Imagine thinking that we could teach a toddler to learn to walk and run wind sprints simultaneously. When I coach cross-examination debate to freshmen, I often feel like this is what I am trying to accomplish with fourteen-year-old freshmen. Bless them big.
For years, parents would tell me that I should talk to their child about being in debate because that “smartmouth kid of mine” knows how to argue. True, to be a debater it helps to have some moxie and a willingness to speak up.
However, debate is many things. Arguing is not at the top of the list.
This year I am working with three new teams of debaters, two students per team. Experience and wisdom give me the warrant to say the following to them as we get started going to speech tournaments this month:
1. You may cry before, during, and after a round.
2. There’s a good chance you may want to quit.
3. Inside the room where you debate, you will feel a strong sense of fight or flight. Mainly flight.
4. At times it will seem debate is a second language in which you are not fluent.
5. Some debaters are real jerks and will shred you during cross-examination.
6. Some judges are off base and will write things about your hair, your clothes, shoes, etc.
7. You may get ticked off with your teammate. 8. You may get really ticked off at your coach when the alarm goes off at 5 a.m. to put on a suit and panty hose on a Saturday morning and then ride a bus for two hours.
9. You may swear.
10. You will need to have a healthy sense of humor. Not only are my students learning a new skill, but they are also faced with the challenging task of taking the year’s resolution and reading, researching and writing. That resolution is meant to push a debate team to come up with a policy to create needed change. When competing as the negative team, my students will basically find fault (using evidence) with the policy chosen by their opponents. Arguments must have substantial evidence to back up remarks—they can’t wing it.
My favorite part of teaching is the “walking” part with young debaters. This part of the process comes naturally to me because debate presents the pathway to independent, critical thinking. I eventually quit holding their hands but never quit encouraging. This teaches them to self-navigate, self-correct, and survive a round against experienced debaters. Eventually—and this may take a year--we celebrate the ultimate victory of looking forward to the next weekend tournament.
Cross-examination debate was in no way on my radar when I was a student or a young teacher. It was just thrown in my lap as an extracurricular teaching assignment because I was the new faculty member. This perspective has worked well, as I empathize with the daunting task of learning such a complex event.
And what are we learning this year? The national CX Debate topic for 2022–23 is Resolved: That the United States federal government should substantially increase its security cooperation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in one or more of the following areas: artificial intelligence, biotechnology, cybersecurity.
We are crawling now. Walking by December. And hopefully jogging in March. By next year, the debaters who survive will be running marathons.
Snyder, Texas, native Sue Jane Sullivan is a retired schoolteacher whose thought-provoking commentary appears occasionally in several West texas newspapers, including The Texas Spur and The Caprock Courier.
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