High School Debate Lacking in Madison

Last week’s Isthmus reminded me that school board elections are happening this April. The lack of discussion this time around stands in stark contrast to the amount of discussion that occurred in 2007. Some of the 2007 issues stick out in my memory, because many of the candidates chose to highlight the value of speech and debate. Two year’s later, I wonder if the rhetoric of praising the value of speech and debate has translated into supporting the activity.

In the Spring of 2007, as an assistant forensics coach preparing for the state championship, it was nice to hear that members of the community had taken notice of James Madison Memorial’s success. (Memorial won state forensics championships in 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2006. JMM also won last year and they’ve taken individual championships each year). Back then, we were just about the only game in town. Since then, Madison West, Sun Prairie, and Middleton have developed quality forensic teams. At last year’s state forensics tournament, Memorial went home with the championship, West placed eighth, and Sun Praire placed fourth.

Debate, however, is a different story. Madison West has lost most of their debate team; while Middleton has developed one. Madison East and LaFollette, are no where to be found for either debate or forensics. Sure, they have teams. But their teams do not compete in the same way that Memorial/West/Sun Prairie/Middleton do.

Since becoming the President-elect of the Wisconsin Debate Coaches Association, I’ve tried to facilitate the development of high school debate in Dane County. The Madison area is sitting on a virtual goldmine of talent that has largely gone untapped. The Dane County area has enough schools to support local debate tournaments at virtually no cost. If the four Madison schools participated in a competition with Middleton, Verona, and Sun Prairie – one could almost hold an entire season of competitions without ever traveling outside of the county. Since only Memorial and Middleton competed in debate this year, those schools were forced to travel two hours or more on some weekends just to attend a competition. With a limited budget, this makes it very costly and very difficult for students to participate in an activity that many school board members have said is important.

What have members of the school board said about debate and extracurriculars? Let’s review:

In 2007 Candidate’s Questionaire, Johnny Winston Jr. specifically mentioned debate and forensics as one of the critical extracurricular activities important for Madison area students.

“Extracurricular programs can be linked to the curriculum as a way of extending and enhancing the district’s educational programs. Madison Metropolitan School District students are fortunate to have a multitude of activities to become involved in. They include but are not limited to: sports, fine arts, debate, forensics, literary, newspaper, yearbook, science Olympiad, Distributive Education Clubs of America, foreign language and math competitions and Madison School & Community Recreation.”

Maya Cole made a similar response in 2007.

Extracurricular activities provide students with opportunities to learn more about their community, other cultures and themselves. They provide opportunities for self-expression and creativity while easing the stress of school. I’ve been lucky enough to participate in competitive rowing, recreational skiing, rock climbing and solo hiking in the wilderness. I’ve tried everything from forensics club to newspaper writing to photography to piano lessons.

While not defending, speech or debate, Majorie Passman defined herself as an advocate for all extracurricular activities.

Madison is fortunate that its schools have a rich extracurricular structure. As a board member, I will do everything I can to guarantee that students continue to have equal access to as many of these activities as they find interesting and have the spare time to pursue.

and in a different article, advocated for expanding speech and debate:

We must support programs such as strings, expand foreign language classes, and more extracurricular experiences (debate, forensics, drama) which are important for every child.

Moss has expressed interest in using the population size of Madison to reduce costs and provide a better product for students.

The district and Madison School & Community Recreation are working to increase access to extracurricular activities for all students by removing barriers to participation such as transportation, costs and location. I support continuing and expanding these efforts.

Despite all of this outpouring of support for debate and forensics from the school board (and this is just from the candidates that won – the losing candidates also spoke highly of the value of speech and debate), there has been no administrative action supporting these activities. Any work that has been done to expand these activities is solely the product of committed coaches and educators.

Strangely, no one in MMSD seems concerned that only Memorial participates in debate – but yet full head and assistant coaches are paid at each of the schools. I sent an email to the athletic directors in September asking each of them for the email address of their debate coach, so that I could set them up with materials and help them in their debate planning. Not surprisingly, I received no response. If the school board is really concerned about this issue – the administrators from each school should be finding active and supportive coaches, so that East/West/LaFollette can at least compete. Right now, students at those schools do not have an option. The experience difference in extracurriculars between Memorial and East or Memorial and LaFollette is drastic. To make the comparison in sports terms; it’s like East and LaFollette don’t even offer soccer.

