High School Debate Competitions: Anybody Want To "Crossfire" Me?

The last time I set foot inside a high school was just a year ago, when I was the stage manager/board op/roadie for a touring Shakespeare company. While there, I noticed the egregious abuse of knowledge on public display; it was clear that one of the students' assignments was to "create a poster about Shakespeare's life!" and so the walls were littered with factually fraudulent, poorly-drawn gems such as "Shakespeare based his play Hamlet on the life of his son Hamnet."

That's the state of American education as it stands today. Not only are inaccuracies like the above statement allowed to stand unopposed, it is painfully obvious that students are not being taught to think critically about anything -- because a critical thinker would instantly realize that Shakespeare couldn't possibly have based Hamlet on the life of his son, as to do so Shakespeare would have had to die before he would have been able to write the play.

I was back in a high school today, having been pulled to judge a debate competition. This was not a local event; it was in fact the state regional debate competition, with the winning team going on to compete in the National Finals.

The competition was set up as a tournament, with rounds of eliminations, etc. until there was only one team remaining. However, although there were six teams in competition and five rounds of play (which means that there was, at minimum, eleven actual debates -- if I did the math correctly), there was only one issue under consideration.

Thus I heard the same debate, with the same arguments and the same statistics and the same rebuttals, multiple times.

As any attempt at analyzing and rating argument was out of the question, since it soon became clear that everyone had gone online and found the same USA Today article and the same Wikipedia link, I found myself rating form. (Though before I begin my discussion on form, I should note that the arguments -- the identical arguments that everyone put forward -- were specious at best and prominently featured straw men. The entirety of the critical thought present can be summed up by the student who began his final statement with "Education is the best solution, because education always works." Clearly.)

The students each had four minutes to present their initial argument, followed by a three minute "Crossfire"-style rebuttal period (coincidentally named "Crossfire period"), and then were given the chance to make additional arguments and rebuttals, closing in a final statement to the audience. Each student, perhaps to make the maximum use of his or her time, gabbled the arguments out at auctioneer-speed, staring face-down into a sheaf of typed papers.

I wanted to write on my evaluation sheets "No one is convincing me of anything. Both teams lose." Instead I commented on as much of the argument as I could comprehend from the mess of hyperspeed mumbling, and added a few notes about making eye contact with the audience.

The worst (and most surprising) part, however, was the response from my fellow judges. After the first round, while I was still taking notes and trying to sort out what exactly had been said, the judge next to me leaned back with a perky "well, wasn't that great!" Um... no.

Then the other judge said "yeah, they're really doing a fantastic job up there!" I can buy "they're high school kids, so we'll cut them some slack," but I saw nothing that even remotely approached fantastic.

"Didn't you find it a little hard to understand because they were talking so quickly?" I asked.

Judge #2 said "Oh, no! It's great! It's just like C-Span or Crossfire! Haven't you ever seen Crossfire?"

I said that the only episode I had seen was the one featuring Jon Stewart.

But I learned, through the course of the evening and through listening to the other judges (all of whom were debate coaches or teachers; I got pulled at the last minute by a friend of a friend when a slot suddenly opened up) that the contemporary style of debate involves imitating the talking heads one sees on Fox News; and that points are in fact awarded for rushing through an argument so fast that an audience has no time to consider its validity, for speaking in an incendiary tone rather than a persuasive one, for instilling anxiety rather than calm, and for attacking opponents rather than reasoning with them.

(There were judges who did agree that the students were talking a bit too quickly, or that the arguments were immature, but the general consensus was... see above.)

I suppose I was naive. At the same time, I wish I could take all those students into a classroom with me, for one evening, and give them all copies of Julius Caesar and have them take turns reading Brutus and Antony's oratories, one after another, until we can sit together and talk about how an argument is constructed, how rhetoric is used to dress a subject, and how a well-timed, well-paused phrase can make a crowd turn towards you or against you.

It will be interesting to see if I'm ever asked back. ^__^

Why I Love Libraries

I was in the library today (in fact, still am... typing from a computer lab) looking up a few things.

Anyway. While I was wandering through the stacks, my eyes just happened to fall upon a volume of L. M. Montgomery's journals.

