The New York Sophist

Today was a very unique and exciting experience – teaching Japanese high school students. I started the day by (oddly enough) meeting Texans in the hotel lobby who are here in Fukoka just checking it out. We went to the school about 11, and then met the principal and had tea in her office and spoke with her while one of the English teachers translated. We then moved to the teacher’s lounge for lunch and worked on the debates with two Americans who are in the Japanese English Teaching program (JET) and work for the consulate. This was the first debate of the tour where the Americans were on opposite sides in the debate.

I regret not taking a video of this, but it was really unavoidable. I sat at the back of the room and took photos of the event, but it’s not the same as having a great video. The lecture went well, although I think I had trouble keeping my vocabulary to the level of 2nd year English students. There were a few frowning faces as I spoke, but I think it worked out well. The teachers seemed to enjoy it and thought it was good so I’m pleased. Many of the students’ questions were excellent and I enjoyed answering them. Overall it was an experience I won’t soon forget. It’s not every day you are invited to speak about debate to such a great group.

When we first arrived at the school, we were asked to remove our shoes before entering and to put on slippers. We were introduced to the Principal, who was very excited to see us. She welcomed us into her amazingly large office, and presented her business card to us in formal Japanese style. Then we sat, and she had one of the English sensei translate for her as she spoke to us for a while.

Here is the coolest part. She told us that before she was a principal, she taught Japanese history so she expected us to learn some before we left Japan. I told her about my interest in Miyamoto Musashi. She was surprised, and then told me that her first job was teaching at a school set up by and run by his descendants. That is, she taught along side of Musashi’s descendants. Oh man is that cool.

But that’s not all we learned:

The school day, we learned, is really long in Japan. There are tutoring sessions that begin at 7:30AM and class begins at 8:30. School goes until 4:15PM, but then there is after school tutoring, sports practice, clubs, and “cram” school in the evenings where students go to off-site places to learn even more to advance in their classes. Overall it seems the day ends around 8PM for these students, only to begin again in less than 12 hours.

I now have some free time, so I plan to check out a nearby shrine, then we are having dinner with some University students, then beers later with one of the Americans we met earlier.

Today’s event was fantastic, and the reception was even better. Everything is going very well so far, and I have great respect for all of the Japanese debaters that I have met so far. Japanese debate is a very vibrant and exciting community to be a part of.

Tomorrow is one of the most anticipated events for me of the tour – a debate and a talk at a Japanese high school. I’m very curious and nervous at the same time. I hope to post some pictures and video from this very unique experience. I am pretty nervous mostly I think because I will be one of the first lecturers on the benefits and basics of debate these students have heard from. I hope to be engaging and entertaining at once.

More details to come tomorrow after it is over. Right now we have had a 14 hour day of travel, debate and activities, so it’s time to crash!

We arrived on one of the cleanest and smoothest flights I’ve ever taken, including the leaving of the plane which was super fast, polite and orderly. I was so stunned when the plane emptied out in about 5 to 8 minutes.

My bags are suddenly overweight, which was a problem at check in, but it has been sorted out. I need to figure out some way of losing 7 kilos of cargo between today and Sunday. Not sure what the difference could be, but I have room in my backpack, so that should take care of it.

Suggestion to future Japan debate exchange students – pack light! There’s a lot of walking involved with suitcases. I did not follow this advice and now I have too much to carry around.

I am sitting in the prep room right now observing and taking pictures as we prepare to debate the Kyusyu JDA chapter in parliamentary style with light evidence. I sound like I’m writing a menu with a statement like that but it’s accurate!

The debate will be before about 150 University students who are studying english and/or intercultural studies. The topic again is banning the use of cellphones by minors in Japan, but this time the American team is Government.

The style is extemporaneous but many features of policy debate will be present such as cross examination and prep time, as well as rebuttals. After the debate I’m talking for about an hour on the potential of online/second life debating for the future.

Through the tour many debaters have introduced other debaters to us by saying “He/She is my Junior.” This phrase refers to the dominance of student-run debate programs in Japan.

When a student reaches his or her senior year, he or she is expected to retire from debating and enter the tournament as a judge or coach of some kind. These seniors often take a junior team under their wing so to speak and help them out, give them advice and support them during the debate tournament. These are the people who are responsible for judging debates, and some other seniors run the tournament from the position of coordination and tabbing.

This system might be a bit scary to the professional coaching system of the U.S. But it seems to run very smoothly in Japan.

Furthermore, now that I’ve had a day or two to think about the evolution of policy debate in Japan, I think I have a handle on Topicality in a bit more detail.

Topicality is brought up by the negative, same as in U.S. Debating. But instead of it being an issue with the plan, it is more like a challenge to the Affirmative – basically saying, “Here’s our interpretation, now you come up with something more reasonable than what you just heard.” This might explain why some topicality violations are strings of definitions and are named “Topicality One” and “Topicality Two” by the speakers when the arguments are being road-mapped.

On counterplans – it seems that the counterplan can be about almost anything as long as it is non-topical. Competitiveness is mentioned, but most of the debate is about net benefits. I saw one negative team tie the T violation to the counterplan to prove that the CP was non-topical (It was non topical under the negative definition in the T violation, therefore it was non-topical). I tried to explain why this is a bad strategy to a couple of debaters, and they were pretty convinced that if the T violation was “reasonable” then the judge would have to accept the counterplan.

All of this would make a fascinating study if these changes could be historically mapped, but I doubt the policy debate community keeps much of an institutional memory (U.S. Debate barely has one for strategic developments, but at least we had the forensic journals). It would be more of an oral history project that would involve interviewing many former debaters and trying to piece together these interesting theoretical differences from U.S. Debate.