The New York Sophist

I made the choice to change my debate course to something more active from something where we discuss and analyze the role of debate in society through the meta. In the past, students would discuss, write, and speak about various debates in a hope to evaluate the role and purpose of the discourse we call “debating” in society. I started off with a survey of the spread – very much like a fungus or mold – of the U.S. Presidential debate format around the globe. Part of this is the work of the Commission on Presidential Debates but another big realization of this gross growth is that politicians recognize what a beneficial format the U.S. Presidential debates are for them. They can say whatever, they can hide, they can claim they looked great through a future supercut. It doesn’t benefit any of us at all.

I moved away from this to something more active – a series of debates that students would perform. I felt that experiential learning would be the way to go in online debate. But I have never really taught debating in an asynchronous online format before. It’s all kind of radically new, and making me think differently about how I teach debate – particularly the assumptions I make about what’s available to us when we enter a debate.

The idea that there’s no space and time to practice arguments is one issue that I think I can address by being more lenient in terms of when a “final” speech will be due. I think that the idea of constant revision, or low-stakes debating, is the way to give students the time and space to become comfortable with their own voices and their own approach to practicing advocacy on various issues. The entirety of college becomes practice from this perspective, if you think about it. I believe that adopting a serious process of revision and practice is one of the most valuable things that a rhetorical education can give to people. So now I’m considering adopting it into all of my courses regardless of modality.

I’ve been teaching through video, and here are a couple of the lectures I’ve done so far on debating.

I just love the thumbnails that YouTube chooses for my videos

These two videos took a bit longer to produce than the standard in-class lecture. I think it’s something that I am still not adjusted to – the idea that I can’t base a lecture on the presence of students in the classroom. They provide a lot of material and a lot of indicators of where to go next when giving a lesson. Without that, I just have to look into the camera and hope they are following along well enough.

This is an argument for making much shorter talks and then gauging student opinion on where they are through some short assignments designed to measure what they got out of the video. The next one can adjust to that. I have my online public speaking course arranged like that and it works pretty well.

We are a couple of weeks away from the first debates, which will be audio or video files posted asynchronously, with plenty of time for the other side to respond. At the end I hope to edit them all together to seem like one debate, but we’ll see how well that works. It would be nice to have one contiguous file to listen to later and see if people could tell that the debate was not done in a traditional, aka “in person” format. I think they’ll be able to.

Teaching in asynchronous online format courses that have been traditionally predicated on being in person and next to one another is not a novelty, but something we should explore and create resources to address now. We are going to be using it a lot more in the future, more than we can imagine now.

Debate education, like debate in most democratic/capitalist countries, is set up poorly because it is set up in opposition to a way of thinking and judging. As any first year debate student can tell you, you can’t win a debate by setting up your position as “Don’t do what they want to do.”

The debate culture that most debate educators have set up through their tournament-oriented, skill-development model is one that is attractive because it is not the daily, typical way that people debate.

Photo by Artur Shamsutdinov on Unsplash

Keep in mind the majority of argumentation theorists around the world gave up this form of modeling debate after World War 2, opting instead to base prescriptive modes of debating and arguing on what people do regularly in their daily lives. Building from, not opposed, to the ways people engage disagreement, choice, and incommensurate narratives of experience are the ways that theory and practice have gone in argumentation outside of tournament-centered pedagogy. Still, this is often presented as a wish, a normative practice that stands in opposition to the natural “bad reasoning” that people tend to do.

Debate is a vital epistemic practice that is a necessary part of the human practice of thinking through words. It has to be in there. In other words, it’s a feature not a bug. We keep treating it at every turn as a bug in the software instead of an essential part of the human program of thought.

What we need from a debating culture is a debate practice that doesn’t stand in opposition as its starting point, but stands in support of good options.

Debate at its best is an exploration of what we know and how we know it. It is an art of and for exploring good choices to ensure which one is better in this context, in this moment. Debate is a practice of learning about good feelings and ideas. It’s not a practice of heightened intelligence, or a practice of finding the best evidence, or a practice of making the best decision in a choice, or a tool for proving that an option or choice or way of thought is bad. It’s none of these things.

