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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I debated in high school in the 90s, and even then the “spreading” and the “kritiks,” which no one has mentioned but are probably even sillier and more toxic than the spreading, dominated the national circuit. Now I have a middle schooler who enjoys debate as a novice (no spreading or kritiks yet) and is doing quite well. I see some educational value in the activity — she’s learning about policy issues and analyzing evidence to find flaws and counter-arguments — but I worry about her getting too deep into the toxic and somewhat ridiculous culture of higher-level competitive policy debate. I wish there were a more traditional form of debate that focused more on research, logical argumentation, and persuasion. Is Lincoln-Douglas or Public Forum debate the answer? Anyone with recent experience, I’d love to hear from you! [/quote]

I think it has more to do with the region and how connected debaters are to national circuit style, than the specific debate activity. I love LD, I did it in high school myself in the 80s and I judge it now on our local circuit which is quite low-key and reminds me of the activity I did. But I went to a few national circuit type tournaments with my kid and just for fun watched some elimination rounds and I didn’t even recognize the activity. It has gotten much more like old policy with spreading/kritiks and just loads of BS. I actually really liked PF that I saw at national circuit tournaments, the kids were really smart and well informed and it more about learning the issues than some silly game rules.[/quote]

The wall Street journal video says the fast talking girl does Lincoln Douglass style, was that incorrect?[/quote]

PP here - not sure what video you're references but probably correct.  LD in the early days was really about ideas and persuasive speaking, speed spreading was not a thing, nor were all the fancy tricks that were part of policy debate (I did both in the 80s, policy was fun and fast, LD was slower and more thoughtful.)  In the intervening years LD has become much more like the policy pacing even though it is still ethics based debate.  So it really depends which kind of debate circuit you're on.  Where I live LD is still pretty "old style" and that is managed by the coaches who have a shared agreement about what they want the activity to look like. It means that when our LD kids go to national circuit tournaments they get hosed, they don't know how to do it.  But I think they have a better experience locally. Interestingly I watched LD finals at the Harvard tournament and it was crazy newer style, but at NSDA nationals a few years ago it was very old school LD! Apparently this is because the funders of the NSDA tournament hate the developments in LD and want the kids to be focusing on ideas and persuasive speaking.  [/quote]

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