Posts Tagged ‘debating’
British Parliamentary debating
Last Friday I was drafted in for another debating competition at the last minute, in fact the one that we tried to get involved in back when the formal debating community was about six of us, a few years ago – the Oxford Union Schools Debating Competition, open to any age in schooling. This competition is an old, very formal style that involves two teams of two on the proposition and then another two on the opposition duking it out – this makes it noticeably different from what we are used to. The other big difference is that there is no fortnight of research and preparation – you get fifteen minutes to get your case together before the debate begins. Personally, I think this results in a lower-quality debate and is thus not as involving for the audience as other formats as it can be vague. On the other hand, it can produce some good material and avoids a focus on reeling off statistics – but only the poorer teams do this anyway. The more formal air was seen when we were criticised by a judge for not addressing the chair and instead talking more to the other side; this would not be a problem in other competitions.
I was in general dissapointed with my performance as it was below my usual standard, but as usual at the moment it was because I seem to have lost my ability to be awake and mentally able as solidly as I used to. Mr Moore-Bridger remarked that I was ‘not quite in touch’ owtte with what was going on, and that pretty much summer it up – I was not on the ball in the way I usually am. This led to me not getting as much out of the session as I had hoped, but as always it is always worth practicing one’s skills. I am far more looking forward to the next round of the English Speaking Union’s Mace competition, which does include points for style which to me is pretty important. One thing that was very positive about this heat was that we got some real enthusiasm out of our budding year ten team. Debating has really taken off now that we are involving lots of different people; I am proud and glad that I started it off. Mixed teams are a most successful idea – as it has been noted, by the time they get up to the sixth form competitions they will be incredible. In the second debate we participated in we were drawn directly opposed to the other Silverdale team and this showed their skill.
One thing that was highlighted in the feedback from the judges is that structure and in some cases actual argument content was something that we all generally struggle with. However much we tell each other to signpost, it is in fact really hard to actually remember to do it in the middle of a debate. It is all too easy to forget your careful self-training and end up rambling on about some train of thought, only to then lose your audience. Keeping yourself on track when you are also having points of information hurled at you is difficult: we need to get better at it. The basic principle is to carefully lead your audience through an argument, avoiding leaps that make it in any way hard to follow and ensuring that they do not have to think to hard. Judges, apparently, look for three clear points and clear introductions and endings to each one: it must be obvious. So that was the most important thing for me about this competition; a solid target to aim for in improving the squad’s skills.
Debating was again the winner
On Tuesday morning I received, as part of another conversation, an e-mail from Mr M-B saying “think about why you think fairtrade is a bad thing”. Later on that day I was furnished with the reason for this: our entry into the Mace debating competition, a formal, rigorous competition in which the final prize is a mace, was falling apart. Out of three people involved two had pulled out, leaving a blank space in the team. I was asked to step in with forty-eight hours notice and so tonight the battle commenced. And again the real intellectual atmosphere was what I took away most, the whole idea of meeting to competitively discuss issues that are so important. Additionally, working with the ‘squad’ rather than the team the night before preparing at school and on the journey, the the teachers: I don’t get the intellectual atmosphere at home where debate is boring and unimportant. Our motion was ‘[t]his house believes we should all buy faritrade [sic] products where we can’ which was a facinating topic to oppose – I learnt an awful lot about fair trade and am now sitting on the fence very much if it is a good idea or not.
For this debate I was working with Conor, someone who I have not really worked with before but am glad I did – we seem to do well together. Conor won a public speaking competition recently and really can deliver the information. The big differnece that we had to cope with for this competition was interruptions during speeches in the form of points of information which is something we have not really had the chance to practice for, meaning that we probably didn’t handle these as well as we should have done. Really though this style of debate is so much better than the others we have encountered. The cut and thrust of real debate are there and this is not experienced in other settings. The debate is interactive and real. After watching the first debate on compulsory national service it was our turn, and we were stepping into a strange situation. We had little preparation due to being informed late of the details and we had been put off a little by the exceptional work of the home school in the first debate. But it was pointed out by our teachers that once we got into the style things were very fluid and debating did become theatre. Rebuttal is vitally important: I turned the proposition’s drop in a bucket argument on its head which I was quite pleased with.
We split our opposition into two areas: Conor took the economic issues around why fair trade is not a good thing, and I attacked the moral and human aspects, and then proposed a solution. We uncovered a lot of information and analysis. Firstly, Conor explained how fair trade does not address the reason that third world producers are paid so low for their produce and that is a saturated market – fair trade encourages more production and thus makes the situation a lot worse (worse not just not helping was a fundamental point of our side). He also explained how fair trade suffers from subsidy and import restrictions in first world countries and this led on to the proposition that cutting out the middleman of sending cocoa beans to the first world to be made into chocolate bars to be sold back to the third world would really help the situation in developing countries. I went on to talk about branding and how there is a real psychological element to the debate: fair trade is a fashionable brand at the moment and there is always the concern of complacency. We used the analogy of a sticking plaster for a much larger wound. The next point was the patronising of the African farmers that occurs. I used the illustration of a business meeting praising the African coffee and how this patronises those who have produced it: the pride in their produce is lost. So the solution came about from this argument. Take the extra fifty pence spend on fair trade and put this into developing the infrastructure in the developing countries to produce their own goods from the raw materials in order to allow them to compete. Remove this feudal situation between the first and third worlds where the subservant serfs are producing our raw materials, and if we must work within this capitalist system then we must allow the third world countries to compete rather than be below us if they are to lift themselves out of poverty.
