Pedagogy of Skillful Means

My body seems to know when I have weekends off from debate and schedules all my illnesses for those times. Yesterday and today I’ve been fighting a nasty cough and not really feeling motivated to do much of anything. I’m about to take my laundry down in a few, and I went grocery shopping yesterday, but that’s about all I can handle for now.

I’ve been working on my larger project of attempting to find a non-rational, non-propositional justification for academic debate since I can’t do much else but sit around, and I came across the wonderful concept from Zen Buddhism of “skillful means.” What I’ve been researching is the koan (kung-an) as a pedagogical method. What I’ve found so far is that it suggests a rhetoric of teaching and learning quite different from what’s in vogue right now.

Here is Thich Nhat Hanh describing it, in relation to kung-ans:

The kung-an is a useful instrument in the work of awakening, just as a pick is a useful instrument in working on the ground. What is accomplished from working on the ground depends on the person doing the work and not just on the pick. The Kung-an is not an enigma to resolve; this is why we cannot exactly say that it is a theme or subject of meditation. A kung-an is only a skillful means to help a practitioner reach his or her goal. – Zen Keys, 57.

The koan, or kung-an is a tool that helps the student work independently on another problem – the problem of understanding. It is not a thesis, or main idea, or “curriculum.” It’s not a clever intro. I think it is a rhetorical “wedge” that allows the field of “to be understood” to be “mined/mind” (Going with the metaphor here). The metaphor suggests that as a tool it is only as good as the skill of the person who is wielding it. It must be crafted to the particulars of the situation of master/student, then it becomes “merely” skillful means.

So skillful means are a trick? Some sort of clever educational activity? Hanh goes a bit further with it:


To help practitioners cross the river to the shore of awakening, Zen masters hold out the staff of skillful means. But the disciple must grab hold of it. If his eyes remain shut and his mind blocked, the practitioner will miss the staff. (72)

I find this entire discussion fascinating, as it appears to line up with a clearly conservative pedagogy – the blame lies with the student if he or she can’t “grasp the staff of skillful means.” The student has to see it, realize what it is, and grab onto it. If he or she doesn’t, well then, that’s tough. Or perhaps they are not smart enough.


But “skillful means” cuts both ways. The phrase suggests that the means deployed are chosen, refined, calculated, and (most importantly) produced by the master. The master is making a judgement as to what “skillful means” to extend. It is his or her choice, and to extend the exact same means to all students is to fail one’s pedagogical ethic.

A master must know the mentality of his disciple well in order to propose a kung-an that is appropriate. Every master meets success sometimes, but also knows failure when he proposes an inappropriate kung-an. (61)

Clearly the failure is not the student’s all the time. The master must use a “skillful means” that is rhetorically appropriate – it must be recognizable as help for the student. This is the opposite interpretation we get of Zen practice from popular culture, where the master must offer puzzle within puzzle that the student (near the end of the film) recognizes as simple liberal modernism, and finds within his heart the strength to push on toward his uncontroversial quest to eliminate two-dimensional evil from the world (normally with a flying kick).

Negotiation and discrimination are also a part of the rhetoric of Zen pedagogy. If the kung-an is the instrument handed to the student for his or her own labor toward understanding, then the master must be careful not to give it too early or late, and also must make sure the student stays interested long enough to reach the moment of “skillful means.” However, “skillful means” could be extended to describe the rhetoric of the entire master/student relationship, which at first glance appears Hegelian, but I don’t think it fits. There is a different economy at play here, and I think it’s one of the elimination of any fixed points from which one could identify with the opposite term. Instead, Zen masters attempt through “skillful means” the recognition that one is always already “master” and always already “student.” The distinction between the two terms is something that can count as a “skillful means,” but it is clearly the opposite of the goal of Zen practice. This is why Hanh usually uses the adjective “mere” when describing it.

As for debate, do we use “skillful means” to extend assistance to students? Or do we toss one ladder in the water and hope they find it?

Do we take responsibility for the students’ failure to understand, or do we recognize our failure to provide “skillful means” for the topos “to be understood.”

How much time do we waste trying to explain to students “here is the finger, the finger is very important, we must always look to the finger, the finger will show you the way,” when the moon shines brightly just above our head?

LOL Scientists

Someone wrote a book on the paranormal! Sadly though, the author of this article feels that it’s shocking to know that in the book these phenomena (ooooh? What? what??) are real.

It’s so funny and annoying at the same time when smart people approach a complex phenomenon – let’s say the paranormal and the realm of the psychic – and then conclude something totally beside the point. Well, beside any sort of interesting point that we humans could do something with.

Please answer me this question: Why do all of our supposedly most insightful investigations feel that announcing that something is “real” or “really works” is a conclusion?
What about its implication, meaning, role in the social, cultural, political? What about it as a phenomenon and what it says about identity, humanity, the other, the economic? Wasn’t your investigation started because the phenomenon, as such, existed? Isn’t that “real?”
I just don’t understand how anyone can be satisfied with the claim “it’s really real” being synonymous with insight.
But then again, I don’t understand why the tools of scientific investigation (objectivity, experimentation) have been globalized to the point where one has difficulty imagining an alternative way of “finding out” that would be considered legitimate.

Mandatory Debate Training?

Here is an article by Susan Herbst advocating for mandatory debate training as a return to the principles of the civic in the U.S.
Of course, this article oversimplifies. But the conection between participation in debate and the practice of civility seem questionable.
For the general public, I think the connection is axiomatic. Of course training in “how the other side sees the argument” is perhaps what civil discourse and the political are founded upon to the modern lay mind.

