initiatives such as the UDL, IDEA, and the Public Forum international debates at the Salt Lake City nationals, are all positive indicators of the incredible potential of this activity to stimulate critical thinking and to encourage civil discourse, in the US and internationally. These new initiatives provide a fresh opportunity to reflect on difficult questions. What do we want from this activity? How can it improve? What adjustments need to be made in the process so that more students can participate? There are many examples of individuals who have chosen to make a difference– coaches who seek scholarships for underprivileged students; institute directors who insist on rigorous standards for research; innovators such as Tuna Snider at the University of Vermont who has sponsored international debates via teleconference.

I have attempted to demonstrate that high school is not simply adrift and beyond our control. We must choose to shape it, along with our students, or they will surely shape it to their own liking. To that end, I offer a few suggestions that may help to resolve some of the most pressing issues and could lead to increased and more equitable participation.

1) The NFL, and other leagues, need to revisit the rules in LD and policy debate. In Policy Debate, for example, why continue to simply ignore the rules concerning citation of evidence? That only encourages students to ignore other explicit rules and guidelines such as the one that calls for delivery in LD to, “approximate superior speaking to community groups.”

2) The NFL, in conjunction with other leagues needs to do more to reach out to new schools and to provide hands on training for new coaches and judges. The NFL is to be commended for taking a solid first step in this direction by hosting its first summer coaching institute.

3) The NFL and other leagues need to continue to encourage imaginative new initiatives such as live webcast debates and the international Public Forum debates.

4) Colleges and universities need to offer rigorous undergraduate methods courses for future forensic coaches just as they do for future athletic coaches.

5) Coaches need to support one another by finding ways to share information on working conditions, salaries, schedules, etc.

6) The NFL, or the NFHS, or both should establish rigorous certification standards for summer institutes and for interstate tournaments.

7) The NFL and other leagues should recruit successful alumni to mentor students and to provide much needed financial support for the leagues, for new schools, and for underprivileged students.

This list is certainly not exhaustive, but it is a start. If any of this seems too daunting, we should remember that every decision, including something as simple as spending an hour helping a new student to write an affirmative case, is significant.

In conclusion, we must not underestimate the ability of coaches and other adults to influence students. We must tell the truth about the current state of forensics, but we must also be optimistic. Forensics in general and debate in particular, are in a state of transition. What it will ultimately become is up to us. The time has come to take responsibility for our decisions and to work to construct a new and more equitable habitus.

(Rick Herder, a first diamond coach who coached forensics for more than twenty years, first ten years at Staples HS, MN and the remaining ten at Lely HS, FL. Mr. Herder qualified 30 students to NFL nationals. All three of Mr. Herder's children also competed in the NFL. He is currently enrolled in the Graduate School of Communication at the University of Miami.)