After the debate the judges retired to consider the winning team to go through to the next round and a runner up in case illness or other misfortune should stop the winners attending. Firstly they did the most valuable part of the evening for the longer term: feedback on each individual debater and combined team. This information is absolutely invaluable in improving as the judges can compare teams and bring in their experience. According to the judges I have a voice that must be listened to without any shouting and I used my facial expressions well to emote my points. They particularly liked my point on why dependence on fair trade is particularly dangerous when I said that instant coffee could become instant poverty given an economic slump. We had a strong and coherent argument between us and Conor was praised for his solidity of economic research. Then the judgement came, and I was actually not too concerned for we had had a good time and had improved our skills. And then it came: we won – apparently the choice of winner for the judges was easy, and the runner up took more thought. On to the next round!
An intellectual evening
On Thursday evening the Sheffield round of the Institute of Ideas’ (formed from the remnants of the British Communist Party, wahey) Debating Matters competition was held at Silverdale. Despite not being part of the debating teams for Silverdale, I went and took part from the floor. The whole atmosphere of an evening of debating in that way means a lot to me: the challenging of assumptions, the examination of arguments. The cut and thrust of arguments and attacks and defences. There should be so much more of it in our society. Unfortunately the format of this particular debating competition doesn’t allow so much for the cut and thrust and in many ways was not as competitive as the sort of style we have been practising with. In terms of style, most of the other teams were a complete walk over for Silverdale’s teams – many were reading straight off a sheet and none of them stood up! In our debates people are shot down in flames if they remain seated and are shouted at until they stand. Silverdale did not however do well in all areas. There were times when arguments had holes in and speeches did not go entirely to plan. Some of the other teams were also skilled and managed to blow apart aspects of Silverdale’s arguments. But they did well overall. In the end Silverdale did win and we are through the next round in Birmingham (regional).
This particular format places great emphasis on questioning and speeches are relatively short and so the audience play a pivotal role – in some debates they really can dominate. So much is this considered vital that an award is given to the audience member who makes the best contributions from the floor – I received this in conjunction with another, which I was congratulated for. However, the issue with all this is that questions are ‘collected’ for the team to answer together. I really don’t like this because what ends up happening is that it breaks down and a two-way conversations at least partially ensues. I think the reasoning behind it is to give people a chance to think up a response but they are too busy scribbling down questions to be able to do this. In any case, the event was a success and I am pleased that I was there.
Debating, elections and birthday
It seems I have been reduced to one blog post a month, so I better make this one good. Today was my round in the internal debating competition for selecting a school team for national debating competitions that are for the sixth form only, as most of them are. We started off well with a strong opening from me but then I totally misjudged the timing and ran on for a seven minute speech when I was making one of three minutes and so this spoiled the end a little. Nevertheless we were still in with a chance. Katy made her speech, but I think she piled on the facts and figures a little too much and this meant that she seemed a little rushed. The opposition by this point had established a strong case, directly addressing us, and despite the fact that we got a lot more audience questions than them we were still pretty even as it went into closing speeches. But I messed that bit up in general by again thinking I had longer than I actually had. Apparently debating won and we were very close, but overall my team did lose which shocked some others when told about it. I am disappointed that I will not be able to take part in the competition, but really I think in this case the other team was better so it was fair enough that we lost.
I am currently deciding whether or not to join the race for the Arbitration Committee this year. I am told by wikifriends that I stand a fair chance of being voted in (one, a former arbitrator, said that the worst outcome of it all would be being elected…) so it is worth doing as there is nothing to lose if I don’t succeed in gathering enough support to be appointed. I would like to do the job because I think I would be pretty good at it, simply put, and thus it is worth running for the position. It is something I could get into and get good at by being efficient with my time. The sucking of time that the job involves is of course the main reason against running, but I think that I could squash it in by reducing other activities. I think an important factor here is that I need to manage my time better to ensure that I can do all these things as I am sure that I can – the decision on whether to run or not rests on how well I can manage my time, and if I do post my candidate statement I will have decided that I can do it.
It was my seventeenth birthday on Saturday, and it has hit me how close I am to being eighteen, which concerns me somewhat. It was a pretty good day once I got back from work at twelve noon; along with my grandparents we went out for lunch and then opened some presents. Key presents are an exciting flash drive watch and Wikimedia and Wikipedia T-shirts. I also got a rather special box of crackers and various other things to eat, and surprisingly some clothes too, which is not usual for my birthdays. I also got a great deal of money which I added to my savings for building a computer, something which I am now aiming to do either at Christmas or over the half-term after that. Hopefully I won’t have an unreasonable amount of revision for the January exams because they are subjects I am not having problems with. So things are going pretty well in general, even if I rushed this post.