Debate is baked in given how prevalent confirmation bias is to our modes of thinking and given how eager we are to share our ideas about what should be done the minute we figure them out. Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber point this out in their book The Enigma of Reason, where their research indicates that human thought, judgement, and reason is designed to occur in groups, where people can push back on what’s presented. This pushback, and this engagement of ideas in a back-and-forth communicative environment is how human knowledge is meant to be iterated and reiterated as conditions change.

Whatever models we teach and practice should be formalized expressions of what people do naturally in reason, not stand in opposition to it. Any model of debate that bolsters itself as being “better than” everyday debating is a suspicious model, most likely crafted to generate benefits other than giving us familiarity and practice with the modes of human engagement on ideas that are a part of being human.

A desirable debating culture is one where debate, as a practice we set up and do regularly on various ideas that are not necessarily associated with a big, time-sensitive decision, must be advanced based on what it provides to us and for us, not what it isn’t. Debate itself should be a good that we compare against other discourse forms because they are also good, and in this situation and context debate is well-warranted because of what it provides to our feelings, thoughts, and knowledge about an issue.

The ancient question of what topics are appropriate for students to speak about, debate about, or write about is evergreen. I think about this at the end and start of every teaching term.

I see several approaches to this question that are well-warranted. It doesn’t mean that I agree with any of them though!

The Word Bank Model

Remember being in primary school and sometimes you’d have a test or exam that would feature a “word bank?” You were meant to take the words from the random collection in a box and use them to complete the test questions. It really helped a lot if you were stuck, and probably forwarded an idea of learning relationships and meanings rather than rote memorization.

The Word Bank Model as an answer to this question is when the instructor selects the potential topic areas, and the student selects from these areas in order to complete the technical or structural requirements for the assigment.

For example, in public speaking it’s quite popular to assign something like a “policy speech.” This assignment requires the student to propose and persuade an “audience” that a particular policy should be adopted or should be chosen over some set of competing policies either in place or in consideration.

An instructor might write, “Select one of the following policies: The Green New Deal, Medicare for All, Tuition-Free Higher Education, Assault Weapons or handgun ban. . .” etc.

That was a very American list wasn’t it? The point though is that the typical instructor should draw on things that are circulating, current and happening right then in the society so the students have ample discourse to root around in, embrace, and explore on these issues.

Most instructors might not feel comfortable wtih not “knowing the right answer” to some of these policy questions, but that’s ok – we are teachers of persuasion and rhetoric, not facts and truth. Instructor discomfort with such suggested topics is more indicative of instructors feeling like they are losing their classroom authority (read: authoritarianism) by not being able to definitively say what the right answer is on these questions.

The downfall of this model (there are many) is that the instructor is often only educated on controversial issues by the mass media (CNN, NBC, etc.) and does not have a grasp on the nuance or depth of these controversies, nor how to access the deeper arguments on these questions.

An invitation to a research librarian to assist the class on curating resources for these topics is definitely in order, as well as a strict ban on mass-market news sources as more than 20% of the cited sources in the presentation.

Controversy is the Source of the Topic

Even less control over the topics comes from the instructor choosing to teach the structure and habits of controversy itself rather than a particualr issue. The students are charged with finding a topic that meets the standards and definition of controversy that was defined in the classroom.

Whenever a controversy is brought up, research should be conducted by the students or participants as to what’s out there on it. This can be as broad or narrow as you want. For example, the vaccine controversy is not going to go very far as a topic for debate if you restrict it only to the scientific literature. If you expand the notion of what’s out there to include the mom bloggers and the religious folks, as well as the clean lifestyle folks, you have a debate there that becomes more about what evidence is good and appropriate, not the relatively thin and uninteresting question of “what’s the real evidence?”

Letting the controversy decide is a great way to show us how language pushes us around into the identities and positions that it wants us to hold as well. Being moved by an argument that goes completely against classroom standards of a “good source” is an experience that should be talked about as a normal part of education. Too often we get the articulation that only “stupid people” (whoever they are) will believe a position, and those on the right side of the issue understand the “facts” and “evidence.” These are all, in the end, preferred ways to understand the world and the controversy will, as it pulses along, give credibility to various positions that those opposite will be stunned by. This is what it means to argue – to be baffled by what counts in the words and meanings of your opponents.

