Democratic Debate: A Large-Scale College Debate Project
By: William N. Kumai & David Kluge
“It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it.” –Joseph Joubert
This video (“Debate Conducted in English Classes”) created by the Japan Ministry of Education (MEXT) of their push for debate in high schools that started in 2023. The video first shows a first-year debater in a Japanese high school class and then the same student in her second year. It also shows other high-school students studying and practicing debate.
Introduction
Debate and presentation are unusual Performance in Education (PIE) activities that are generally accepted in Japanese schools as “worthwhile PIE activities” because of their ability to enhance students’ critical thinking skills, which are generally considered to be located mainly in the prefrontal cortex of the brain. Joe Bellon (2000, p. 165), professor in the Department of Communication at Georgia State University, states that “Debate is so fundamentally connected to democratic practice that, for much of our civilization’s history, its benefits have been thought nearly self-evident.” Luckily for us, in the rest of the article, Bellon goes on to quote supportive research from social sciences and political science to show why debate should be taught across the curriculum. Perhaps the most powerful support for debate comes from John Medina’s (2014, p. 244): “Brain Rule #12 We are powerful and natural explorers.” Exploration is the heart of debate and this is what makes it a successful learning tool if done correctly.
Debate is considered in many contexts to be an elite extra-curricular activity only done by a few of the best students, the so-called “Debate Team.” However, as Bellon (2000, p. 165) states above: “Debate is so fundamentally connected to democratic practice” (emphasis added). It makes more sense that teachers should choose a democratic approach to debate in their classes rather than the typical elite one, which is what we did.
Some of the proponents of debate in Japan are: the Ministry of Education (who created the video that introduces this article); the All Japan High School Debate Association; and the National Association of Debate in Educati0n. There are international debate organizations, such as the International Debate Education Association, and the National Speech and Debate Association in the US. These organizations help to inform and support debate teachers and provided the resources we turned to in order to create a democratic debate project for all second-year students at a Japanese college.
The program
Learning Community was a unique class developed by Nanzan Junior College, a women’s college in Nagoya, Japan, to serve many functions, but above all, as a type of homeroom class, something that is rare at the university level. The class, meeting once a week, took care of various administrative functions such as announcing university deadlines, explaining various forms, and so on. All second-year students met in a large lecture hall when necessary, or in their individual classroom. More importantly, however, this class served as the basis of a cohort and of identity building; the same cohort members, 23 to 25 students, took required classes together. Against this background, students worked together in the Learning Community class on many group-based projects, among which was debate. The debate project, devised by three of the seven teachers of the course (William, David, and Satoko) featured inter-class or inter-cohort debates; mixing with students from different classes lent an air of novelty to the activity. David researched the best debate format for the learning community; Satoko devised all the handouts and PowerPoint slides and oriented all the students in Japanese; and William arranged the schedule of who would debate whom. The debates were scheduled such that the entire second-year student body (about 170 students) was required to participate as debaters and as audience/judges. The debates were held in Japanese.
Description of Learning Community debate project
The Learning Community debate project adopted and adapted the Public Forum Crossfire format because it was the debate format closest to holding a regular classroom discussion (Hannan et al., 2012, pp. 1-10). This reduced jargon so students did not have to worry about terminology such as “first affirmative constructive” found in policy debate. Each class was divided into six teams of about four students: PRO and CON for topic 1, PRO and CON for topic 2, and PRO and CON for topic 3. The idea was that each PRO team would debate the corresponding CON team from another cohort, and similarly the CON teams would debate their corresponding PRO teams from a different cohort.
The debate format is given below. Each speaker stood up to speak.
The debate moderator/timekeepers were selected from student volunteers. “Crossfire” refers to free-form discussion, mainly conducted as questions and answers. During the Grand Crossfire all debaters were encouraged to contribute, whereas a subset of each team joined in the shorter crossfires. The summary not only reviewed a team’s strong points but the opposing position’s weak points as well. The evaluation of students and debates was left up to individual instructors.
Project schedule
The debate project spanned seven class days (seven weeks) for the Learning Community class:
- Class day 1: Satoko introduced the project: “What is debate?” (including the differences between discussion and debate). What are the different parts of debate? The students went to their individual classrooms and divided into groups. For homework, students read background information from the recommended websites, much of it from the National Association of Debate in Education, which had lists of previous topics that had been debated, with a wealth of supporting material in Japanese.
- Class days 2-4: In large groups, students discussed their propositions. Both PRO and CON shared with the debate topic team any source articles they found, building up a fairly large library of materials to use in the debate. They practiced the debate format (who speaks and what her task is). David required students to sit as they would in the debate and stand up when they heard their debate role called (later they would stand up and say what debate role they were to perform). Students also learned how to build a point (say the point, read support of the point, explain how the support supported the point), and also learned some basic points of logic and typical logic fallacies (e.g., multiple causality, false causality, alternate causality, etc.).
- Class day 5 (with another class): Students debated proposition 1: a 10,000 yen fine for not voting.
- Class day 6 (with another class): Students debated proposition 2: Abolishing the temporary worker (day hires) system.
- Class day 7 (with another class): Students debate proposition 3: Increasing foreign laborers in Japan.
A unique format led to success
The planning team’s preparation was essential to the success of the project, and it started with the choice of debate format. We found that the Public Forum format fit the character of the students and the course. Students had to speak individually and think on their feet, but the PRO and CON students worked together because they were NOT competing against each other, as they did not have to debate each other “on stage.” During practice they were helping each other prepare to debate another class’s team. In the Preparation Step, both PRO and CONs shared the source articles they found. This means each pair supported the other pair and rooted for the whole team. In the actual debate, members of the team could help teammates prepare and could even pass notes to the speakers as they were speaking. It really built team identity and cohesion. The Grand Crossfire showed the cohesion and strength of the team as they worked together to ask questions, build their position, and support each other.
All students had to debate. There were no slackers and no stars. When they were not debating, they were the audience and had to judge the debate. Perhaps most importantly, there were no losers. Everyone won. And so did the Learning Community course and the college.
References
All Japan High School English Debate Association ( HEnDA). http://henda.global/
Bellon, J. (2000, Winter). A research-based justification for debate across the curriculum. Argumentation and Advocacy 36, 161-175.
Hannan, J., Berkman, B., & Meadows, C. (2012). Introduction to public forum and congressional debate. International Debate Education Association. https://www.speechanddebate.org/wp-content/uploads/Public-Forum-and-Congressional-Debate-Textbook.pdf
Japan Debate Association. (n.d.). http://japan debate association.org/
Medina, J. (2014). Brain matters. Pear Press.
National Association for Debate in Education. (n.d.). NADE – National Association for Debate in Education. https://nade.jp/
National Association for Debate in Education. (n.d.). Rondai history. https://nade.jp/koshien/rondai-history/
William N. Kumai, a native of Berkeley, California, has held a variety of jobs, as a physicist at a national laboratory, as a computer programmer for a small company, and as a Nanzan University instructor of English. His research focuses on the intersection of chaos and complexity with foreign language teaching.
David Kluge was a high school and university debater. He was also a high school debate coach. It was only after doing an all-school Readers Theatre festival that he was inspired to develop a similar high-energy, high-interest debate festival with his colleagues, William Kumai, and Satoko Ito at Nanzan University.