The Most Important Skill In Debate - Part 1
The Most Important Skill in All Debate, Part 1
Tournament season might be in full swing if:
You have to reload the paper in your printer every three days.
You start mumbling your speeches in your sleep.
You become remarkably proficient at tying and untying a tie.
You ask your mom to pass the potatoes and it sounds like a point of information.
You check speech & debate rankings more often than you clean your room.
Now is the time of year when big tournaments, big awards, and big rankings make their grand entrance in the year-long Stoa saga. And so do the temptations that inevitably accompany them. Before too much time goes by, however, it’s good to take a step back and ask, “Why am I doing this? What am I competing for?”
Priorities in the World of Debate
Reasons for competing in speech & debate generally fall into two categories: “I have to” and “I want to.” Some “I-have-to” reasons might be:
My mom made me,
I need another English credit on my transcript, or
I want to be a lawyer, so I guess this would probably be good for me in the long run.
Some “I-want-to” reasons might be:
I have a ton of friends in speech & debate and I want to spend time with them,
I really love critical thinking and learning about arguments, or
I love to win, and this year I think I’ll really hit it big on the rankings.
Do any of those resonate with you? When I first started, it was mostly “I love arguing” combined with a little bit of “my mom is signing me up.” We all have our own story for how we discovered speech & debate, and that story usually impacts what our priorities in speech & debate end up being. Once I got past the “I-have-to” stage and competed for a few years, I eventually realized that there were a few main “I-want-to” priorities that kept coming to my mind.
Priority #4: Winning
As someone who both loves ranking systems (ask my former fellow cadets in the Civil Air Patrol) and can be quite competitive about them, this priority was one that constantly made its way into my mind over the years I competed. What was my record at this tournament? Did I do better than last tournament? Did I beat any of the “good debaters?” Will I make it to the finals at the next tournament? Winning is easily the most prominent priority in most people’s minds, because almost every skill you work on in debate is designed to improve your chances of the judge circling your side of the ballot. Stronger arguments, stronger evidence, stronger delivery, and better-looking blazers all influence one or the other of ethos, pathos, and logos, the three forms of persuasion. And in debate, persuasion means winning. Winning is also easily the most eye-catching priority, because it’s the most objectively visible and publicly acknowledged. Objective numbers are attached to victory (1st place is objectively higher than 2nd place which is objectively higher than 3rd place), and there is no missing the awards ceremony, because by that point during a tournament, no one has anything else left to do (except for the facilities team madly putting the church back together… bless their hearts).
Priority #3: Enjoying the activity
Some of us argue because arguing is fun. We have no problem enjoying the activity of debate. But the rest of us didn’t ask our parents to sign us up for speech & debate because we thought it would be a total blast. It probably seemed a bit difficult at best, and downright intimidating at worst. However, most of us probably did warm up to the activity once we started getting into the swing of things and found out how much fun a tournament can be. So, enjoying the activity isn’t necessarily a conscious priority in a lot of people’s minds, but I think that it is important to keep in mind as a subtle evaluator of the work we’re putting in throughout the season. I’ve met a competitor or two (including myself, at times) who put so much pressure on himself to perform, perform, perform that speech & debate ended up being an overly stressful burden to bear, rather than a joyful learning opportunity. Now, don’t get me wrong—competition will always be stressful to some extent. But if the natural stress of competitive speech & debate starts growing into an all-consuming mental and emotional strain, perhaps reconsider how you are treating yourself and the work you are putting into the activity. Not everything you do will always be fun, but I still think that enjoying the activity is an appropriate priority to consider.
Priority #2: Learning
Here’s a key point that I realized as a competitor: speech & debate is a training opportunity. The real value in a training opportunity comes when you learn lessons that will benefit you once the training is over. Long after the last awards ceremony has ended, you will be answering questions in a job interview, deciding whom to vote for, or sharing the gospel, and you will draw on the skills of critical thinking, research, refutation, and persuasion that you first started practicing in speech & debate. These skills will make you a stronger individual who knows how to reason to the truth without being swayed by the newest crazy idea. These skills will also put you in high demand in a world in which most people either do not know how to think or simply refuse to do so. It can be easy to lose sight of this priority during the flurry of competition, because your “grown-up” life can seem eons away. But speech & debate will be over before you know it. What will you have in your knowledge-box to show for it?
Priority #1: Glorifying God
Story-time! It is about a thousand years before Christ. The nation of Israel has decided that God is not a good enough King for them. And the first human king turned out to be a flop. So Samuel the prophet goes to the family of a man named Jesse to anoint a new king for Israel. When Samuel saw Jesse’s eldest, an impressive man named Eliab, he thought he had found the new king. But God disagreed: “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God does not see as man sees, since man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart” (1 Sam. 16:17 [NASB]). This verse gave me a whole new perspective on what it means to succeed in speech & debate. Glorifying God goes beyond simply “I don’t fabricate evidence” or “I’m cordial to my opponent in cross-examination.” It has to do with how you treat your opponents, your judges, and yourself, in and out of round, because it has to do with what God looks at in His evaluation of you—your heart. I was headed off to a competition in Colorado when I started to fully realize this. I began to ask myself: If Jesus Christ were sitting behind the judge’s table right now, looking at my inward attitude as well as my outward actions, would He be pleased with my performance? That question expanded a completely new dimension into what competition meant. Especially when I realized that it wasn’t just a hypothetical. Jesus Christ is in every competition room you enter.
There’s a reason why I numbered the four priorities in backwards order. The explanation is coming soon!