This should also point out that those who support calls for “evidence-based debate” are not offering anything to rhetorical or debate education except a retread of a tire that just shouldn’t be driven on. Of course debate requires evidence – that’s not the controversy. It’s what counts as evidence that should be explored precisely because it moves from context to audience to situation. Contemporary debate coaches who make this appeal are simply guilty of equivocation.

The Quality Source or Professional Niche Approach

One of the defenses of teaching public speaking or debate is that it is a professional skill set that aids people in working on professionalizing. So why not have students select a controversy or disagreement from their major field and speak or debate about that?

This allows instructors to assign work for reading that might be off-base for the story they are trying to tell about their field or the topic of the course, but allows the students to discuss the differences between various publications, practicing using the thought processes, practices, terms, and culture of the field.

Such debates in class are also the heart of the model of undergraduate research, something every administrator pushes and pushes without much of a concept of what that really looks like. I had an undergraduate student who did some research for a professor that primarily involved buying him a yogurt and a banana every day from the cafeteria. Why a symbolic appointment when you can have the symbol and the work for everyone during class? Opting in shouldn’t be the model for the most important bits of education. This extends to the model of the contemporary debate team as well. If debate is such an important way to learn, why limit it to those who the coach thinks are “good,” whatever that means?

Good Citizens Can Advocate

It seems like the controversy driven model, but this model is one where larger questions about the normative, ethical, or valuable tasks or perspective on things like social issues, governance, or culture are explored. Instead of “Should we withdraw our troops from this or that place,” the topic becomes “Should governments have a standing army?”

This is a much more philosophical approach at first glance, but I’d hesitate to say that. Instead, think of this as an accounting exercise for the students where they are asked – possibly for the first time in their lives – to provide a detailed accounting for the principles of the right or the good they rely on as citizens. These are the hidden and unarticualted principles of the good they rely on for all political choices and decisions. And now we have a chance to make them plain; to investigate and examine whether they make sense when articulated socially.

Students can bring up controversies which the instructor then treats as the begged question, i.e. “What prior question must be answered before we can address this question?” Here’s an example from an assignment where I turned my whole public speaking class into a big debate

New York City should be a sanctuary city (this means that the city authorities will not cooperate with the Federal immigration authorities on any requests to detain possible undocumented people).

So the begged question is: What is the appropriate relationship between the local and national government? Or: What is the appropriate relationship governments should have to people?

You can of course derive other ones, but you can see that hidden within an answer to the sanctuary city topic there is this larger assumption there that the entire meaning of the argument or position rests on (Toulmin would call this backing for those of you still gnawing on that old chestnut – it’s December so chestnuts are the appropriate metaphor).

The practice of being a citizen should be connected to the idea that expressing your view on issues based on your own experiences is normal and welcome. It is also normal and welcome to listen to the views of others who live in your polis, whatever that might be defined as. And it’s normal and welcome to change your mind, several times, as you incorporate the lived experience and beliefs of those who share that space.

How do we encourage and get argument innovation? By allowing students huge amounts of latitude in how they articulate connections between their own experience and what they hear and read in courses. We should not be choosing topics for courses or limiting what can be said; this is the true heart of academic free expression. The ability to express ideas freely is to show one’s work, and if you are not permitting students to do this regularly within courses, you are not teaching.

We are told continuously through the pandemic that students are demanding an “in person” experience for their education. The university is not a remote workplace, and online education is not and never will replace the in person teaching experience.

This demand is often couched in the terms of market economics. Education is easily considered a product (I don’t even think there’s a metaphor here, at all) and students are customers there to consume a product. If they are unhappy, and they don’t enroll in courses, then there’s something wrong with the product and it should be adapted to what the customers want.

All of this makes sense if you accept that education is a product, and not the place that allows us to imagine, iterate (and reimagine and reiterate) the principles by which we would like to, should, or fail to organize human experiences in the world. What sort of product is that?

What sort of product or market forces can be used to evaluate the quality of a space that allows for the practice and development of human imagination?

This question, big as it is, is never considered. It’s never brought up. The university sees itself as responsible for making the best possible product for students to pay tuition for, and their satisfaction isn’t necessary connected with this larger question – a blend of rhetoric and ethics that we might term praxis.