While East/West/LaFollette are one extreme for debate, Memorial is on the other for forensics. The James Madison Memorial forensics team averages about 120 students – that doesn’t count students who participate in drama. No other forensics team in the state is that large. And yet, the salary level for JMM’s head coach is the equivalent of a basketball assistant – despite the fact that the Memorial head coach deals with more students and takes on much more responsibility (and has been more successful). What incentive is the district offering to teachers who want to offer this all-agreed upon worthy activity? Additionally, it fails common sense to expect JMM’s coach to continue what he does, when other schools in the district do relatively nothing.

If the school board is serious in its commitment towards debate and forensics, then it should strengthn those activities across the district. All students in the Madison Metro School District should be able to recieve the benefits of debate – not just the students who are fortunate to attend a school with a willing coach. Merely talking about debate when elections are around is ridiculuous. I hope the board is held accountable and that these individuals make good on their promises to improve speech and debate for all members of the MMSD.

In Defense of Speed

Georgia Forensics Daily recently linked to an article in the Boston Globe about policy debate. The article discusses the role of speaking fast in high school policy debate. (There’s even a video clip of some excerpts of some fast reading- and pretty clearly – and the drills to develop that skill). The reaction in the Boston Globe’s comment section for the article is largely negative. Individuals critique policy debate for being out of touch with real world skills. Critiques of this kind are also frequently made by people who have seen the HBO documentary Resolved. So when I talk to people about the fact that I am/was a debate coach, I sometimes hear similar critiques of high school debate. I try my best to contain my excitement that they know what debate is and then attempt to defend the activity that I love. Most people make the assumption that debate is about speaking in a impassioned and persuasive manner and those critics argue that the activity as currently practiced does not contain these skills (if it ever did).

As a long time member of the debate community, I can tell you that this argument fails to make any sense. First, debate is activity about arguments. We want our arguments to be good and we want a lot of them. Making arguments quickly allows you to make more arguments. This is pretty much the same principle in every sport imaginable. In baseball, you win by scoring more runs. This is helped by running as fast as you can to beat out a ground ball. In football, we like speedy running backs and wide receivers because they can beat the defense and score touch downs. (Or if you prefer defense, speedy linebackers so they can make devastating hits). I’d make a similar analogy about soccer or hockey if I understood those sports. My point is, speed is preferred in almost every game played. If debate is a game, then why is it so wrong that speed is an element of the game?

Alright, I can understand you’re not buying this. (Many people have made this claim in the comments section, and the critics of policy debate don’t buy it either). Athletic skills are not the same as academic ones. Particularly because academic ones only have a need if they fit a “real world” skill. BTW, Let’s take two seconds to point out how ridiculous this is. How is running fast/jumping high a real world skill? What businesses are hiring Usain Bolt to curry documents on foot? This line of argument would eliminate every high school competition, including sports. I don’t think most people would be in favor of getting rid of everything that doesn’t have a “real world” applicability. More ridiculous, I don’t see the harm in this. Lexington’s coach says, in the article, when they have a slow speed judge, they debate slow… So who is hurt by speaking fast? No one seems to articulate a negative impact of speaking quickly other than; “it shouldn’t be that way.”

This leads me to my second point. Well, it’s not really my point. I heard Tom Rollins  make the same point in last year’s Breakfast of Champions. If you’re assumption is that debate is about flowery rhetoric and poetry; your assumption is flawed. Debate is a thinking exercise. As a contest of arguments, policy debate requires in-depth research, organization, and analytical thought. These are skills that are not developed by simply thinking about the mode and method of communication. Debate’s emphasis is on skills not emphasized in other forensics events – thinking, research, and organization. If you want understandable analysis about current events – do extemp. If you want to build a persuasive case about a policy issue and do it convincingly – do oratory. If you want to argue and practice persuasive speaking – do Public Forum or Student Congress. There are other activities that develop argumentation and emphasize effective, real-world style speaking. Don’t critique policy debate for not doing these skills. In the debate/forensics world, we have many different events for students. What gets lost in these criticism is that, as a community, we DO encourage eloquent rhetoric – just not in policy debate. It’s silly for all of the events (and we have many) to have a similar style.