But further than all of this is the idea I forward that debate is training to a new way of life – a self-discipline and an attitude toward the world and the self that is not just revolutionary or some sort of skill development, but a self-renewing revolutionary perspective that allows one to shift and adapt no matter the moment. Something like martial arts and something a bit more rigorous than generic spirituality is what I’m after.

So I like the article, but it’s only scratching the surface, or perhaps it damns with faint praise, and limits the potential of argument and debate.

Expert Adjudicators or Extra Adjudicators

I was having coffee with a good friend of mine and colleague from the debating world recently, when the subject of debate theory came up. My colleague mused about how lucky American debaters were to have such a rich tradition of theory behind what they do.

At the time, I disagreed. I like BP/WUDC debating because ideally it acts atheoretically. The arguments occur in natural language, and the debate about “what counts” as an argument doesn’t happen beyond the point of calling out a fallacy, a weak warrant, or a fabrication. Argument theory as it exists in American debate formats relies extensively on argument theory as a block to arguments made, and therefore theoretical arguments (i.e. Your model is not a theoretically acceptable model because it does not specify which agent will enact the model) are as much the heart of the debate as the research, evidence, and disadvantages\advantages. In BP, arguments are not theoretically rejected per se, they are rejected upon the grounds of their persuasiveness.

Argumentation wise I still hold this view, but recent judging experiences and recent adjudications have me thinking that the adjudication system needs a method and a theoretical justification behind it.

Here are some things on my mind considering adjudication that debate scholars could and should address:

1. When, if ever, are solo judged rooms ok?
It seems to me that there are possible justifications for this, but I am not convinced by any of them as they all rely on the theory of “judge as expert in argumentation.” This theory is a carry over (hold over?) from American policy debate, a format that I believe operates under a theory of creating a forum to practice persuasion among simulated experts. BP on the other hand appears to operate under the idea of practicing persuasion for a simulated public. The loss of the simulated public change the game to a simulated expert appeal, with debaters practicing a narrowing of argumentation for the one specific adjudicator’s tastes instead of broadening appeal for a whole panel. This is distinct from American policy debate panels where you can go for 2 of the panel and ignore the outlier judge.

2. Is the purpose of paneled judging to reach consensus or to agree?
During a recent final round where I was a panelist, we went to adjudicate where the chair asked us for an initial idea as to who won. When we all said what we thought, he said “okay” and started to walk back in. I protested, saying we need to discuss the decision. The response was amusement. “Why talk if we all agree? Should we pretend to disagree?” I didn’t have a good response other than a gut feeling that simple agreement was not the telos of consensus judging. I think some work here using theories of deliberation, discussion and the re-articulation of argument in the public sphere might help us appreciate the consensus portion of the adjudication more than the agreement portion of the deliberation.

On the verso, what happens when there is no discussion, or a discussion that goes past each other? What happens when a wing refuses to accept the community norms? My situation as a chair was having a wing who refused to judge the debate on the community norm of “who was most persuasive?” He said it was a bad way he didn’t buy, and he was an argumentation expert. When I forced him to talk about persuasiveness, he couldn’t – he talked about their style in a superficial manner. What can be said or done about such a judge? It seems a body of theory would help bend this sort of judge to a more reasonable and more functional role within the BP community.

3. Are wing judges extra judges? Are chairs expert judges?
By now I suppose you realize I’m going to say no to both. But the scholarly potentials here are interesting. What if the role of the chair is not expert on debate, but discussion leader? I think the decision becomes a different one if that’s the function of the chair. If the function of the chair is to be expert, are they a technical one or one based upon experience? Either way will change the function of the adjudication.

As far as wings go, I think most people accept the idea that wings are chairs in training. This is a fantastic charitable attitude that I think does not exist outside of this format. The strike system in American policy has eliminated the idea of judge training, as well as the idea that rhetors should alter their message for audiences.

A strike system (this means choosing adjudicators that will not hear you during a tournament) is a move more toward a truth-seeking or positivist format of debating. However, some say should be given to debaters about the variety of judges that will hear them. After all, in rhetorical situations, many rhetors select whom they address and do not speak to all or everyone. Perelman even points out keenly that philosophers who claim to be addressing the universal are imagining that category based upon the best critical qualities of thought of their era.

The wing system theoretically addresses this problem by putting judges in the chair that are “trusted” which mean, I think, are consistent with the best sorts of judging of the era. They are to act as expert in some ways, but through guiding the discussion and making sure all wings are heard. Another theory might be that the chair can persuade the wings as to his or her credibility, so the panel is more like a simulated segment of the public, rallied to vote in one way or another by an enthusiastic citizen. And I’m sure there are other models that might be instructive to pursue.

Unfortunately there is no theory to support all of this yet, and often panelists are thought of extra judges. Panels of 3 are common, when a panel of 5 would be more justified. A 3 person panel indicates the need for a split in a solo, expert based decision process without consensus. Rounds are run with a solo judge under the assumption that it will be just the same as if there were wings. But I like so many other chairs know that many times a wing has caught some detail that makes me re think my orientation to the debate. This is an invaluable element of the debate, key to the format, and a backing of some scholarly work on the theory of BP debating would make it easier and more consistent, especially among Americans where the tradition of expert, professional scholar-coaches is bending WUDC format away from the elements that make it unique and pedagogically vibrant.