What are students claiming is missing? Familiarity. The demand for the in-person educational experience is not a demand for higher quality. It’s demand for a recognizable quality. Very much like how Coca Cola reverse engineers water sources to match the Atlanta water supply (for good and bad) worldwide, and how McDonald’s adds and subtracts elements from food production worldwide for consistency and customer expectation, students want the classroom, for good or bad, for purity or impurity, to resemble what their expectations are. They want to feel comfortable.

This might not be such a bad demand if met correctly. After all, we want our students in a good mental and physical space to be able to find pathways to engage with the material. But this comfort is more of a strategy than anything else. They want the familiar classroom because in there they have access to a familiar politics of figuring out the class – what they need to do and what is mere professor bloviation, wierdness, or eccentric demand. After all, the familiar classroom is a market – students want to buy As at the lowest possible exchange rate, where they exchange their time and energy for points.

The in person classroom is not immediate; it is highly mediated by this philosophy of a currency exchange. On top of that, it’s highly mediated by the expectations that students and faculty enter that space carrying from film, television, and popular culture. As one of humanity’s most common experiences, being in a classroom has been saddled with expectations of all kinds, which modify behavior in comfortable, understandable ways. These modifications, along with the ultimate goal of “buy low” create a difficult environment to encourage any sort of radical engagement of the mind.

When we accept the student demand for the in person course as a request for higher quality instruction, or more immediate and personal instruction, we are accepting the claim on the basis of equivocation. The begged question here is who gets to determine quality? The question of mediation is settled; you can count on one hand the human spaces that are equivalently mediated like the classroom. We have no access to a classroom, or an in person educational experience, that can avoid the weight of expectation. We must understand that students prefer the in person class because it is comfortable, familiar, and well mapped – all the routes are known, and the steps are familiar.

The necessity of education to be a rupture, a transformation, or a classically revolutionary experience requires disruption of the familiar and comfortable in ways that are not distressing, but recognizable as different. Online education has done that to faculty and to students. And for those who have tried to do something that works for this forced environment, they now are wondering if they can ever return to the traditional classroom as it was. For those who tried to replicate the in person experience, this was the most frustrating and disappointing times of their career. What this moment can be is the recognition that the demands of education, a valuable education, requires deep skepticism about the role you have, the role you think you have, and the role that is filtering everything you say and do in a classroom, whether you are a teacher or a student.

Blue State Coffee Pour from Professor Steve Llano, Ph.D. on Vimeo.

For the greater part of a year I put a short video like this one up every morning on my social media – mostly on Snapchat, since that’s what my students used at the time.

They loved it and we’d talk about the different stickers and things I would put on there and how I would put a motivational phrase on there every day. This video is pretty basic compared to what I used to make in Snapchat.

But times change, and students no longer look at or even use Snapchat anymore. All of them are on Instagram, and that program just never really caught on for me.

Years ago I tried to eliminate Facebook from my life. At the time, it was really the only social media out there so the students used it all the time. I had to return to the platform because students would not respond quickly to other forms of communication – Facebook was the best way to get things to happen when trying to organize people to do stuff related to debate.

Now that reason has evaporated and I think my life will improve greatly just publishing my thoughts here and having conversations. Already since announcing that I’m going to be departing those platforms I’ve had some pretty wonderful conversations with people that were much more in depth and interesting than anything I’ve been posting or reading there in the past year.

In the end I think that I’ll have to keep those platforms open simply because one never knows who or what might come along or happen. For instance, I got in touch with someone who wanted to give away some old debate books through Facebook. Once they get here (more challenging than expected) I’ll be posting their story here as well. I tried in the past to keep them open and unused, but wasn’t successful. I’m jealous of my many friends who have their accounts still open, but their last update or post was from 2012 or even earlier. Occasionally someone who doesn’t pay that much attention might wish them happy birthday or something on their wall, leaving this strange annual pattern of bursts of unliked posts occurring in clusters around the same day every year.

I want to practice writing where I have to develop interesting reasons at length, and Facebook and Instagram do not encourage this. I like to write, and I like the practice of conjuring up a universal audience to address with some claims. I find writing here – even if very few people ever read it – a lot more fun and interesting than posting something on my social media accounts.

I do wonder if pedagogically I’ll need my accounts again. From time to time I have chatted with various students using Instagram recently, but even that has died down. I think that with Discord and the LMS we use (currently Canvas) and some other things like email and Google Voice, online teaching won’t require social media. This is really my only concern.