In fact, policy debate’s fast style is a good thing in so far as it promotes the skills of thinking, research, and organization. Speaking fast encourages fast thinking, more evidence, and way to understand that evidence. There is pretty strong evidence that debate does this. The research completed by debaters is often, not on a college level – but a graduate level of research (similarly – college debaters are some of the smartest people I’ve ever met). Because debaters push the limits of their information processing, they can think handle information later in life better than others. Being able to think faster than your opponent is a real world skill. Being able to organize quickly is a real world skill. Being able to understand all the facts about a real world issue is a real world skill.

If you think debate doesn’t have great rhetoric, I will agree more times than not. But that doesn’t mean debate is without value. As a thinking activity, debate seems to excell at imparting high level thinking skills to students and critiquers should take time to understand the activity, rather than over-react.

Madness is HERE!

The brackets for the NCAA College Basketball chamionship have been released and the greatest American sporting event is almost upon us. 64 Teams, three weekends, and endless possibilities. Making things worse – is that there is no favorite this year. UConn might have been the favorite if they had point guard Jerome Dyson. Louisville may well be the favorite winning the Big East regular season and conference tournaments – but no one – litterally no one – was talking about Louisville as number 1 seed until a few days ago. So madness is likely to be multiplied this year.

I’ve begun the process of working on my bracket. Inspired by last year’s ESPN bracket challenge pool’s winner, I’ve developed a longer process than I usually take. Introducing a more patient methodology to my usual selection process, will hopefully lead to a better result. I watched Championship Week all last week, so I think I have some idea about what mid-major teams are good and which are not. Doing some additional research about style of play and strength of schedule (and location of the game), should lead to better results than the previous year. Hopefully.

Here are some of my intial thoughts as I look over the bracket for the first time:

• The Midwest region is stacked with quality teams: Louisville/MSU/Kansas probably make for the strongest 1-2-3 combination.
• Syracuse convinced a lot of people that they not just among the top teams in the country, but one of the best teams in the Country with their epic win over UConn on Thursday Night. Did anyone think they would be an overall three seed going into the Big East Tournament?
• If Wisconsin somehow manages to beat Florida State, I think they are probably match up favorably to Xavier. Meaning a chance at victory is probably at 40% to 50%. Should that become a reality – a Wisconsin/Pitt matchup could be very interesting. Wisconsin beat Pitt last year, Pitt loses when it gets in foul trouble. There is probably like a combined 2% chance of this happening, but this season dreaming is about all badger fans have.

Film Fest Scheduled!

I have been following the Wisconsin Film Fest on Twitter. I don’t really use Twitter, because I’m on facebook and they’re like the exact same thing. But I can follow an RSS feed with the best of them. Meg Hamel, the festival’s director recently referred to putting the schedule together as like a “giant jigsaw puzzle.”

Trying to figure out what movies you want to see versus what movies you can reasonably see versus how many movies you can stand to see in a day is a similar puzzle and film goer struggle. It’s like the day when the time table hits – sure you know what courses you are interested in – but it’s all a matter of when things are scheduled. Let’s face it, as interesting as some things are, you are not waking up at 8 am just to do it. The same principle holds true for the Film Festival. I’m hoping for a better distribution than last year. Alissa did six shows, while I did seven (BAFTA, a narrative, a set of shorts, a foriegn film, a set of docs and another narrative; while I did the same with another doc in the mix). While seven shows over four days really isn’t that difficult – but when you do four in one day, it gets a bit hecktick.

This year I’m paying more attention to timing than I am to the films I want to see. I created a matrix of alternatives and let’s just hope that Alissa has similar interests as me. Without further ado, here’s the matrix.