I didn't even know she kept journals. I had no idea they were published. And I certainly had no idea that they would be in this section of the library that I was just, quite literally, passing through.

Anyway. A quick peek into the book has revealed that her journal-writing is just as lively and detailed and quirky as her famous, famous novels. This will be fun to read. I want to sit down with a cup of tea and the kitty and read the entire thing straight through.

Unfortunately, it will have to wait until I finish reading everything that has ever been written on Harold Pinter's Dumb Waiter. The degree comes first, after all.

Please Read This Link

If you by any chance read this blog and do not also read SepiaMutiny (cough-cough-Daniel-cough-cough), please click here and read this post.

"Highlights" include:

At this moment, the officer pulled out his pepper spray and attacked Mr. Nag. As Mr. Nag screamed in agony, the officer removed his baton and violently struck Mr. Nag numerous times until he fell to the ground. While the assault ensued, the officer was reported by both Mr. and Mrs. Nag as saying, “You f****** Arab! You f***** immigrant, go back to you f****** country before I kill you!”

It's been asked that people link to this story on their blogs so that it does not pass unnoticed.

Hindi Lesson 4: Why Raj Will Never Have A Girlfriend

This is a conversation between Pratap and Raj, the youngest of the Kumar children. I've gotten to the point where I can understand the gist of the conversation in context, although I'm unclear as to the subtle differences between तुम थिक हो, क्या हाल है, and आप कैसे है -- besides, of course, that आप is more formal than तुम.

प्रताप: हेलो राज, क्या हल है? सा थिक है?
राज: ह, सब थिक है। और अप कैसे है?
प्रताप: मई भी अच्चा हु, सुक्रिया। ऋषि ओर संगीता कैसे है?
राज: ऋषि अच्चा है, लेकिन संगीता अच्छी नही है।
प्रताप: क्यो? क्या बात है? क्या व बीमार है?
राज: नही, वह नाराज़ है क्योकि... क्योकि अप याहा है!
प्रताप: अच्चा? यह बहुत बुरी अत है! पर संगीता क्यो परेसान है?
राज: मालुम नही। लार्की है, ना?

This, translated, becomes:

Pratap: Hello, Raj. How are things? Is everything well?
Raj: Yes, everything is well. And you are well? (Help me out on this one... in the last lesson "kaisa" meant "what is it like," and so literally would this be "and what are you like?")
Pratap: I'm good too, thank you. How are Rishi and Sangeeta... like????
Raj: Rishi is good, but Sangeeta is not good. (There's that "accha" again.)
Pratap: Why? What's the matter? Is she ill?
Raj: No, she is angry because... because you are here!
Pratap: Really? (This time the text gives "really" as the translation for "accha." This word must mean just about anything it wants to mean. ^__^) This is a very bad matter. But why is Sangeeta upset?
Raj: I don't know. She's a girl, no?

On behalf of women everywhere, let us band together to beat the crap out of Raj.

And why, by the way, is Sangeeta upset that Pratap is here? (I'm not peeking ahead at the story.) Is she angry because she finds herself forcibly attracted to him? Or is it more along the lines of "she'd like Pratap to stop continually trying to catch her coming out of the shower?"

Only time will tell...

Tagged... I'm it!

Following Sashi's meme:

Five Things You May Not Know About Me.

Unless, of course, you're my parents (who are both regular readers). I'm not going to search through my brain to try and find five things you two don't know about me.

1. I used to be able to program in BASIC. Now, of course, I've forgotten how. Not that it would do any good on my computer.

2. I still think about the characters from the novel I wrote in high school, and know exactly how their lives continue, and what story the second book should tell. I've sat down, several times (as recently as last summer), and tried to write it. But I've changed since high school, and can't find my way back to the world I once created.

3. I've been using the same shade of nail polish (without variation) for two years. I can't imagine using anything else.

4. Although I've lost the ability to play all of the Debussy and Liszt and Mozart I spent so many hours memorizing in high school and college, I can still sit down at any piano and instantly play any of the Super Mario themes (from the original through Super Mario World -- including MarioKart).

5. Every night before I go to bed, I check to make sure that the oven is turned off. About twice a year, I find that it is still turned on (always when someone else has been cooking, of course ^__^). These odds make it completely worth it.

