Pedagogical possibilities for argumentative agency in academic debate
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Possibilities for argumentative agency are obscured when debate scholarship is approached from a purely spectator-oriented perspective, an activity to be conducted on the sidelines of "actual" public policy discussion. Insofar as the act of research is configured as a one-way transaction in which debaters gather and assimilate information passively through impersonal channels, this spectator orientation gains currency and becomes an acquired habit. Within this pedagogical horizon, possible options for action that move beyond traditional library research and contest round advocacy become more difficult to visualize. However, when debaters reconfigure themselves as producers of knowledge, rather than passive consumers of it, it becomes easier to cultivate senses of personal agency. One very basic way that academic debaters can reverse this equation is by turning more to primary research as a tool of debate preparation. Primary research involves debaters generating evidence "from scratch," by contacting sources directly and engaging them in conversation. If the resulting dialogue is illuminating, and the conversation partner(s) agree, the transcripts of such conversations can be published, and subsequently quoted as evidence in contest rounds. For example, Loyola (LA) debater Madison Laird once authored a high school debate handbook that contained traditional and expected evidence on the 1987/88 high school topic, but also included transcripts of interviews conducted by Laird with Loyola University political science professors. Laird produced extremely powerful, legitimately published evidence by qualified sources merely by asking provocative questions to such sources and then distributing the document throughout the debate community. The resulting exchange yielded an illuminating stream of newly-generated knowledge, especially since Laird pitched questions to the professors in a manner that highlighted anticipated stasis points of contest round debate. Interlocutors engaged by students in this manner have responded enthusiastically and reciprocated by asking questions about the nature of the debate activity itself as well as the specific features of projects pursued by argumentation scholars. An additional example of action research occurred when Samford's debate team engaged government officials and humanitarian workers in a remarkable e-mail dialogue concerning an issue prominent in debates on the 1987-1998 intercollegiate policy debate topic regarding U.S. security assistance to Southeast Asia. Specifically, Samford's Leonard Neighbors asked about whether or not the United States should disclose the maps of bombing runs on Laos conducted during the Vietnam war. For intercollegiate debate participants, this was an especially pertinent question given that many teams were running affirmative cases that dealt with the issue of demining / removing unexploded ordinance from Laos. The dialogue resulting from Neighbors' queries provided a fascinating and fresh perspective on the demining discussion, and many of the email messages were quoted in contest rounds as legitimate evidence following Doyle Srader's publication of the material on his website (see Srader 1998). Primary research is commonplace in most academic circles; sources often contact each other directly and then reference these conversations in public texts, and multitudes of published interviews can be found in scholarly books and journals. While primary research has not taken root as a widespread practice in academic debate, some fear that if primary research gains in popularity, authors, experts, and other published writers will be deluged by a torrent of annoying correspondence from insolent academic debaters. Apart from the fact that this concern reflects a fundamentally low opinion of high school debaters' senses of civic responsibility, this scenario would be most likely to occur if debaters pursued primary research projects from an exclusively competitive perspective, asking questions purely to elicit answers that might contain valuable contest round evidence. However, if debaters grasp that primary research methodology carries with it the political responsibilities of public engagement, it will be easier for them to see that primary research projects not only generate evidence for academic debates; such projects also feed new information and ideas into discussions taking place in wider public spheres of deliberation. Public debate Once students begin to conceive of research areas as fields of action, it becomes easier to invent strategies for intervention. One such strategy involves the extension and adaptation of the debate process beyond the immediate peer audience. For example, familiarity with debate affords students the expertise and wherewithal to organize, execute and amplify public debates. By creating forums where salient and pressing contemporary issues can be debated and discussed in a robust, wide-open fashion, students can lend vibrancy to the public sphere. Public debates represent sites of social learning where the spirit of civic engagement can flourish, ideas can be shared, and the momentum of social movements can be stoked. Unlike top-down communication engineered by mass media news outlets and public opinion polling, the interaction that occurs in public debates is a unique form of dialectical communication. Dynamic, back-and-forth exchange among audience and advocates pushes issues beyond shallow lines of sound-byte development. The drama of debate draws in interested audiences, creating the possibility that dialogue will spill outward beyond the immediate debate venue and into communities, schools, universities and other civic groups. It is through this process that the fabrics of multiple public spheres are spun and woven together to form the variegated patterns of "social knowledge," or shared understandings and expectations that "govern subsequent discourse" (see Farrell 1976; Goodnight 1992). An excellent public debate driven by an academic debate team occurred in 1994, when Cyrus Kiani and Paul Skiermont debated the contentious local issue of where to build a bridge over the Ohio River in the Louisville, KY community. Kiani, Skiermont, and the University of Kentucky coaching staff researched the issue, prepared arguments, and presented an informative and well-received