1705132887
1.4.2 Educational Debate in China
1705132888
1705132889
As debate spread in the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries, it also spread in Asia, including China, starting in the late 20th century. In Asia, debate was initially promoted as a means to teach spoken English. Debate organizers believed that by requiring students to debate in a non-native language, students could learn to speak and write English more fluently.
1705132890
1705132891
In 1993, Fudan University in Shanghai won the championship of the first International Varsity Debate (I.V.D.) held in Singapore with a triple purpose of promoting Chinese language; enhancing the communication and friendship among contestant countries, regions, and universities; and boosting the cooperation among international counterparts (Wang and Wu, 2003). For the next twenty years, I.V.D was hosted by Singapore and China every two years alternatively. Championship debaters drew rapid and significant attention. The impact of the first I.V.D. kicked off a nationwide debate wave in China. However, with too much emphasis on polished language and a flashy speaking style, along with a lack of engagement in arguments and rigor in logic, I.V.D quickly lost its glamour (Wang, 2010: 95). Thereafter, I.V.D. has been modifying its format constantly to improve the quality of arguments and sharpen the focus of the debate on the engagement of an idea. These changes strengthened debate cultures on campuses in China.
1705132892
1705132893
In recent years, intercollegiate English debating competitions have swept across China. Increasingly, on-campus English debating clubs have been established in significantly more colleges where regular debating activities are staged. National tournaments like the China Open and the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press (FLTRP) Cup have involved hundreds of teams. In the past several years, Worlds-Style debate has been practiced nationwide. The number of Chinese debaters participating in international tournaments has increased as have their successes: among others, the championship in English as Foreign Language (EFL) at the World Universities Debating Championship (WUDC) by Tsinghua University in 2007, and Championship in EFL in Asian British Parliamentary Debate by Sichuan University in 2013.
1705132894
1705132895
Debate is now promoted in China for more reasons than simply to improve students’ effective use of English. Debate also is promoted as a method to improve students’critical thinking skills. Scholarly evidence confirms that participation in debate enhances students’ critical-thinking abilities (Allen, Berkowitz, Hunt, and Louden 1999: 18-30). Debaters improve those skills as they learn to use evidence and reasoning to come to critical decisions.
1705132896
1705132898
1.5 From Educational Debate to Generative Debate
1705132899
1705132900
The format of competitive, educational debate helps teachers, coaches, and judges teach students to debate. The format, however, embodies at least two qualities that have the potential to sidetrack debaters to become “winners” and “losers” rather than ethical, global citizens exerting their best skills and efforts toward contributing thoughtful insights or even solutions to critical, worldwide problems. The competitive nature of the activity encourages students to 1) choose a position and stick to it regardless of evidence presented by the other team and 2) debate primarily to win the decision from the adjudicator. A generative debate model does not restrict a debater in those ways.
1705132901
1705132902
Generative debate is largely an ideological construct as it does not occur often between arguers. As the term implies, the goal of generative debate is to generate reasoned arguments grounded in effective evidence toward a goal of peacefully managing or resolving problems created by the disagreeing ideas. Notice the disagreement is characterized as existing between ideas rather than persons.
1705132903
1705132904
Generative debate seeks to bring to bear all the excellent points of one side of the argument on the excellent points of the other side of the argument. Once these two positions and supporting constructs are exposed, effective debating can use thoughtful, creative, and intelligent means to generate an idea by effectively reconstructing the positions or constructs or discovering an idea not offered by either side. In either case, the debate generates a resolution or management schema out of the strong clash of two different positions, each well documented, each offering uncompromising evidence, each structured with firm reasoning, and each comprehensively characterizing an important perspective.
1705132905
1705132906
In generative debate: 1) Each party seeks to discover and develop all the critical facets of the position they are assigned to argue or choose to argue; 2) Each party enters the debate to display those facets, clashing their position with the other position, and persuading listeners their perspective best manages or resolves differences in the ideas; 3) The intent on both sides is to best represent the critical points of disagreement using best evidence and best reasoning; 4) Rather than doggedly adhering to their original stances, parties repurpose the evidence and reasoning offered in the debate by both sides to generate a substantive, viable, and integrative resolution or management schema for the disagreement.
1705132907
1705132908
Of pedagogical necessity, educational debate trains students in competitive debate rather than in generative debate. Nevertheless, excellent debaters can use competitive, educational debate to develop the skills and later use a generative debate model to accomplish the more difficult and complex “real life” decisions without adjudicators. Taking a look at some core differences between competitive and generative debate will help differentiate those skills.
1705132909
1705132910
The first quality in competitive, educational debate that can sidetrack teams from generative results is that teams are expected to state a position and fundamentally remain in that position throughout the debate; little leeway is given for adjustment in response to the influx of evidence or information. For teaching purposes, that singularity of purpose is important. Teachers, judges, and coaches can assist students in constructing clear and well-organized designs for arguments because the end goal of the persuasion does not change. As a learning tool, this practice is critical—students often have trouble learning to “stay on track,” focused on their tasks of selecting appropriate and artful argumentation tools for a particular position.
1705132911
1705132912
Nevertheless, generative debaters need the discipline of fitting argumentation skills to persuasive goals but also must learn the importance of using all evidence and information to inform their positions, even evidence and information provided by debaters representing the other side of the question. While competitive debaters sometimes select a starting position that most fully prepares them to “win” the debate, generative debaters select a starting position that most reflects the substance of the arguments inherent in the persuasion in favor of or opposing the question. Generative debaters adjust their positions to fit all relevant and vital evidence presented in the debate. Generative debaters advocate for the best solution or best answer in the face of all information presented, even introducing new choices if appropriate, rather than limiting their thinking to one perspective throughout the debate.
