Before sharing the first new sentiments of this posting, the
writer wants to reemphasize something – this blog is developing a unit of study
in real time. Therefore, the writer begs
the pardon of the reader when he indicates that he wants to change the name of
the approach he is simultaneously developing.
That name is historical dialogue.
Initially, his thoughts were guided by the notion that he wanted to
steer away from a political science based approach to the study of civics. Instead, a historical approach is more
effective when dealing with secondary students and the overall goals of civics
education.
These goals
include students engaging themselves with the content of the course on moral
and emotional levels. History, with its
stories of human interaction, including political actions, are more apt to be
able to identify those conditions with which students can relate. On the other hand, political science is
scientific, in that it reduces reality to factors or variables and to testing
those variables as to whether some have predictive power over others. Such study is noted for its objectivity and
consciously avoids language that elicits emotional response.
The writer has
determined that while political science studies can be utilized in the study of
civics, those studies can be cited as the need arises. In the main, though, history should be the
discipline that a civics course should look to for the stories and descriptions
of related events.
For example, in the present unit that
this blog is developing, the history of foreign trade and related legislation –
Smoot-Hawley Tariff, the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, and the North American
Foreign Trade Act – provides a representational account of how American
thinking over foreign trade has developed during the twentieth and into the
twenty-first centuries.
By reviewing this history, students
need not engage in highly abstract information to get a sense of how that
thinking has evolved. The review of this
history is not meant to have student engage in forensic debating, but to engage
in deliberative debating. The question
is not what should have happened in the past, but what should happen in the
future. Forensic questions are useful in
a history course, deliberative questions are on which civics courses should focus.
With that thrust, the term, historic
dialogue, was deemed to be appropriate for what the unit of study was aiming
student to do. But there is one more
goal, that while a dialogue based course can assist, does not address
directly. That is, students should
engage in some action or, stated another way, they should engage in action
learning.
As John Dewey espoused, experience is
the best teacher. It is the intent of
this developer, therefore, to include an action component. That component will have a political
character to it. So, perhaps the term to
describe this approach might be historic dialogue and political action. The writer will keep working on it.
As for this posting, its main purpose
was to finish a description of the overall progression a civics course might
take that, in turn, depends on the approach being developed. In the last posting, this approach’s first
two stages where described. Those two
stages are discussion and argument. The
third is debate. The obvious logic of
this progression reflects the evolution students are to take from having them
expressing opinions, to devising arguments, to improving on the soundness of those
arguments, and now, to engaging in a more formally structured argument or
debate.[1]
This blog, in the upcoming postings,
will more thoroughly develop what a teacher would instruct students to do as
they prepare and engage in a debate. But
the reader should keep in mind that this deliberative process is geared not
only to determine who argues more effectively, but to determine what action
students will take in response to the issue under study.
To begin, when students reach the
level of sophistication in which they can take part, effectively, in a debate,
they should have already been introduced to certain elements of debating. For example, one thing that characterizes the
progression from discussion to debate is that the give and take among students
becomes more targeted as the course advances.
Early in the course, students take
part in discussions. These sessions are about
individual issues, e.g., gun control.
Then during the argumentation stage, the give and take is over various
policy choices. At that point, the
discussion focuses on specific action a government, an organization, or an individual
should take. When it comes to debating,
this approach calls on students to decide what action should students
take.
The challenge, though, in this
progression is that as the course advances, its issues are projected toward
more national or international issues.
For example, the unit of study being developed here, the last unit of
the course, is about international trade.
So, if the action component of the unit calls on students to think of
something students can do that reflects their sense of what should be done,
there are limited actions a student can take that addresses this global topic. This is a challenge the developer will try to
resolve.
Another point can be made. To engage in a debate, that is sufficiently
focused, is to find that aspect of the issue that, by its nature, serves to
separate those aspects debaters agree upon and those that they do not. By doing this, debaters can get at debating
without wasting a lot of energy just repeating with what all the participants
agree. Instead, the debate zeroes-in on
what is under contention.
In terms of foreign trade, for
example, it is safe to say all or, at least, most students agree that foreign
trade should advance American interests.
But perhaps students disagree as to whether the US should manipulate
their currency or should the US set higher tariffs on more products. Of course, such narrowing is part and parcel
of devising potential policy and, so, the natural tendency is for debating to
not be over a total issue area, but on a policy choice.
The point at which students agree,
just before shifting over to disagreement, is called the point of stasis. By the time students get to the debating
stage, they can be taught what a point of stasis is, its function, and what to
look for in determining what it is in the given topic being considered. This developer has not done the actual
development of an appropriate lesson plan for this aim, but he feels that identifying
a point of stasis can be part of the instruction during the argument stage of
the course.
Another advancement that can be
developed during the earlier portions of the course – before the debating stage
begins – is to have discussants or students who argue to add nuance to either
the question under consideration or to their opinions or arguments. An example might be: instead of just saying, “I believe that
everyone should be allowed to say what they want to say,” they could say “I
believe that adults should be allowed to say what they want to say as long as their
speech does not endanger someone else’s safety.”
In other words, to be nuanced is to
add qualifications and reservations so that what is said better reflects what a
person really wants to express or argue.
In the above example, by being nuanced, the person avoids saying that
immature or irresponsible remarks – that can be dangerous – are okay; not what
the speaker intended to say. And this
goes for the question upon which the debate is based. Nuanced questions help prevent debates from
being derailed away from what they were meant to be.
The final aspect of a debate that
should be reviewed is an element that they have. Discussions and arguments are not
competitions, but debates are. And, in
determining which side of the competition wins there is the addition of a
third-party judge. Why? Because debates do not have, as in many games
or sports, any unequivocal point system.
In baseball, for example, every time a runner crosses home plate, that’s
a run and whatever team has the most runs wins.
It’s not so obvious with debating.
Later postings will address how good
debates accrue “points.” But for now,
the point (intended) to be made is that a debate is judged by a third party, a
judge or a panel of judges, and a winner is declared – with accompanying reasons
for the resulting determination. There
are various consequences to this addition.
Among them is that by having a third party, the presentations tend to be
addressed to the judge(s) and, consequently, will be less likely to escalate
emotionally. Debaters are more apt to
keep their give and takes to expressing useful arguments. They tend to be reasoned, more logical, and with
emotions in check.
So, debates are noted for being on
message (with a point of stasis identified), nuanced, and judged by a judge or
a panel of judges. There are other
structural elements that a debate contains, but for now, this account has laid
the groundwork so that the reader can delve into some of the elements that make
for good debating. The next posting will
pick up on these aspects.
[1] This review of debate relies on Professor Atchison’s
course. See Jarrod Atchison, The Art of Debate – A Transcript Book
(Chanilly, VA: The Great Courses, 2017).
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