public debate on September 30, 1994 (see Walfoort 1994). Following the debate, Kiani and Skiermont were deluged with questions about the UK debate society; citizens, politicians and public interest activists expressed amazement that such a university organization existed, and urged the team to continue their involvement in community issues. Because formats for public debates are flexible, students and teachers can tailor formats and topics creatively to fit local needs, as well as experiment with new forms of debating. A March 19, 1997 debate on the topic of police brutality held at the University of Pittsburgh demonstrated the dynamism of a format that mixes student debaters with high-profile advocates in front of a general public audience. In this public debate, teachers and students entered an intense controversy ignited by the death of Jonny Gammage, a 31-year old Black man killed by white police officers in a predominantly white suburb of Pittsburgh after a questionable traffic stop in 1995. After being pushed to the ground and having a night stick held against the back of his neck for over two minutes, Gammage died of asphyxiation. This case galvanized a groundswell of protest in the city against police brutality, and a citizen group pushed for the establishment of an independent review board to field citizen complaints about police behavior. This proposal touched off a heated controversy regarding the appropriateness and effectiveness of such a board for dealing with the problem of police brutality in Pittsburgh. At an organizational meeting early in 1997, University of Pittsburgh debaters met and selected this topic to debate. To research the topic, some students canvassed the library for materials, while others contacted social movements, government offices, and citizens involved in the controversy for their viewpoints on the debate. After approximately two weeks of research, students met to begin drafting individual speeches. Incorporating the evidence they had gathered, students worked on crafting arguments and polishing their delivery skills. At the next session one week later, an initial practice debate was held where students further worked on their speaking and began mastering the concepts of refutation and cross examination in the public format. After a series of further practice sessions, an initial public debate was conducted, where the students debated with each other for an audience made up of university students and faculty. Following this first public debate, members of the team then solicited outside advocates to join in debating the same topic in a more ambitious event pitched to wider audiences including members of the general public and the media. The debate coaching staff secured commitments of participation from two members of city council, the president of the local police union, and a representative of a local citizen action group. For this second public debate, a three-on-three format was used, where one student was placed as an advocate on each side of the resolution, with three other students assembled as a panel of questioners. Local media outlets lent momentum to the public debate by devoting significant coverage to the event. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette provided space to advertise the debate two weeks prior to the event, and then devoted a full page of coverage to the debate in the Sunday paper following the debate. In Pittsburgh newsweekly published a partial transcript of the debate, and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review ran a story on the debate the day after it occurred. Reporters from two local television stations also attended the debate, with WPXI-TV running the debate as the lead story on their 11 p.m. newscast. As a cultivation site for argumentative agency, this public debate provided a forum for students to confront "real world" public advocates in a debate about a pressing and salient local topic. This provided an occasion for students to hone their public advocacy skills in a meaningful political context. It should be pointed out that not all students participating in the debate were of the same political persuasion or even favored establishment of the citizen police review board. There was one student debating each side of the question (joining two other outside advocates for each side), and the three person panel of student questioners featured representation along a broad spectrum of political views. By asking questions directly to prominent figures in the local dispute regarding the establishment of a citizen review board to monitor police behavior, Pittsburgh debaters injected novel arguments and perspectives into the public dialogue and provided a forum for supporters and opponents of the board to "meet face-to-face in a structured setting, instead of jawing at one another in the media and courts and public rallies" (Muschick 1997; see also Happe 1997; Mitchell 1997). Similar public debates have been staged regularly by prominent academic debate teams such as Bates College, Claremont McKenna College, the University of Iowa, and the University of Vermont. Many actors outside the debate community find the debate process very attractive, and this makes it easier to organize and promote public debates. But the political effects of debate are not automatically emancipatory or progressive. The debater's instinct, culled from the democratic faith inscribed in argumentation texts, is that more discussion always good. This is a tidy principle, but when it comes to on-the-ground social change, it depends on type of discussion that debate enables. Institutions often use debate as a legitimating tool. They can point to their participation in debates as evidence demonstrating their "commitment to the community," i.e. proof of their democratic pedigree. If one's goal is to use debate as a tool to challenge corrupt or regressive institutions, the possibility exists that such efforts can end up making the institutions stronger and less responsive to public concerns. One way around this pitfall is to embrace the notion that an essential part of the debate process involves citizens empowering themselves to invent, clarify, and amplify their viewpoints in public forums. For example, in evaluating a recent EPA grant proposal for a series of national public debates on the topic of environmental justice in brownfields redevelopment policy, Charles Lee of the United Church of Christ endorsed