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Introduction to Public
Forum Debate
CAFFE 2014
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Different types of debate: what
suits you?
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Different types of resolution: Fact, Value, Policy
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Resolved: Today is Monday.
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Resolved: US is a more important subject than world history.
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Resolved: NC should require 2 years of history to graduate.
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Formats differ: debate alone or with a partner?
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Topics differ: a new topic(s) every tournament, a new topic
every month, every two months, one topic for the entire year?
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All research topic areas and develop speaking skills.
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Formats: Public Forum Debate
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Teams
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Topic for competition changes every month
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Switch sides
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Decide on sides and speaking order with a flip of a coin
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Speeches build on ideas: constructives and answer the other
team’s arguments: rebuttals
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Format
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Flip the coin, will you pick sides? Will you pick speaking
order? Whatever you decide, the other team gets to choose
the other.
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4 minute constructive speech…pro
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4 minute constructive speech…con
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3 minutes CROSSFIRE – period for both debaters to ask and
answer questions.
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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
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4 minute rebuttal speech…pro
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4 minute rebuttal speech…con
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3 minutes of crossfire
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2 minute summary speech…pro
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2 minute summary speech…con
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3 minute GRAND crossfire
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2 minute final focus…pro
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2 minute final focus…con
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What might be possible topics?
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Timely and in the news
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Important
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Concrete
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Domestic policy
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Foreign policy
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Topic area for debate:
Resolved: On
balance,
students in grades 6-12 in the
United States benefit when
their schools offer
interscholastic sports.
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Questions to start
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On balance
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WHO: students in grades 6-12 in the United States, NOT
alumni, college scouts, the town
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Benefit-those who play and those who don’t
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schools offer interscholastic sports
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NOT JUST GYM
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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, highschool 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
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3. Injuries
Football, according
to one
study, about 15% experience
a brain injury each season
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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.
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 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 highschool athletics contributed to the general
dumbing down of public education?
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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’
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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
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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 )
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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.”
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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
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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?
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 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, nonnominal 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
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4. General student involvement
Unity
Pep
factor
rallies benefit all
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Discussion: why keep them?