Bietz Blog

The past two weekends I had the opportunity to judge for the Middle School Debate Program (a program completely separate from the NFL or Junior NFL). I have many thoughts about how wonderful the league is, but I will hopefully have the time to post something in support of them sooner rather than later. One aspect of the league that I find tremendously encouraging is their (and when I say “their” I guess I’m actually saying Kate Shuster, the league’s founder and executive director) requirement for judges to be trained before they are allowed to be judged.

I suppose going into this judge training I assumed that I would be told to use an approach that keeps a balance between speaking ability/argumentation strength/ethics and being kind etc. I was surprised when the number one rule of judging for the Middle School Debate Program is that you must keep a flow. And, not only that, you are only allowed to come to your decision only based on the flow - no matter what you believe to be true or if you know the debaters are completely inaccurate. AND not only that, judges are checked up on to make sure their flows are complete and accurate. That is, a judge should really never stop flowing while a speech is going on.

I began thinking about my own judging style, and the imposition of a certain style of debate that I preferred to see in the rounds I’ve judged. And while I think it is mis-perceived that I am closed-minded to certain argumentation (I did, after all, have a minor in Cultural Studies & Comparative Lit and actually wished I’d never majored in Political Science and would have studied more Continental Philosophy), I do understand that I have lead on that I will use a great deal of my own “preference” in judging debate rounds. Well, I’ve decided to change.

I will now work very hard to keep a much more complete flow. I will admit that I am guilty of “filling in the gaps” on arguments I’ve heard a zillion times. I will not do that anymore. I will write down words you say and make my decisions based on how you tell me. That said, I will say if you have forced me to intervene in my decision. Answering arguments does not make them go away and doesn’t make your argument right. If you fail to weigh, I will be forced to weigh, for example.

More than anything I am going to be a more diligent judge. I have been very critical of people who are tabula rasa… I still believe that there is no such thing as tabula rasa. But I do think I have a responsibility to allow debate rounds to happen as the debaters guide it, even if it is built on preposterous foundations. My decision will be made as if those preposterous foundations are true - if both debaters agree upon it.

To assign speaker points I will use an adopted version of the points scale provided by the MSDP points guide.pdf. <–

Like the Middle School Debate Program requires, and makes very compelling arguments for, I will disclose points and decision after each round and I try to do what I can to explain each of those to you.

I hope to write more about the MSDP. But for now, my paradigm is one where I am re-releasing the terms of the debate to the debaters.