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Decline of Debate

Hi all.  I was a (not very good) NDT debater in the 1970's, and still teach
argumentation, although I no longer have any connection with the debate
community.   I had to add an observation to the recent thread on the
decline of debate.  If there has been a decline in public speaking skills,
that is as much the fault of the field of Speech-Communication as it is the
larger cultural forces others have identified.   How many of us teach at
universities in which public speaking is regarded as a rigorous course? 
How many of us who hold advanced degrees in the field EVER studied
pedagogy?  Would you encourage an extremely intelligent graduate student to
study communication education?  The reality is that research in the
teaching of public speaking does not even remotely come close to the
advances that have occurred in composition research in the last 20 years. 
I cannot think of a single textbook for the course that is not warmed-over
pseudo-Aristotelianism, acknowledges the existence of different learning
styles, or is written at a level above that of a rather dull 10th-grader. 
I wish that the debate and argumentation community, which certainly has
attained high standards of intellectual excellence, would do some more work
to redefine and improve the basic public speaking course.  

James Aune

St. Olaf College
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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