• Thursday – either Win or Lose: A Summer Camp story OR Earth Days OR Anvil OR The Lie of the Land
• Friday – Illegal Use of Joe Zoepp
• Saturday – if seeing Being Bucky, then the following: Being Bucky at 6:15 AND The Taking of Pelham One Two Three OR Winter of Frozen Dreams at 8:45 with the option of adding Between the Fold OR the British TV Ads prior (4:30/ 1:15 respectively).
  Not seeing Bucky, then the following: Between the Fold at 4:30 AND either The Taking of Pelham One Two Three OR Winter of Frozen Dreams at 8:45
• Sunday – If seeing Bucky, then the following: increase number of films for Nick to seven. See Between the Folds early Sunday morning – alone if necessary. Then the following: Visual Accoustics AND BAFTA.
  If not Bucky – then Visual Acoustics and BAFTA with the option of adding Paper or Plastic at 11

For some, that’s way too much crazy logic. But there’s a method to this structure. It all depends on whether or not I want to see Being Bucky/can fight off the other 250,000 badger fans. I decided that I want to see Between the Fold and I’m unsure about whether or not to see Being Bucky. I’m leaning towards avoiding it – because its a major schedule headache and pretty much forces me to do a three film day somewhere. Alissa’s friend is one of the creative forces behind Joe Zopp, so we are seeing that. I’m also undecided about whether or not to see seven films again. Last year that amount was difficult – but that was probably because I put four of those sessions in one day.

Film Fest, Film Fest, Film Fest!

The Wisconsin Film Fest Guide is released today. At practically every break I’ve had today, I have been reading the guide, trying to select the films that I want to see. This is the bright spot of my day, considering how terrible the Badgers played last night.

Dane101 has a pretty awesome post that links to many trailers for a significant amount of the films listed. Check it out. I have already linked to a couple of the films, but there are many more trailers up.

Madness Takes it’s toll

Listen closely – not for very much longer. I’ve got to keep control… of my excitement about college basketball. The slate of games on TV and their various implications for NCAA bubble teams is ridiculous. Let me quickly review them, in case you are not aware:

• Memphis, Louisville, and North Carolina are all playing tonight. Each has an important conference opponnent to take care of, but no one thinks that any of these teams are at risk for a loss, even with Memphis and NC on the road.
• Oklahoma plays Missouri tonight. Both teams are ranked. OU needs the game to keep pace with Kansas in order to have any hope of catching them for the Big 12 title. Oklahoma also needs the win to lock up a number one seed for the tournament. They also stand a decent chance of being a number one overall. Missouri needs the game to prove its for reals. Oh yeah – and the game is in Mizzou. This should be a good one.
• Marquette takes on Pitt tonight. Marquette is struggling with the loss of Dominic James. With him, Marquette would have had three senior gaurds and the most experienced backcourt in the country. Since gaurd play is usually very important for making deep NCAA runs – many people had picked Marquette to make a run at the National Championship… But all that was before losing James for the season. Marquette needs to find a way to adjust for the loss of their starting point gaurd. Pittsburgh is a more than solid team and ESPN keeps talking about them as a potential number one seed. This is definately a possibility – but as I said yesterday – I don’t think it’s likely that two teams from the Big East will be number one seeds. Bottom line: Pitt is very good, Marquette was very good, and this is the Big East. Should be fun to watch.
• Kansas is also in action tonight. They’re playing lowly Texas Tech (who really need Bobby Knight back). A win helps Kansas keep it’s lead on the Big 12 regular season title. Scratch that, I did the math/read the preview of the game. A win gives KU the regular season title. Excitement level increases.
• And last, and definitely not least for my attention: Wisconsin plays Minnesota. Aside from this being a part of the border rivalry, Minnesota needs the win because they are “on the bubble.” They haven’t beaten anyone in the big ten worth beating since Wisconsin. Lunardi has them out (but has Penn State in – which I think is completely backwards. MN has better non-conference victories and I think even has a better RPI. The only difference is record in conference.) Allegedly, Wisconsin is also on the bubble – but that seems ridiculous to me. A win for the Badgers guarantees that they keep a bye in the first round of the Big 10 Tournament, and likely gives them an at large NCAA bid. (And exacts revenge on the fucking gophers).