1705132913
1705132914
A second quality in competitive, educational debate—the use of adjudicators—can turn students’perspectives into “win/lose” dichotomies. For educational purposes, the use of adjudicators helps students experience a simulation of legal or governmental environments, environments students may enter when they choose careers. For example, judges make decisions in large and small court cases, often after hearing arguments on both sides of a case. Using judges in collegiate debate tournaments helps students learn the process of arguing in front of a third party who will make a decision if the disputants cannot come to a decision with one another.
1705132915
1705132916
Adjudicators also are important to educational debate because they provide feedback to students’performances. Judges write ballots for each debate or even converse with debaters after the round has ended. Students learn why the adjudicator came to a particular decision or how students might have more effectively presented their positions. While students may agree or disagree with advice given by adjudicators, the experience of talking to an adjudicator about a decision provides students with invaluable information about how different people make decisions. In these ways, students learn from the adjudicators how these particular issues were decided in this case.
1705132917
1705132918
Since adjudicators decide who wins the debate and since those who win the most debates earn the tournament trophy, the negative side of using adjudicators in collegiate debate appears when students lose sight of the critical nature of the topic, turning the primary focus of their efforts to winning. Generative debaters often have “gone through the stages” of debating just to win, but as they mature, they redirect their efforts toward the topics themselves. Faced with grave global challenges such as water availability, food shortages, terrorism, drug abuse, ethnic cleansing, territorial disputes, global climate questions, human trafficking, genocide, economic failure, natural catastrophes, or disease epidemics, for example, generative debaters learn to sidestep the temptation to “debate to win.” These experienced debaters take seriously their global citizenry and turn their efforts toward informing themselves thoroughly about international issues, listening closely during debates to learn from debaters presenting the opposing side of the issue, and then grappling with possibilities and combinations of all the relevant data toward nonviolently solving international problems.
1705132919
1705132920
Generative debaters on both sides of the issue strongly rely on one another to bring to the debate the most important problems as seen from each side of the issue and the most valid evidence regarding those problems. Generative debaters then continue to argue based on a concatenation of all presented information. A generative debater might find value in some combination of points from each side of the issue. Members from both sides of the question also may be searching continually to generate a new alternative not suggested by either side.
1705132921
1705132922
In short, generative debaters invest in explicating the issues on both sides of the question thoroughly, comprehensively, and with an eye for implications and consequences of the decision rather than investing energy into a plan for “winning” the debate by “defeating” the other side. In generative debate, possibilities for a collaborative solution underlie the very necessary rankling through the clashes of opposing ideas or values, clashes not only expected but necessary to the process of decision making. Argument and debate act as unique, human means for new discoveries of substance or process. During the conclusion of generative debates, parties take time to trace the dynamic shifting of ideas that occurred during the debate to ensure both that all participants reconcile the critical needs initially identified and also that all participants understand the anatomy of the decision.
1705132923
1705132924
The intercollegiate debate competitions and debate curricula explained in this textbook teach students to participate in competitive debates inside and outside of the arena of intercollegiate debate tournaments. Following too closely to the competitive model raises many ethical issues, several of which will be discussed in the next chapter. Students of competitive debate will gain some skills useful in generative debate situations, but students should be wary of trying to apply all of the competitive debate skills to generative debate. An arguer who uses a strident, competitive manner during interactions within personal relationships or during some community or civil situations can interfere with or even damage interpersonal relationships, often “losing” the debate as well.
1705132925
1705132926
Although this textbook has used the categories of competitive debate and generative debate, these are only gross categories and do not exhaust all of the various forms of debate that exist. For instance, legislative debate is usually more competitive than generative but still is different from debate with an outside adjudicator. In legislative debate, members of a legislative or deliberative body argue with one another and in the end must make a collective judgment even if only by a majority vote. Legislators must argue and collaborate with one another repeatedly during their terms as officials; therefore, issues of personal relationships among members are much more important than they might be between an advocate and an arbitrator who are not likely to be engaged in an ongoing relationship.
1705132927
1705132928
In interpersonal arguments some competitive debate conduct not only is inappropriate but can be destructive. Debaters using certain, competitive debate manners during interpersonal argument risk sending messages of superiority or exclusion to partners during a personal encounter. Since the competitive stance focuses only on the topic and purposely avoids including the character of the speaker in its scope, debaters risk using powerful, nonverbal messages to their partners that the debater’s points and not the partner are the most important features of the conversation. Certain competitive debate skills may not only fail to reach the debater’s goal, but could harm the relationships the debater intended to maintain and improve.
1705132929
1705132931
1.6 Summary
1705132932
1705132933
This chapter presented reasons to study debate, the most important of which is to develop thoughtful, reasoned, informed global citizens. Studying debate also promotes effective decision making at local, national, and international levels. Debate teaches students to examine problems and work toward solutions rather than work toward winning at any cost. Debate helps societies explicate difficult issues and helps individuals, communities, and nations achieve desired goals.
1705132934
1705132935
The chapter also provided an historical look at argument and debate in China and in the United States, pointing out key developments in each nation’s history where scholars and philosophers encouraged the interchange of ideas through debate. Also reviewed were the histories of educational debate in both nations. Educational debate is the form presently in place in curricula across the world training students through instruction and also through application at debate tournaments.
[
上一页 ]
[ :1.705132886e+09 ]
[
下一页 ]