Posts Tagged ‘debating’
Debating Matters National Final 2008 in London
On Thursday morning a group of eight Silverdale debaters and two teachers headed off for London, intellectually (and in some cases physically) armed to the teeth with arguments, counters and rhetoric for the Debating Matters National Final 2008. Although I wasn’t scheduled to debate, as there were betters pairs of people available for all three debates than me who really suited them, I went down as a squad member and to soak up the other activities besides debating that were being put on. We were set to promote open borders in the quarter final, oppose drugs in sport in the semi final, and promote presumed consent for organ donation on death in the final. I expected us to go all the way, but we were knocked out in the quarter final: as usual we won the debate but lost Debating Matters because in this competition the standards change with the judges; i.e. every individual debate. However, I gained a new respect for this competition this trip as it definately has its upsides. Andrew and I jointly won an award for the ‘most spirited, inspired argument’ as I was continually pressing extreme liberal agendas in my questioning of the various panels.
The Debating Matters format is not one I have ever really liked because the speeches are short and there are no points of information, which makes the whole thing far less competitive. Between the regional finals and the national final, I exchanged messages via Facebook with the competition’s press officer, but had to apologise somewhat after a few days of debating: the competition’s questioning from the judges and strong involvement of the floor (audience) has won me over somewhat, and she said that she hoped that might well happen to me. The questioning really is very effective: things come up that teams simply don’t think of on their own, and this really enhances the quality of the debate. Yes, there were arrogant and self-righteous judges who were a bit of a pain, but they were confined to the less important debates and the best judges were polite and reasonably picked holes in cases. However, the judges’ judgements do not deserve the same accolade. A quotation from one sums the situation up: ‘As for [differences between] judges, we’re just making it up as we go along.’ The argument from the organisers which is against tick box style judging makes sense as those who aim to follow a set formal debating formula probably shouldn’t be the ones to be involved in a competition that is interested in digging deep into issues. But the problem here is that this contradicts with the idea of having a competition at all. There must be standards for victory otherwise it simply isn’t a fair playing field. For example, the competition has no marks for style and yet the judges discuss it regularly and we may have lost our debate due to a nervous first speaker.
The Institute of Ideas, which runs the competition (and was formed from the remnants of the British Communist Party so is very fluffy and liberal), also put on a Question Time-style panel one evening and this was excellent. All of the speakers were very good, but there were no real right-wing speakers which meant that everyone agreed on occasions where things might have gone on. The first issue to be discussed was the 42 days row, including David Davis, and my question was called for first: I asked how the panel, if they agreed with the measures, could reconcile the long term seperation of powers with a short term increase in security. After some confused answers I clarified by explaining how I go with the idea that it takes hundreds of years to establish these rights and we shouldn’t sacrifice that as we are only a small group of humans acting in a small space in the expanse of time. The debate moved on Zimbabwe, education (A levels being too easy) and a few other smaller issues. Controversy was caused by a Blairite member of the Institute for Public Policy Research saying that it was a good thing that A levels are getting easier, and the sides of the audience seperated (applauding raucously different speakers) when one proclaimed elitism and another denounced it.
Chairing both this and the final debate was Claire Fox, Radio 4 panellist on the Moral Maze and director of the Institute of Ideas. Opinions on her were mixed among the squad. To me, she was an enthusiastic supporter of open debate with a good personal, arrogant style – and I don’t mean real arrogance but the kind any debater employs in making their point. I could agree with others that at times she was a little self-righteous, but I did not accept the view of some that she was overly so and apparently went on far too long in her speech closing the competition and explaining (quite rightly in my view) how the aim was to draw us upwards into the real political world rather than patronising with simplistic and unimportant motions set for the competition.
Also worth mentioning is that at the end of the panel I had a chat to the Executive Director (or some other title that means the top) of Encyclopedia Britannica who was on the panel. Him and I stayed in the audotorium when everyone else had gone and I attempted to persuade him that Wikipedia really does supercede the commercial product with the argument that you should never cite an encyclopedia in real academic work anyway. He ignored most of it and tried to get me with the usual ‘I like Wikipedia but it is trying to do a different job’. An interesting encounter.
Of course the other aspect to this is meeting all the people involved, and additionally it is amazing how much you learn about people when you stay with them for several days; I refer here to the Silverdale squad. Here is my theory. When people are normally with their friends they are often at their happiest and most open; indeed my sister has remarked that this is true with me. However, over several days people are undoubtedly going to have changing moods and one also recognises annoying parts of people’s behaviour. So it was interesting to see the rest of the squad – who luckily for me I am all friends with; this was not the case for everyone – over the trip. Only two instances of unpleasant behaviour occurred. Going with my relaxed philosophy teacher in charge meant that he was relaxed about what we did, but in all honesty with so much of the squad being eighteen there wasn’t a lot he could do anyway. Additionally I got to know some of the squad better than before as there was lots of walking to be done around London and there were lots of small debates to engage in.