Go Bucky. Here’s hoping we can do the time warp tonight, and erase that horrible lose to gophers.

3 Baskeball Burning Questions

March Madness is fast approaching. This week the regular season wraps up and we move into conference tournament time. After that, its short two hours to Selection Sunday and bracket contemplation. Like other intense college basketball fans, I like having opinions about teams before filling out my sheet of integrity. These are some questions weighing on my mind lately.

1. How good is Memphis? Should they be a number one seed?

Here’s my issue: Memphis plays in Conference USA and I never watch and/or care about C-USA games. I ruled out Memphis last year – defending the potency of the power conferences against their mid-major opponents. This makes sense – I’m from Wisconsin, our two biggest teams Marquette and Wisconsin are from power conferences – which last year (with the exception of the big east) were getting trashed talked by the sports media. And for 35 minutes of last year’s national championship game that looked like a really-really stupid decision. I don’t care to make a critical error again, simply because they play in weak conference.

The case for Memphis is simple: they’ve only lost 3 games, are undefeated in conference play, are currently the only team stealing first place votes from UConn, and – oh yeah – were in the national championship game last year. The case against is that their non-conference schedule is pretty weak: they lost to Syracuse, Georgetown, and Xaiver – Syracuse and Xaiver are tournament teams – and beat UMass. The lost to Syracuse is probably looking better now and the lost to Georgetown then looked pretty decent – the Hoyas were ranked back then and the game went to overtime. Lundari says they are better now, since making some gaurd switch. Not quite sure what he’s talking about – but ESPN pays him a whole lot to know this stuff, so I trust it. The problem is, there is no way to test how much improved they are between now and when the big dance begins.

On the same note, my motivation for asking this question is that I have a fundamental belief that the NCAA committee will not give two big east teams a number one seed. I tend to think the NCAA committee thinks being a number one seed is like being the highlander – there can be only one. Sports writers always assume that the tournament prefers power over region, and then it seems that regional concerns make a surprising return every year. I have no specific examples to support this claim – but think of all the years where Duke and North Carolina are projected to be number ones verus the times in which that happened.

2. What the hell is going on the Pac-10? Or more appropriately – What’s wrong with UCLA?

This is a similar problem as above. Pac-10 games rarely get shown on ESPN because they are way out there on the West Coast. (I also have a real job and can’t stay up to 2am watching the Pac-10 AND the Daily Show).

UCLA has made three strait final fours. That’s impressive and speaks to the level of program you’ve established. It also helps if you’re the winningest program in all of college basketball. So why are they so lowly ranked? First, the Pac-10 is no Big East/ACC or even Big Ten. The second is probably all those loses they have. Where did those come from? So if UCLA isn’t what is used to be (is/should be), is the Pac-10 weak or have the other teams gotten better? This is hard to answer, particularly because there are like three other teams to mention when we are talking about the Pac-10: Washington, Arizona State, and even Arizona deserves some credit. It would help if I got to see some of these games. If only there was some magical time box…

3. Is the Big 12 underrated and overlooked or have we judged it correctly?

Kanas is the defending National Champions, and no one seemed to notice that they were winning games until last week. Oklahoma has arguably the best player in the country. And Texas’ program has become studly, if you focus on their record over time. But then teams like Oklahoma State are also playing well in conference – and that doesn’t sit well with the national media.

To a certain extent, this is fine with me. I am a fan of the Big 10, and this kind of in-conference team that does well, but really isn’t all that good seems to happen all the time. Especially in football, but lately in basketball (see Purdue last year, and Penn State this year).

I tend to think that the Big 12 teams that we know are good (OU, KU, Texas) are good and the rest, probably aren’t. The same is true for the Big Ten.

Damn it! Google!

I love most google applications. I don’t know what I would without Gmail. Google maps is so handy. Google has also become my preferred choice for News Aggeration and RSS syndication. I have even started to like Google Docs, despite the fact that I think they are pointless compared to Microsoft Word and Open Office. (Full disclosure: I’ve never used Open Office – I love Word prior to the 2007 mess).

