Introduction to Public Forum Debate

1. Introduction to Public Forum Debate CAFFE 2014

2. Different types of debate: what suits you? • Different types of resolution: Fact, Value, Policy • Resolved: Today is Monday. • Resolved: US is a more important subject than world history. • Resolved: NC should require 2 years of history to graduate. • Formats differ: debate alone or with a partner? • Topics differ: a new topic(s) every tournament, a new topic every month, every two months, one topic for the entire year? • All research topic areas and develop speaking skills.

3. Formats: Public Forum Debate • Teams • Topic for competition changes every month • Switch sides • Decide on sides and speaking order with a flip of a coin • Speeches build on ideas: constructivesand answer the other team’s arguments: rebuttals

4. Format • Flip the coin, will you pick sides? Will you pick speaking order? Whatever you decide, the other team gets to choose the other. • 4 minute constructive speech…pro • 4 minute constructive speech…con • 3 minutes CROSSFIRE – period for both debaters to ask and answer questions. • Let’s say you want to take some time to talk to your partner about how to address the opponent’s case, this is called prep time and you have a total of 2 minutes to use throughout the debate

5. 4 minute rebuttal speech…pro • 4 minute rebuttal speech…con • 3 minutes of crossfire • 2 minute summary speech…pro • 2 minute summary speech…con • 3 minute GRAND crossfire • 2 minute final focus…pro • 2 minute final focus…con

6. What might be possible topics? • Timely and in the news • Important • Concrete • Domestic policy • Foreign policy

7. Topic area for debate: • Resolved: On balance, students in grades 6-12 in the United States benefit when their schools offer interscholastic sports.

8. Questions to start • On balance • WHO: students in grades 6-12 in the United States, NOT alumni, college scouts, the town • Benefit-those who play and those who don’t • schools offer interscholastic sports • NOT JUST GYM

9. PF: Timely Topics • The Atlantic, Oct 2013 article: ” The Case Against High School Sports”, Amanda Ripley, Emerson Fellow at the New American Foundation • “High-School Sports Aren’t Killing Academics”, Daniel H. Bowen & Colin Hitt

10. American student-athletes reap many benefits from participating in sports, but the costs to the schools could outweigh their benefits. In particular,  Ripley contends that sports crowd out the academic missions of schools.

11. 7.6 million American students involved according to the IHSA • American kids spend more than twice the time Korean kids spend playing sports, according to a 2010 study published in the Journal of Advanced Academics

12. 1. $pent • Marguerite Roza, the author of Educational Economics, analyzed the finances of one public high school in the Pacific Northwest, she and her colleagues found that the school was spending $328 a student for math instruction and more than four times that much for cheerleading—$1,348 a cheerleader. • Football most costly-equipment, buses, coaches, field, etc.

13. 2. time • That kind of constant, low-level distraction may be the greatest cost of all. During football season in particular, the focus of American principals, teachers, and students shifts inexorably away from academics. Sure, high-school football players spend long, exhausting hours, but the commitment extends to the rest of the community, from late-night band practices to elaborate pep rallies to meetings with parents. Athletics even dictate the time that school starts each day

14. 3. Injuries • Football, according to one study, about 15% experience a brain injury each season

15. 4. Academics • But only a small percentage participate in high-school athletics, and what’s harder to measure is how the overriding emphasis on sports affects everyone who doesn’t play. • Mixed results for athletes, student who stays in school/maintains grades to play.

16. But those studies are not asking the larger questions: To balance the time necessary for sports with academic demands, how many students are opting for easier classes? How many districts are not offering a more rigorous curriculum because there is not enough student demand for AP calc but plenty for JV football? To what extent has the growth in seriousness of high-school athletics contributed to the general dumbing down of public education?

17. What to do? • Ban all sports: Finland no sports, Premont, Texas raised passing rate from 50% to 80% in first semester after ban • Europe model: Club sports • Still ‘gym’

18. Are sports good or bad? • “If our culture's idea of fun requires beating someone else, it may just be because we don't know any other way.”  Alfie Kohn, Fun and Fitness Without Competition • Competition bad philosophical approach. Getting rigorous exercise is probably good for academic performance, much as it is for many other things in life, but the competitive winner take all athletic experience, common to many American high schools, is much less useful, even destructive

19. GOOD! • Physical education at school not only contributes to pupils' immediate fitness and good health, but also helps young people to perform and understand physical activity better with positive lifelong repercussions. Moreover, physical education at school brings about transferable knowledge and skills, such as teamwork and fair play, cultivates respect, body and social awareness and provides a general understanding of the 'rules of the game', which students can readily make use of in other school subjects or life situations. ( European Commission )

20. 1. Academics • Athletes generally do better in school. As Barbara Fiege, commissioner of athletics for Los Angeles Unified School District, explained last year, “students in our schools who participate in athletics attend school significantly more often, have higher GPA’s and score higher on the CST’s in both English and Math, when compared to the rest of the student body.”

21. 2. Women • One 2010 study by Betsey Stevenson, then at the University of Pennsylvania, found that, in a given state, increases in the number of girls playing high-school sports have historically generated higher college-attendance and employment rates among women. Another study, conducted by Columbia’s Margo Gardner, found that teenagers who participated in extracurriculars had higher college-graduation and voting rates, even after controlling for ethnicity, parental education, and other factors

22. 3. Minorities • The need to build social capital is even more important when schools are serving disadvantaged and at-risk students. • Chicago, Becoming a Man—Sports Edition pairs at risk male students wilth counselors and athletic coaches who double as male role models. • Would these students have resources to compete with club system?

23. Gardner, Roth, and Brooks-Gunn find that disadvantaged children participate in these programs at significantly lower rates. They find that low-income students have less access due to challenges with regard to transportation, non-nominal fees, and off-campus safety. Therefore, reducing or eliminating these opportunities would most likely deprive disadvantaged students of the benefits from athletic participation, not least of which is the opportunity to interact with positive role models outside of regular school hours

24. 4. General student involvement • Unity factor • Pep rallies benefit all

25. Discussion: why keep them?