There. Now I've done my first meme. Have I sold out? ^__^


(Oh, and here's a bonus #6 -- my high school boyfriend told me that he invented "^__^" just for me, and that it would be our own personal, secret emoticon... and I believed him.)

Notes from BOB

I'm back from BOB Chicago.

The salwar wore beautifully and didn't crumple even after two days of sitting on trains. I may have, however, committed serious cultural infractions by wrapping the dupatta around my neck multiple times and tucking it into my jacket as if it were a wool scarf, instead of wearing it over the jacket (like everyone else I saw) and letting all that tightly-woven Indian cotton warmth trail away behind me, unused. As soon as I got inside the amphitheater, I unwound it and let it fall; but when I was outside... well, it was all of twenty degrees! So... right.

The competition itself was great fun. Highlights include:

Arriving in Chicago, meeting my friends, pulling out all the printed ticket information from the internet, and realizing that BOB Chicago had no official start time. All we had to go on was "the doors will open at 6:15." Quickly explaining to my friends what IST stood for, with a brief confab as to when we should actually arrive, we ended up hitting the venue at about 6:30, and stood in a 4,000 person crowd until the doors actually opened at about five minutes to seven. The program began at 7:00 exactly.

My friend poking me during the "warm-up-the-crowd" pre-show and asking "Blue, what's biodata?"

The MC (whose name I would tell you if I could find it in the program) starting the night off with this statement: "Before the show starts, I would like to ask a favor of all of you. Please stop voting for Sanjaya."

Realizing that everyone onstage who said "bhangra" said it a little differently (often very differently) and feeling a weight lift off my phoneme-addled shoulders.

Ghaamudyaz' use of glow-in-the-dark dandiya sticks. Also: Ghaamudyaz' use of the dark.

All the teams who included balancing (as in "people-on-other-people") work, particularly Rutgers' four-high tower of men, all wearing dhotis and turla.

Wickedly wondering if all the dhotis were sewn closed or if any of them were just tucked in at the waist... and if any of them would fall off.

UBC Girlz Bhangra's live vocalist.

Listening to the MC announce UBC (a group from British Columbia), and hearing the two men sitting next to me instantly start a heated conversation about what kind of visa these women would have to get to come to America for the weekend, and how early they would have had to apply for it (eventually, someone leaned over and explained that they would only have to use passports).

Listening to the two a capella groups that performed while the judges were tallying the points. The first group was... how do I say this nicely... not that good, but the second group was phenomenal. And as soon as the second group finished, my friends and I all turned to each other and said "yeah, they just got served."

Picking the winners in advance and totally calling UCLA's Nashaa. Of course they were going to win. Their set combined the best of Leonard Bernstein with the best of Karan Johar. Plus, their dance told a story. Never underestimate the power of a story.

(They were also, btw, kickass dancers.)

One suggestion to the facilitators: if you could figure out how to feed the 4,000 ticketholders, you would stand to make a fortune. There was no food available in the giant (empty) McCormick Place complex except the overpriced restaurant attached to the Hyatt. There was also nowhere else to go to get food, unless one wanted to run for a mile or two down I-55. My group ended up eating at the hotel restaurant, which was all right (though if you ever go, don't order the drink that includes peaches, milk, and spritzer... the "peaches" are actually that heavy syrup stuff that sits in the bottom of cans, and milk and soda are, in retrospect, a really bad combination).

Anyway. If BOB had set up a food stand next to the entrance, and sold samosas or bhelpuri or anything, they could have charged up to $5 per person without fazing anyone (as the only other food option started its appetizers at $9 and the entrees went all the way up to $50) and made a killing. Of course, they would also have had to make over 4,000 samosas.

And, finally, a note to Team Michigan: We know that it's great to be a Michigan Wolverine. Chanting it continually, between every set, didn't help anyone. Particularly during the second half when y'all got tired out and just started screaming "Blue! Gold!" over and over. Seriously, you guys.

Pretty Anticipatory Dancers!

I had to spend tonight attending a rather poor performance with some extremely poor dancing.

Luckily, I'll be able to spend tomorrow night here, where the dancing should be considerably better.

I'll give a full report when I get back. I'll be with the friend mentioned in this post, and there will be much fangirling.

And yes, I'm wearing the salwar. ^__^