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Re: Policy Uber Alles


On Wed, 12 Apr 1995, Kenneth Broda-Bahm wrote:

> To add a small counterweight to the outcry against "fact" topics
> (which will in all likelihood soon evolve into an outcry against
> non-policy topics generally) I would like to briefly critique the
> equivocation that is being made between "easier to teach" and
> "better education."

> 
> Penders notes,
> >I like the concept of being able to explain consistent
> >concepts to young students.
> 
> I wonder, given that there is a universe of potential topic types
> and ways to analyze, if we shouldn't be striving for something
> more than consistency.
> 
I am not sure that I am one of the strongest pillars supporting the status
quo, I mean, I agree--but what do we teach FIRST?  If you have a football
team, don't you explain things like , its a game with eleven players on
aside, the object of which is to carry oblong object across three inch
line more times than your opponents, or do you gather a bunch of eight
year olds together and say, "Okay, kids T-X 43 on two, break"  How many
people would intrinsically understand that that means that the backfield
lines up in the T formation and the four back and the two back cross
paths, the QB gives the ball to the four back and s/he goes into the three
hole?  (and besides coaches have different numbering systems--all my
coaches but the last had the even numbers on the left and odd numbers on
the right--then it all went to hell on me....)
I think a consistent base can produce dramatic and non-uniform results. 
The study of math has even started to prove that with the evolution of
chaos theory and the study of complexity, things evolve from an ordered
state, and disorders itself into an overwhming array of complex and
ordered relationships.  Hmmm--anyway--I don't think teaching uniform rules
dulls the student.  I think trying to grasp these concepts and then being
disagreed with by critics over what they mean (especially if the critic
really is confused) is not overly helpful for my student's educational
process.  If the durn critic would just either know,`hey, there's gonna be
a plan' I could live w/ it-- but teaching a student how to successfully
defend their criterion is useless when it doesn't filter through the
critics understanding of that criterian and how it might, gasp, relate to
other arguments in the round.  I agree- the student initially learns much,
but then has to wade through many puddles of muck before seeing the
way--the reason I think policy is easier to teach is because you get more
uniform results back from the critics.  In the midst of this stream of
conciousness drivel--I think that would be my thesis here, that students
learn more from consistent critic response and that would in my mind, be
facilitated by policy debate.



> I agree that policy topics lend themselves to easy instruction. 
> Perhaps that is because we learned that first, and best. 
I'll plead guilty here, just for the sheer sake of honesty.
 Perhaps
> that is because we have a firm (though false) belief that there
> are an unproblematic set of rules which exist to tell us the
> *proper way* to analyze a policy resolution.
Maybe, for some, but not for me.  Pat and Matt can run anything they want,
but my argument isn't related to the analysis of the resolution, but the
basic rules of the game.  

> 
> Even conceding that a novice will more easily grasp policy
> systems analysis than they could grasp a system of analysis that
> is forced to stem from topic wording, we have no reason to
> believe that this easier grasp is for that reason more
> worthwhile.  
> 
> I would argue the contrary:  the challenge of topic analysis is a
> part of the education that we are promoting.  This does NOT mean
> that we should have barely debatable topics.  But this DOES mean
> that we should be suspicious of any effort to tie our practice to
> a specific resolution type/style of analysis.
>
I think its reasonable, at a subsistence level of theory understanding to
start reinterpreting the resolution.  But the novice is learning what
theory IS--and the fact they learn later that theory is, gasp,
theoretical, and if they can defend it, they can run it means that the
education you talk about and the basic learning of the rules of the game
are not mutually exclusive.
 I don't think the topic dictates argumentation or the theory arguments
run under them.  I don't like fact or value topics, but will live w/ them
b/c in the higher divisions, in the Northwest, at least, people run plans
and counterplans, anyway--my problem is strictly at the `teaching the
rules of the game level'
 
> Penders laments: (And I do--Ken you say that like you know me ;) )
> 
> >I still haven't figured out how anything "filters through
> >criterion"--I'm debating not evaluating a cup of coffee.....
> 
> Recognizing the jest, I still feel that this makes the most
> powerful argument possible for NOT being satisfied with the
> cookbook approach to topic analysis which is fostered (not
> intrinsically fostered, but fostered still) by policy
> resolutions.  

I'll grant that, to the exten that the topics are used by `debaters' as
link stories--in the long run there are are a number of people who find
the actual resolutions to be meaningless except in terms of how they
relate to the disads---that, I don't think, is cured by value topics, or
fact topics, b/c senior debaters want to debate the meatballs anyway)

My argumentation students are able to grasp the
> concept of evaluative criteria usually by the second week of
> class.  It disturbs me that my debaters have a TOUGHER time
> grasping the flexible evaluation of arguments than my other
> students do, precisely because the debaters think they know how
> it should be done.
> 
Right--they have learned a method of argumentation approach that is not
always successful.  After much thought,I will grant that argument
evaluation is harder than weighing arguments, and that it might be easier
to learn argument evaluation first.  I had never considered the possibility.
If I ever have the opportunity to take a couple of months before a studnts
first tourney I will try it that way, and teach the meatballs, and the
link stories analogously.
I still don't see why any of this can't be done in a policy framework.


> So, I'm not speaking out against policy topics, but I am speaking
> out against a presumptive uniformity on policy topics (which I
> sense is gaining steam).  And I am willing to put some of my time
> where my mouth is.  If I think that there is a possible debatable
> non-policy topic within the topic area that is chosen, I will
> work on a proposed topic, along with a topic paper seeking to
> explain how the topic could be productively debated.  
> 
>                               Argumentatively yours,
> 
>                               Ken Broda-Bahm
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