Arguing Out Loud, A New Basic Skill

Researchers Deanna Kuhn and Amanda Crowell of Columbia University have published research on the unique value of oral argumentation skills for students.  Their work confirms what debate coaches have known for 125 years: If you want students to be able to regurgitate information, have them write a paper.  If you want them to be able to express complex ideas, see both sides of an issue, and analyze topics critically, then have them debate.

“Before the intervention and after each year, all students wrote essays on entirely new topics. The researchers analyzed these for the kinds and number of arguments — those focused on the virtues of one’s own side; those addressing the opposing side (“dual perspective”); and those attempting to weigh pros and cons of each side (“integrative perspective”). They also looked at the questions the students would like answers to. On each count, the experimental group did better, making more of the higher forms of arguments and listing more questions of substance than the control group.” [Science Daily, March 15, 2011]

MPR picked up this story and spent an hour on it this morning, having Kuhn as one of two guests on the topic.  There were many things to take away from the discussion, but perhaps the best point was that our young people need to learn how to disagree. Our democracy is predicated on the free exchange of ideas and these two guests said several times how kids are lacking in these skills. [MPR, Midmorning, March 29, 2011]

Time magazine also ran a story on this research and their story included this snip:

University of Illinois at Chicago education professor Gerald Graff, approves of this more interactive approach to teaching reasoning skills and hopes it catches on.”Kuhn and Crowell’s focus on argument has the potential to transform schools if policy makers and curriculum developers were to take their conclusions to heart and put argument and debate at the center of the curriculum,” he said. “Dialogical argument is what we actually practice in the real world where we make arguments not in isolation.” [Time, March 17, 2011]

 

The Arts in Minneapolis Public Schools

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As a follow-up to last week’s story about honoring the arts, I am posting a PDF of a column written the Superintendent of Minneapolis Public Schools.  There is nothing earth-shattering in terms of content, except that she’s making the effort to say the arts are important to Minneapolis Public Schools and to the academic performance of its students.

What Honoring Speech and Debate Looks Like

Schools that truly treasure Debate and Speech, and recognize their role in actualizing the full potential of students, make a good effort to showcase the arts.  We live in such a sports-presumptive society that it’s necessary to proudly  and dilliglently put Debate and Speech on display as something valued by the school.  Apple Valley High School, is one such school. It’s about 5 miles away from Lakeville, but a world away in other respects.

As you walk up the sidewalk, the first thing you see are huge banners showing excellence in academics, arts, and athletics. The first banner on the left shows their status as a NFL School of Speech and Debate Excellence.

Open the door to the building and the first thing you see is a trophy case filled recently won awards in Speech and Debate.

Turn to your left, and you see the Speech and Debate Wall of Fame.

Having these things on display is all about a school being committed to the arts.   For a contrast, next time you are in either Lakeville North or Lakeville South, take a look for similar  kind of display.  You will look for a long time — there is none — and sadly, I think that’s a symbol of the larger problem with the Debate and Speech teams.  Schools like Apple Valley would never ever consider eliminating such programs because they are so ingrained as part of the school culture.  Lakeville Schools lack such a culture-building advocate at any administrative level.  That’s how we end up being cut from the budget and having to fight for our Debate and Speech futures.

Gifted Education and Debate

We have had a number of inquires made about the role of debate relative to gifted education and the relationship between the two.  Here is what we have had made available to us:

“In a recent take on the changes surrounding GATE, Hertzog (1998) noted three trends: (1), that the gifted education specialist is more of an advocate for the gifted than an instructor of the gifted; (2), that the gifted and talented are now perceived as students whose needs are not being met by the general curriculum; and (3), that gifted education is now defined as programs and services and not students. These trends would seem to bode well for forensics. First, forensic coaches have long been advocates for their programs and the most successful are often the best cheerleaders. Second, many students whose needs are not met by the general curriculum have “self-nominated” themselves for forensics since 1925 and many more will continue into the future. Third, gifted and talented has long been the term used to describe the activity of forensics rather than the participants within that activity. With the need to find an affordable alternative to separate programs continuing to increase, forensics appears to be a viable form of gifted and talented education for the foreseeable future.” (p 36).

Carroll, R. C. (2007, February). Forensics participation as gifted and talented education. Rostrum, 81(6), 31, 34-36.

