The missing members of the National Forensic League are out there waiting for what my impatient grade-school teachers called an “engraved invitation.” Those potential coaches and competitors are more clueless than you think. The missing members aren’t choosing to ignore competitive debate and speech; they barely know it exists. They need to see that engraved invitation, which happens to be Public Forum.
Because of student interest and my own curiosity, last August I decided to form a debate and speech team at my small, rural high school (270 students). I didn’t know anything about the activity, despite many years teaching English. I represent the untapped membership, a huge market of possible participants who just don’t know what’s going on.
Some examples of my cluelessness: I thought that “impromptu” and “extemporaneous” were synonyms because the dictionary definitions are virtually the same. I didn’t know what “posting a round” meant when I took the team to our first meet. (I didn’t really know what a round was…I assumed everything happened just once.) I didn’t think I would be allowed to judge because I was a coach (conflict of interest, right?). I didn’t know much about the interpretation events, rankings, speaker points, grace periods, tab rooms, all those abbreviations and clipped words…I didn’t know that the beginning of a debate tournament is prone to glitches and a certain amount of chicken-with-head-cut-off activity. I should have been better-informed, but I’m afraid that I’m typical. I regret making a late start, but I can honestly say that this activity was invisible to me, and it is likely invisible to many others who would become enthusiastic participants.
One thing I should hasten to point out, as a newcomer, is that the established competitors are quite impressive. If I hadn’t formed a team and gotten in the judging pool, I would have remained oblivious to the high attainments of many students in my state. I should also mention that new students can really catch on. We went to three tournaments and did a little better each time. It won’t be like the movie Hoosiers any time soon, but at least we know what the object of the game is.
Trying to learn about NFL debate is like walking into a family gathering after there’s been an uncomfortable squabble. Researching Public Forum, which I had decided was a good event for a new team, I was dismayed to find out that I was taking a stand with the levelers against the standard-maintainers. Oops…didn’t know that. Also, I didn’t know what a counter-plan was, or what a kritik was supposed to accomplish, so it didn’t matter to me that they were against the rules. I think the questions I asked some veteran coaches gave them the impression I wasn’t too bright.
The Public Forum event, at first glance, corresponds to the colloquial notion of “debate” — a word-scuffle with no standards of proof, a lot of showboating and irrelevant emotional appeals— and if the actual events really played out that way, then Public Forum would really deserve its indictment. But it seems, from my limited experience as a coach and judge, that winning teams do so by organizing their arguments, providing evidence, exploiting weaknesses in the opponents’ cases, maintaining composure, thinking fast, keeping track of what’s happening in the exchange, and expressing passion without bluster.
Participating in this event has benefited my team members, teaching them that you can’t rely on your charm to win, you can’t be a slacker and try to improvise a speech without doing research, that an opponent can lure you into irrelevancy and thus defeat you, that you shouldn’t fiddle with your necklace while an opponent speaks, that you will lose the event if you lose your civility, that you will be jumped on if you contradict yourself, that you should preview your points and not rely on your listeners to do the organizing for you. I admit that these are not the loftiest things to learn from debate, but they are worthwhile for beginners, and if the debate community wants new members, those new members have to emerge from their rustic hovels and they might be riding on hay wagons. To such newcomers, the older debate formats are daunting and the conventions and traditions associated with them represent a barrier to entry that is, in practical terms, insurmountable; the newcomer reads about Policy and Lincoln-Douglas and sees a No Trespassing sign. The Public Forum format, whatever its shortcomings, constitutes the engraved invitation that the outsiders will answer. It worked for us, and next year we hope to field a bigger team, attend more tournaments, and bring some debaters into Lincoln-Douglas.
(Richard Stanton is an English teacher at Williston-Elko High School in Williston, South Carolina. He is a graduate of the University of Maryland and Boston University. He enjoyed his rookie year as a coach.)