the idea of public debates on the grounds that such debates can generate "social capital" for previously excluded stakeholders to assert their voices in policy discussions. "The production of social capital, a form of which is the ability to conduct public discourse," Lee explained, "is critical to solving complex problems and achieving healthy and sustainable communities" (1996). In order to maximize the potential of the debate medium as a generator of citizen empowerment, however, debate resources need to be put toward projects such as citizen advocacy training and community action research that are designed to build community capacity for public discussion. Public debate organizing is partly a logistical endeavor, involving such tasks as securing debate venues, interacting with media, and planning on-site set management. While these efforts can yield new spaces for public discussion, if academically sterile, irrelevant, or one-sided discussion dominates such spaces, prevailing patterns of alienating public discourse will be mirrored and reproduced in such events. Such an unfortunate outcome would only galvanize the locks barring traditionally excluded segments of the population from public discussion. Thus, it is imperative that "[m]embers of impacted and disadvantaged communities must be part of the interactive process of planning and developing this concept [of public debate]," (Lee 1996). What does "interaction" mean in this context? On a basic level, an interactive planning process would seem to require shared decision-making power regarding determination of formats, dates, venues, and topics of public debates, with each stakeholder having a say in negotiating these matters. But on a more fundamental level, interaction must occur that enables academic debaters to learn from people living in impacted communities; "[T]here is also the need for students and universities to learn from and be trained by community residents regarding the history, aspiration, concerns, assets, wisdom, culture, knowledge, genius, and vision resident in that community" (Lee 1996). Ultimately, the power of public debate as a medium of democratic empowerment for disadvantaged and impacted communities may depend on the extent to which academic scholars and debaters push for "a deeper examination of the word `interactive'" (Lee 1996) when it comes time to forge partnerships between academic institutions and community groups. Debate outreach The transformative dimension of debate pedagogy can be pursued in outreach efforts designed to share debate with traditionally underserved student populations and communities. With recognition of the emancipatory potential of critical thinking and oral advocacy skills in hand, students and teachers trained in argumentation are today transforming debate practice into a tool of empowerment by collaborating with students who are systematically denied opportunities for engaging in exciting, rewarding and powerful intellectual activities in their schools. Debate outreach efforts carry political significance because they counter unequal treatment in the educational system, a major root of inequality in our society. Schools are places where prevailing patterns of discrimination are locked into place frequently by unfair public tax systems and short-sighted curricular approaches that slight "at risk" or "underachieving" students by "tracking" them into less rigorous classes based on unfair or arbitrary means of "evaluation," such as standardized test scores (see Giroux 1988; Kozol 1991; Wade 1997). Debate is an activity thick with motivation and laden with drama, meaning, and purpose. Because debate is at once inviting and challenging, it is an activity that has a unique appeal to students who have been alienated by the bland pedagogical fare served up in the frequently routinized and programmed classroom discussions of the present age. Given the declining conditions of large urban school systems in the United States, funding for extracurricular activities in public high schools is more often than not nonexistent. The cost of providing debate programs is often prohibitive for financially strained inner city high schools. Because the preparation and delivery of debate arguments provides students with the opportunity to think critically, develop their academic research skills, improve their communication abilities, solve problems creatively, and increase their self-confidence, support for this activity is a crucial empowerment tool for youth (Breger 1998, p. 11; see also Wade 1998, p. 80). Urban Debate Leagues (UDLs) in Atlanta, Birmingham, Chicago, Detroit, Louisville, New York, and Tuscaloosa currently provide opportunities of this sort to students attending traditionally underserved and marginalized public schools. Recently, the Open Society Institute (billionaire George Sorts' philanthropic foundation) has emerged as a generous benefactor of such leagues and is working to expand and deepen the growing network of inner-city debate programs in the United States. "Encouraging dialogue between students and teachers from inner-city schools and those from outside the inner-city can result in profound learning," an Open Society Institute (OSI) informational flier explains; "When those who rarely have opportunity to interact come together on the common ground of a debate tournament, education becomes the bridge across the chasms of difference. As one inner-city Atlanta student noted: `When we are working together on an argument, I see our similarities more than our differences'" (Open Society Institute 1997, p. 2). Recently published literature suggests that the UDL initiatives are meeting with great success in stimulating new debate circuits and bringing debaters from diverse backgrounds together in a variety of pedagogical milieux (see e.g. Barber 1998; Breger 1998; Lynn 1998). The newest UDLs in St. Louis, Kansas City, and Tuscaloosa have largely replicated the "Atlanta model" of UDL organization, which prioritizes policy debate tournament competition as the primary pedagogical tool for redressing educational inequities. There is no denying that contest round competition is a powerful motivating force that draws in novices and pushes advanced debaters to dizzying heights of professional and academic excellence, so there is every reason to expect that these new urban debate leagues will succeed in swelling the ranks of powerful high school debaters from the nation's metropolitan