“Gifted students, in particular, need careful attention. Many students involved in forensics cite their experience in the activity with giving them a sense of direction and the intellectual stimulation that they felt they lacked in their normal curriculum. As has been stated elsewhere in this essay, some scholars have argued that the work generated by a year’s involvement in debate, for example, can rival the work put into a Master’s thesis or a doctoral dissertation. Any parent who has ever watched their son or daughter spend hours after school working on a set design or practicing their lines has marveled at the capacity of that child to move mountains when their mind is set to a task. Creative thinkers are similarly challenged to stretch their imaginations as they interpret a program of poetry or assemble an extemporaneous speech arguing for the government to take a different approach to free trade.

“One model for successfully addressing the needs of gifted students has been offered by Kevin Dean and David Levasseur who argued in a 1989 issue of the National Forensic Journal that high-achieving students can benefit from more challenging “capstone” experiences in speech. In their experiment with a collegiate basic public speaking course, these University of Maryland instructors discovered that students who attended forensics competitions, in addition to normal speech classroom activities, achieved a greater level of satisfaction from their experience (137). Even novice-level experience in a competitive environment puts the communication learning experience in context and stimulates the mind.” (p. 18)

Minch, K. (2006). The value of speech, debate, and theatre activities: Making the case for forensics. Indianapolis, IN: NFHS.

Research That Supports Debate

There is no shortage of research and literature to support the claim that debate holds enormous educational benefits for students.  As part of our campaign, you may want to dig through some of this to develop talking points.  There has been a suggestion that the school consider the value of debate in the context of the Lakeville Gifted and Talented program and I think that’s excellent ground for advocacy.  To that end, the National Forensic League has assembled a virtual library of materials in favor of debate.

http://www.nflonline.org/AboutNFL/Advocate

Should you want more than this, the NFL has offered to help with any other documentation that they might be able to provide.  So just send me an email.

Going to College?

Professor Minh Luong of Yale University published a paper titled Forensics and College Admissions in which he explains unique benefits of being on the debate team — benefits you can gain only from debate — for admission to a selective college.  Debates vastly improves your thinking, processing, expression, organizational and communication skills.  These are the very qualities that college seek in potential applicants.  Luong cites a study by the Wall Street Journal on the impact of debate on college admission:

The Wall Street Journal report did specifically highlight a ‘consistent trend’ – one that forensic coaches have known for a long time – that dedicated participation in drama and debate has significantly increased the success rate of college applicants at all schools which track such data.  State and national award winners have a 22% to 30% higher acceptance rate at top tier colleges and being captain of the debate team ‘improved an applicant’s chances by more than 60% compared with the rest of the pool,’ according to the report.  This is significantly better than other extracurricular activities that tend to recruit from the same pool of students as forensic teams such as school newspaper reporter (+3%), sports team captain (+5%), class president (+5%), and band (+3%).  Even without winning major awards, participation in speech and debate develops valuable skills that colleges are seeking out and that is reflected in the above average acceptance rate for forensic students (+4%).

The benefits of debate extend beyond admission to college, they pave a path for success as a college student. Emory University in Atlanta awards scholarships to debaters and collected data on what those students achieved.

From the period 1988-89 to 2004-2005 there were 197 finalists (12 in most years), of whom 90 matriculated at Emory for a yield of 45.7% 46 of the 90 students were selected Phi Beta Kappa.  12 of the 90 were selected as Woodruff or Callaway Scholars, 8 were selected as Martin Luther King Scholars, and 20 attended Harvard or Yale for law or graduate school.  Additionally, 20 of the 90 students received Rhodes Scholarships, 2 received McMullen Awards, and 2 received Truman Awards.

Colleges must sort through pools of well qualified candidates for admissions.  On paper, many of these candidates are indistinguishable. Luong reports that Harvard rejected about 50% of applicants who had perfect scores on the SAT test.  80% of  valedictorians who applied to Harvard were rejected.  So lots of smart, qualified students don’t make the cut.  You need to offer a school like Harvard more than just good grades and high test scores.  I looked at the profiles of admitted first-year students at Harvard and found that 10%of admitted students were high school debaters.  The skills you gain from debate are the difference-maker. Here is the question to consider: How will you make yourself a desirable candidate for admission to a selective college?