I also learnt something about myself as it was pointed out to me that I excessively label and denounce all those about me. Genuinely however I do this because I want to encourage an argument and rarely truly mean it. And here a difference comes between my family and those I was with on the trip: the latter will generally engage with me head on, and the former will just roll their eyes. As Conor pointed out, I am absolutely in my element with that kind of group of people, constantly fighting a corner or making some sort of strange theory somehow plausible. And at the end of the day, my friends know I am like this and don’t resent it, and like me want to be challenged. I wonder however what things were learnt about me that are not so good, and how awkward I’m sure I am at times without realising it.
The competition hired out floors of restaurants for the two evening meals and this provided great opportunity for continued discussion. Alcohol obviously featured here, even for the seventeen year olds as they were merely having it with a meal. I really don’t mind this anymore, and actually people don’t change too much, maybe become nicer. I still however fail to understand fully why they then go away and drink themselves stupid and throw up everywhere, when in this situation they were quite happy with a more reasonably quantity. On the second evening a friend and I spoke a great deal to one of the judges, an executive in the competition’s sponsor, Pfizer. He was a very fair judge and had lots of interesting things to say, even if I disagreed with most of them. Most of us came away finding it difficult to maintain negative views of the drugs company after meeting their representatives. Additionally, I got locked in a rather one sided ‘debate’ with a Labour activist whose continual stream of speech was repeated to several of us. It was virtually impossible to escape it.
What was interesting here was how I was actually quite happy to spend hours over the meal, even though I was feeling a bit off and wasn’t eating very much. For years my parents have been sick of me attempting to rush off. This is because, I think, I was with people who would engage with me for once and argue properly, or they were already my friends and so things can always be discussed. Maybe I should be a better person and not make this requirement for having an extended conversation with people, but I appreciated the meaning of ‘good conversation’ in those two evenings in London, and on the walks back in the dark.
A fine three days in my element, with good friends, strangers and arguments.
Stranger Festival Debating Masterclass
Yesterday I headed down to London on my own to attend a debating masterclass in the world schools format, an unusual format that I haven’t tried before. It has three speakers on each side, eight minute speeches (then closing speeches of four minutes), no floor debate and the third speaker on each side must be entirely based on rebuttal, and can’t introduce any new material. Somewhat intense if you end up as that speaker – which I did yesterday. I got up nice and early and headed the the train station, and I happened to have a first class ticket because that was the cheapest option when I booked the tickets just over a month ago, at the end of May. First class is definitely not what it used to be, you barely get anything for free anymore. But the journey was pretty fast at roughly two and a half hours each way. On arriving in London I headed for the underground which has long been my favourite part of London in general, and it remains fantastic, if somewhat BAKING HOT in the weather, and of course it is hotter the deeper you go. Mind the gap. The journey back was standard class, but it was a proper old train where you have to lean out of the window to grab the handle to open the door which was nice. All this blah about logistics is present merely because I feel I ought to look back on this post as the first time I have done a trip like this alone, so it was somewhat of an adventure.
The masterclass then was designed to give an introduction to the format and practice for those who wish to attend the trials for the World Schools Championship to be on the national team. We started of with an introduction as to how it worked, watched a debate by those more experience in the format, and then I was put into a group of three to prepare an opposition to “THW ban all religious clothing and symbols in schools”. I was put with an incredibly smart and intellectually agile Y10 and someone closer to my own ability, and we had a fair crack at it. There were so many holes in the prop’s case but then, we had plenty too, and we lost in the judge’s vote. They criticised us for not taking up several opportunities to tear apart the other side. I have no idea what my style was like, probably not fantastic, and not doing particularly well in that debate has soured my view of the whole day somewhat, which was really a very good event.
At the end various other events in debating coming up were advertised, and it would be so good to be able to be more involved in order to become more polished in more formal debating styles. The problem is that they all cost money, and even if bursaries are available you seem to generally have to apply first, and then potentially get a refund, which isn’t the way round I would like. Now, as usual, it is said that they don’t want anyone not to go due to financial constraints, but my situation is difficult. Simply put I’m not sure how much I can ask of my parents and school are useless at giving money for educational activities such as these. Yesterday was fine as it was just a train ticket. But I think I need to plan ahead and work out what to do in order not to miss opportunities as I have done so many times before. I nearly missed this one, having only had fourty-eight hours to apply.