areas. With the competitive engines of the new Sorts-sponsored UDL circuits in St. Louis, Kansas City, and Tuscaloosa now firing alongside the original Atlanta, Chicago and Detroit tournament leagues, it is difficult to question the early success of the partnership forged between the Sorts Foundation and members of the academic debate community. However, it is important to contextualize these early successes by putting the advantages and drawbacks of a strictly competitive pedagogy in wider political perspective. As earlier portions of this article discussed, when weaned on an exclusive diet of tournament contest round competition, debaters tend to develop a spectator mentality regarding political affairs. From this vantage point, the political landscape resembles a whir witnessed through the windows of a speeding train. There is a risk that UDL debaters brought up through such a pedagogical program will be steered away from opportunities to develop and apply their argumentative skills in organic projects of democratic empowerment that are focused on pressing local issues in their communities. Fortunately, Sorts' Open Society Institute is out in front of the academic debate community on this point. The Sorts grant guidelines for the high school debate program contain descriptions of grant-making criteria for high school debate projects, and one such criterion favors funding for "noncompetitive debate initiatives which exist as an offshoot of the competitive component and employ topics of relevance to students" (Open Society Institute 1998, p. 1). To date, none of the Sorts-funded UDLs have developed significant "noncompetitive debate initiatives," although there are dynamic pedagogical possibilities in this regard. For example, noncompetitive debate initiatives could involve entire communities in public discussions, debates, and action research projects pitched to address pressing topics of local concern. Because such projects would be unhinged from the restrictive grid of power that undergirds zero-sum contest round debate competition, parents, younger children, and other citizens could participate as actors, not just audience spectators. Novel forms of argument couched in multiple aesthetic registers would become fair game. "Why are you debating?" might supplant "What's your affirmative case?" as the most common question shared among participants in debate events. Public Advocacy It is possible to go beyond thinking of debate as a remedial tool to redress educational inequities and to start seeing debate as a political activity that has the potential to empower students and teachers to change the underlying conditions that cause inequities among schools and communities in the first place. In this task, the public advocacy skills learned by debaters can be extremely efficacious. The ability to present ideas forcefully and persuasively in public is powerful tool, one that becomes even more dynamic when coupled with the research arid critical thinking acumen that comes with intensive debate preparation. A crucial element of this transformative pedagogy is public advocacy, making debate practice directly relevant to actors who are studied during research, and making the topics researched relevant to the lives of students and teachers. On this point, Jurgen Habermas has served as an impressive exemplar, giving concrete expression to his theories of discourse ethics and communicative action in numerous direct interventions into the German public sphere (see Habermas 1994; 1997; Holub 1991). The se interventions have taken the form of newspaper articles, speeches and public appearances on such topics as the historical interpretation of National Socialism, the process of German reunification, treatment of immigrant populations in Germany, and the political role of the student movement. Habermas presented his most comprehensive comments on this latter issue at a June, 1968 meeting of the Union of German Students. At this meeting, he suggested that students have the capacity to roll back "colonization of the lifeworld" and protect the public sphere by promoting wide-open public discussing of pressing political issues. By doing this, Habermas suggested that the students could directly complicate institutional moves to cover for legitimation deficits by fencing off public scrutiny and tamping down critical protest. The student movement is of central importance, according to Habermas, because it calls into question the legitimacy of capitalist society at its weakest points. It unmasks the ideological obfuscation, critiques the attempts at diversion and opens discussion on fundamental issues of economics and politics. It does not accept the pretext that only experts can decide on matters of economic and political concern. Instead it removes the aura of expertise from state decision-making and subjects policy in general to public discussion (Holub 1991, p. 88). Motivated by the publication of Habermas' doctoral dissertation, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, German students arranged mass protests in early 1968 against the Springer publishing house, producer of the Bildzeitung, a mass circulation newspaper trading in sensationalism and hard-line conservatism. At Habermas's urging, the students were energized to initiate this resistance, choosing to target Springer based on the Frankfurt school's sustained critique of the mass media as arch-enemy of unfettered public argumentation. As Holub describes, "[al press such as Springer's has the double function of excluding the public from real issue-oriented discussions and of mobilizing the public against those who, like the protesters, try to engender public debate" (1991, p. 88). This anti-Springer campaign is one example of student movement mobilization undertaken in name of Habermas' suggested project of "repoliticizing," or re-activating public spheres of deliberation (sec Habermas 1970). Directory: debate -> MiscSites debate -> Garth Andrew Myers debate -> 1ac woodward sm debate '11 / Savani 1ac plan debate -> Alfred charles snider debate -> Hhs debate 10-11 Japan 1ac- baylor rr debate -> Observation 1: The Stage is Set debate -> Debate What beleaguers air safety in India? Economic Times, 10th June, 2010 debate -> The affirmative has presented an interesting story, but one that is far too optimistic. We provide a counter narrative of the effects of space colonization. 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