The New York Sophist

I did not plan, and usually don’t plan to have debate in my summers, but this summer has been an exception.  Opportunities to do some off the path teaching for me have been too hard to turn down.

I’ve recently returned from my first event with the International Debate Education Association (IDEA) in Leon, Mexico where I finally saw Karl Popper Debating live and in person. I find this format to be not as bad as the rumors suggested, but it could use some small adjustments. The people most qualified to do the adjusting are of course those who are coaching and participating in the format.

KPDC 2012: Should We Track The Associates of Convicted Terrorists? from Steve Llano on Vimeo.

Here is a video I took of a debate between Tunisia and Japan on the question of whether or not we should monitor the friends and family of convicted terrorists. I think it’s a pretty good debate, but one thing stuck out at me the whole time I watched Karl Popper Debate – the format is a graft, it is totally created and is artificial. It isn’t something that has room to evolve or grow. I think the reason behind this is that it was a format that was created by some American debate professors years ago and nobody feels they have the ethos to change it.

It’s a good format due to its simplicity, ability to handle a number of different types of motions, and the complexity of elements in it like cross-examination and rebuttal speeches. I would like to research the history of this format, how it was made and what elements were rejected. It would be a great paper I think and would elucidate a lot of these issues that I see under the surface of the format.

Along with the KPDC and the workshop there, I am currently in Houston, Texas visiting family while I wait for the Houston Urban Debate League to kick off their summer debating institute on Sunday. Looking forward to this as it’s another first –  I’ve never formally worked with the Urban Debate League, and I’m quite excited. I’ll be doing that workshop for about 7 days, then eventually head back to New York.

English: Karl Popper in the 1980’s. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today is the first day of the Karl Popper Debating Championships at the +International Debate Education Association (IDEA) Youth Forum in Leon, Mexico. 

Depending on the state of the internet at the University we are hosting these debates, I will give some updates here and there about what’s going on. I heard a rumor that there are 36 teams, and they seem to come from all over the world. The judges do as well.


The topic has to do with whether ethnic profiling is justified.


It looks to be a good competition and I’m looking forward to judging a few of these debates in a format that I have never officially judged before. The hotel is fantastic, the staff is friendly and helpful, and everyone had a great first night at a reception out by the pool. It was a good way to start the Youth Forum.


I begin my teaching on the 7th in the BP/Worlds track. It will be an interesting audience – they all (for the most part) come from high school debating and want to transition into BP. That’s my guess anyway, but we won’t really know who they are or their level until we meet them.

English: Karl Popper in the 1980’s. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today is the first day of the Karl Popper Debating Championships at the +International Debate Education Association (IDEA) Youth Forum in Leon, Mexico. 

Depending on the state of the internet at the University we are hosting these debates, I will give some updates here and there about what’s going on. I heard a rumor that there are 36 teams, and they seem to come from all over the world. The judges do as well.


The topic has to do with whether ethnic profiling is justified.


It looks to be a good competition and I’m looking forward to judging a few of these debates in a format that I have never officially judged before. The hotel is fantastic, the staff is friendly and helpful, and everyone had a great first night at a reception out by the pool. It was a good way to start the Youth Forum.


I begin my teaching on the 7th in the BP/Worlds track. It will be an interesting audience – they all (for the most part) come from high school debating and want to transition into BP. That’s my guess anyway, but we won’t really know who they are or their level until we meet them.

Circle-no-questions (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Why do I feel that coming to an event like this, ostensibly only about debating, do I find more people interested in my research and interested in my writing than I found among the professors in my field that I studied with in graduate school?

Why is it that “the choice” – that you have to either become a debate coach OR a scholar, seem so incredibly silly when I am at these events? 


Perhaps it’s because that NCA or field of rhetoric “old guard” who assume debate is for immature thinkers to gain maturity, or for students to be introduced to rhetorical or communication theory, but after that it really is for those malformed thinkers that could have been scholars, but failed/chose not too/couldn’t cut it, are not present, and would never be present at an event that centers around teenage students, high school students, or beginning undergraduates. If this is true, how do you persuade these reviewers that debate, as a practice, as a living thing, is just as valuable as the discourse of Mitt Romney for the study of rhetoric? Does pointing at how English Composition departments are ahead of us in this respect help?


Why is it so clear that there is a field-wide bias against debate in the scholarship of the field of rhetoric, mostly perpetuated by senior scholars who either practiced debate as an undergraduate, or perhaps couldn’t “cut it” as debaters, like the negativity I experienced toward debating as an undergraduate from particular scholars in my rhetoric department at that time?

Flipping the classroom is a popular idea in teaching right now. Could debate serve as a place which we can innovate, as it traditionally has in the field of rhetoric, by flipping the scholarship of the field in an analogous way? Imagine journals containing the narratives of experiential learning from debaters that are explored in the 50 minutes of your University class for connections or disruptions to theories that often take on no more reality for students than that of a spectral powerpoint slide?

How do you persuade scholars of argument that they have the best living laboratory in which to workshop ideas, test theories, and explore the limits of propositional argumentation as an idea every weekend at a campus near them?

Circle-no-questions (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Why do I feel that coming to an event like this, ostensibly only about debating, do I find more people interested in my research and interested in my writing than I found among the professors in my field that I studied with in graduate school?

Why is it that “the choice” – that you have to either become a debate coach OR a scholar, seem so incredibly silly when I am at these events? 


Perhaps it’s because that NCA or field of rhetoric “old guard” who assume debate is for immature thinkers to gain maturity, or for students to be introduced to rhetorical or communication theory, but after that it really is for those malformed thinkers that could have been scholars, but failed/chose not too/couldn’t cut it, are not present, and would never be present at an event that centers around teenage students, high school students, or beginning undergraduates. If this is true, how do you persuade these reviewers that debate, as a practice, as a living thing, is just as valuable as the discourse of Mitt Romney for the study of rhetoric? Does pointing at how English Composition departments are ahead of us in this respect help?


Why is it so clear that there is a field-wide bias against debate in the scholarship of the field of rhetoric, mostly perpetuated by senior scholars who either practiced debate as an undergraduate, or perhaps couldn’t “cut it” as debaters, like the negativity I experienced toward debating as an undergraduate from particular scholars in my rhetoric department at that time?

Flipping the classroom is a popular idea in teaching right now. Could debate serve as a place which we can innovate, as it traditionally has in the field of rhetoric, by flipping the scholarship of the field in an analogous way? Imagine journals containing the narratives of experiential learning from debaters that are explored in the 50 minutes of your University class for connections or disruptions to theories that often take on no more reality for students than that of a spectral powerpoint slide?

How do you persuade scholars of argument that they have the best living laboratory in which to workshop ideas, test theories, and explore the limits of propositional argumentation as an idea every weekend at a campus near them?