BBC Radio Sheffield
As part of the Debating Matters publicity drive, we were asked to go and be part of Radio Sheffield’s daily Rony’s Forum with Rony Robinson, a seasoned presenter. So the Friday after the competition (I know, it’s taken me ages to get this post written) we headed down to the central studio with the head. Entering, the four of us split into two pairs and we went on for blocks of half and hour and fourty five minutes per pair; I was in the first. The show is a phone-in discussion idea so after I explained the competition we had won, we were involved in discussions over animal cruelty with regard to horse racing, new words that have appeared based on the Internet (embarrassingly I knew only a few of them). I wasn’t as eloquent as I wanted due to being shocked somewhat by hearing my own voice at a very loud volume in the headphones I was wearing, and the other pair (Tom and Andrew, I was with Orowa) were far more philosophical and thoughtful than I was. But it was a very interesting experience and I think we put on a good show. The programme says they may try and get young people in more often because their show, given its time of twelve until three and given its content is very much aimed at the middle-aged and they would like to encourage wider listenership.
However what was probably more interesting was observing the producer get to work behind the scenes while my comrades were on the air. What a fantastic job. With one touch screen managing the eight phone lines, switches allowing messages to be spoken into the presenter’s earphones, texts and e-mails coming in on another screen, sending instant messages to the presenter, checking that he has his volume sliders in the right place with another display… and then when things are quiet for a bit when Rony was talking away to one of us, they popped over to facebook. The producers were very happy to explain what they were doing and answer our questions: the main one had newsread and presented on Radio 4 so we were with good company! I learnt a lot about a very interesting job. One thing that stands out in my mind is how just before the news Rony gestured frantically as he was going through ‘this is BBC Radio Sheffield, now time for the news with…’ but after a quick grab of the ‘talkback’ microphone from the producer he was supplied and integrated flawlessly the newsreader’s name.
Debating (really) Matters
Today was the regional final of the Debating Matters competition, which I have written about before. I was pulled in to join a team that was rapidly disintegrating due to a history exam taking out a third of it, and babysitting removing one of the initial replacements. The day opened in high spirits, Owen and myself taking on the task of defending, from the opposition bench, the BBC’s continued public funding. I wasn’t too happy with my opening three minute speech; for me the short speeches followed by collecting questions at once to be answered from judges, the other team and the audience isn’t ideal as I prefer the sustained oratory of the Mace. But we got stuck in to the debate and succesfully took it. The big issue though from the judge’s feedback was the way that they wanted us to give specific examples and give some detailed research. Other judges in this and other competitions have told us entirely the opposite! We always aim to look at the bigger picture, get to the heart of the matter (there are only actually about six debates around), and be ideological about things as motions are generally ideological affairs. But this competition seems to be more focussed on responding to the current and historical context of the motion rather than taking a philosophical, abstract, theoretical standpoint as we are proudly used to doing.
In the second debate our way of working really became obvious in the sense that it differed from the competition’s expectations. The motion was that ‘happiness should be a key goal of government policy’ and our side proposed this using the concept of eudaimonia, which we thought was a strong case that could provide a good debate. However, the judges attacked the lack of specific policies intended to bring about happiness – surely the motion was not about this! We tried to debate the motion, it seemed we were meant to be politicians. This meant that despite a poor case from the opposition we lost that round. However, due to the extremely complicated streaming system this still put us through to the final and the debaters for the second debate, Tom M-W and Andrew, went forward to oppose the motion that ‘excessive bureaucracy is keeping drugs from patients who need them’. The proposition read a prepared speech and kept repeating themselves, and Tom and Andrew managed to take it by providing and arguing with specific examples, and keeping to a team line. Thus we are through to the London final, with the intention of bringing along the whole squad of competative debaters for a valuable experience. MP3 players all round was another part of our victory (plus subscriptions to Britannica, brrr).
The issue with the focus of this competition was a problem for us, even if the format wasn’t. In fact, the format really did favour the intellectually very strong but less debating-experienced Tom, where the questioning suited his highly destructive style perfectly. For me, the speeches are too short and there is no chance to build up much of a case. But the competition’s focus on research was a problem for most of us. At the end of the first debate the chair told me (nicely!) that he thought I had given three minutes of virtually no actual material and that my speech had been a bit of a waste of time, in a sense. It may not have been perfect, but I believe I clearly laid out the case that the BBC’s quality and diversity could not remain if it were not publicly funded. Giving examples of programs and naming examples of controversies is not part of what debating should be about.
Whatever my criticisms of the competition, it is a great initiative for spreading debating to those who are less interested in oratory and rhetoric, so I really do salute the organisers (I signed up for the possible volunteers database for regional rounds). On to London, and to the battle there.