However, I’m giving the big F-U to Google News today. Not because they are an inferior product. But rather because they are too damn good at getting to know what I like. Under my entertainment news section was an article stub about the results of last night’s Top Chef finale. I’m a ridiculous Top Chef fan. I’ve only missed one season (Season 2) – because at the time I did not have cable. So, good job to google for thinking I’d want to see that information.

Jeers to google for not knowing that I DVR’ed the episode and had not got a chance to watch that yet – thus making the headline an episode ruiner. (And seriously Hosea! WTF?!! Now I really have to watch that fucking episode. You can’t make out with contestant and be treated as a serious contestant!).

I really shouldn’t complain that much. The alternative, from Google’s perspective, is to create a new technology that will link up my DVR viewing habits with my news reading habits and sync all of the information that I might want to have s0 that there is no risk of spoiling surprises and an ever erroding sphere of personal privacy.

Meta blogging

Memorial’s forensics tournament is this week, and as usual, I’m helping Tom/Tim prep as much as possible. Driving home last night, I realize that I hadn’t written anything for almost a week – despite having a developing list of posts to make. I then realized why it’s been so difficult for me to maintain my writing here on a regular basis (despite having no theme or thesis). I do too much.

From hosting future in laws, to hosting oscar parties, to staffing speech and debate tournaments – I have so little time to spend on my own intiatives. In general this has prompted me to think about why things are so much different now than what they were before. I’m no longer a student – meaning I don’t stay up until 2am on a daily basis any more (shocking); my job works during normal business hours instead of “after school” hours; and I have little interest in things that I don’t find rewarding.

I guess that means if I find this blog as being worthwhile, then I need to make it a priority. And find a better title. And find a common thing to write about.

The eternal wait for Baseball tickets

Holy shit! 300% hit increase. Up to a turn the world on its head 9 hits yesterday. Either that or someone was researching me. But both are so unlikely that I don’t know what to make of these numbers. I apologize for the lack of real writing yesterday. Online games usually aren’t what I’d write, but it’s what I had time for.

In the process of doing my work today, I’m patiently waiting the opportunity to buy Cubs tickets. I have been in a virtual online waiting room since about 10:30 am. I haven’t gotten the opportunity to buy anything yet. I doubt if I ever will by the end of the day. Four games have already sold out (Rockies, White Sox x2, and Cardinals). No surprises there. I would just like to see some statistics on where I am in line – is it even worth the wait? Should I just accept that I’m going to have to pay someone’s marked up price on Stubhub? The tech geek in me has me wondering if there is some way to game the system so that I could be in multiple spots in the line. There probably is, but I don’t think that it’s worth figuring out.

Alissa bought me a Maynard’s Dozen Mallard tickets for my birthday. So I will likely get my fill of baseball games, but I’d really like to see a game at Wrigley. I haven’t gone since I was like six or seven. And I don’t remember much about that game. I have been told that it was Cubs v. Phillies. My brother, then a Phillies fan (still not sure why), taunted me the entire game as the Phillies were winning… That is until a 9th inning Cubs rally. I suppose this is why I’m such an optimist… And why I’m still waiting in this bloody virtual room of hell. The very least MLB could do is to put some interesting ads in this room.

Since I have 4 tickets, and Alissa won’t be able to make all of the games and Alissa and I are rarely four people, I’ll need some people to come with me for free baseball. If you’re interested in coming to a Mallards game with me here are the dates of my tickets:

Monday, June 1 @ 7:05pm
Friday, June 5 @ 7:05pm
Friday, June 19 @ 7:05pm
Saturday, June 27 @ 5:05pm
Saturday, July 11 @ 6:05pm
Sunday, July 12 @ 1:00pm
Thursday, July 16 @ 7:05pm
Friday, Jul 17 @ 7:05pm
Thursday, July 23 @ 7:05pm
Thursday, July 30 @ 7:05pm
Friday, August 7 @ 7:05pm
Sunday, August 9 @ 5pm
Monday, August 10 @ 7:05pm

Update: 1:00 ish. Eleven games of 81 have sold out. That’s more than 13.5% of your season ticket sales in three hours. There aren’t many franchises that sell that fast. (Save the Packers – that are always sold out due to the ability to pass your season tickets on to your kids).