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Re: ceda and ndt

> You were wondering why I might see NDT as an evil.  To set the record
> straight, I do not see NDT as an evil.  In fact, I believe that NDT has
> many educational benefits.  What I do see as a mistake would be the
> merger of NDT and CEDA.  CEDA in its original form had just as many
> educational benefits as NDT does.  The reason why I think any merger
> would be bad is because the styles are contradictory, and I do not want
> to see either disappear.  I contend that CEDA's original intent was to
> concentrate more on communication while NDT concentrates more on
> information processing, etc.  For their purposes I do not believe that
> the two can be combined in a way that would perserve the educational
> benefits of both.  I would like to see one organization eventually house
> all forms of debate; be that NDT, CEDA, NEDA or parliamentary.  This
> would preserve the equally important educational benefits of all and
> would allow students to participate in all forms gaining all those benefits.
>
>
John,

Thanks for responding to my request. I do, however, disagree strongly
about some of your claims:

First, you say the styles are contradictory. Really? When did you
last see an NDT debate? How about a national-level CEDA debate? Weber
State does both forms of debate and my experience is that the two
styles have steadily converged over the last decade. CEDA has sped up
and now involves faster delivery and more cards than the average NDT
debate. The NDT cards might be a bit longer, but with CEDA moving
firmly toward policy analysis, the rounds themselves are virtually
identical. Granted, CEDA has more diversity on the novice and JV
levels, but closer affiliations between the two organizations should
only make those benefits available to a larger group of students.

Second, you seem to base many of your distinctions off of CEDA's
original goals. Do you really believe that CEDA debaters are
following those goals? It sounds like you may actually be defending
the concept of NEDA.

Third, you're still making claims without any form of supporting
argumentation. Why would merge threaten the unique educational
benefits? Why wouldn't merger just make all of debate under the same
big, diverse umbrella. Remember if 300 CEDA programs were to more
closely seek union with NDT, do you really think their approaches to
educational benefits will change? What specific educational benefits
do you perceive to be made possible only by separation?

Finally, I'm not even suggesting near-term merger. But we should, at
a minimum, be able to sit down together and work out issues of common
concern such as eligibility, non-conflicting national tournaments,
transfers, etc.  It's time to put 20 years of mindless bickering and
bigotry behind us and approach the 21st century in unity.

Bear



Michael "Bear" Bryant           Internet: mbryant@central.weber.edu
Director of Forensics           Home:   801-399-4253
Department of Communication     Office: 801-626-7186
Weber State University          Fax:    801-626-7975
Ogden, UT  84408-1903
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Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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