This are posts from different debate blogs from all around the world. If you would like me to add your blog to this list, just contact me via the contact form.
Doug Duke, center, with 1990 CEDA Nationals SquadFrom Josh Hoe:Debate lost another giant today as Douglas Duke passed away because of complications from a fraying heart valve. This is very hard for me to write. It has already been a very hard year and this is a particularly personal blow.Most of you probably do not know Doug Duke. Coach Duke was a debate coach for 30 years - mostly at the
Image by Getty Images via DaylifeFrom c131458a@yamata.icu.ac.jpThanks to everyone, the 19th ICU Tournament has been a great success.We hope to see more faces next year!Below are the results and motions for the tournament.-------------1st Prize: JOINT E Hirokazu Honda, Kouwa Niikura and Matsugi Ran2nd Prize:KDS A Ryo Hayakawa, Taro Kimura and Hiroaki Otomori3rd Prize:UT A Ryotaro Tanaka, Kazuya
At the invitation of Ms Pauline Wong, Captain of the HKPolyU English Debate Team, Loke Wing Fatt conducted a BP Debate Workshop was conducted for 20 debaters from HK{PolyU and HKCityU from 5th to 7th March 2010.
Special thanks to Pauline, Crystal, Mike, Jasmine, Anson, Carrie, and all the kind debaters of HKPolyU EDT for making [...]
Great news and a real confirmation of TWO additional seasons of The Sarah Jane Adventures, starring Elisabeth Sladen as the former Doctor Who companion I named my daughter after.
Doctor Who spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures is to run for two more series, with Russell T Davies remaining at the helm.
CBBC controller Damian Kavanagh has ordered 24 x 30-minute episodes of the children’s drama, which follows the former Doctor Who companion in her new role as an investigative journalist with a gang of young side-kicks.
Davies, who stood down from Doctor Who after last year’s run of specials, will continue as in his role as executive producer and will be joined in the role by Nikki Wilson, who produced series three. Brian Minchin joins the team as producer.
For the past couple of weeks I have been spending a lot of time thinking and reading about debate and argumentation - the western, rhetorical tradition, as well as the teaching methods and history of the conventions of Buddhism. I am starting work on a long-term project that attempts to separate the practice of debate from western rational thought, formal logic, and reason in an attempt to re-connect it to the aesthetic, imaginative, and spiritual side of communication.
Right now my focus is on the teaching device known as the Kung-An (J. Koan). It is my belief that the pedagogical principles behind the use of Koans in Buddhist teaching can be applied to how one approaches motions in debate. One should think of the motion like a Koan.
I find it very strange that there are still critiques that are alive and well of the practice of the art of debate. You would think that in an era of tea parties, conservative talk (shout?) radio, and a collection of some of the most incapable public officials in the art of justification, explanation and argument that these criticisms would be diminished to the point where they are, at the least, back-burnered in the face of our crumbling ability to advocate our feelings, thoughts, and beliefs to one another.
So this post is an attempt to craft a bare-bones defense for each of these major criticisms of teaching debate. Before I get into establishing and then responding to each of the criticisms, there are some really excellent background readings that will help bring the debate about debate into a clearer resolution (maybe not 1080p, but at least you will be…
The workshop is for beginners and is debating the national Japanese policy topic, that Japan should terminate the Japan-US security treaty. The workshop is being led by WDI Fellows Bojana Skrt of Slovenia and Alfred Snider of WDI USA.
"The students are very enthusiastic but policy debate can be challenging for new debaters. Four days isn't a lot of time but they seem to be warming…
Faculty at Iraq Debate Academy: IDA faculty Jason Jarvis of Georgia State University, IDA alumna Megan Harlow, IDA founders Alfred Snider & Bojana Skrt, Matt Stannard of University of Wyoming, Jonathan Borock, NYC Debate Society
The two major partners of the International Debate Academy Slovenia [Za in Proti national debate program of Slovenia; World Debate Institute, University of Vermont] have combined to host a five day debate workshop and tournament in Duhok, Kurdistan Autonomous Region, Iraq.
The tournament was held at Duhok Unioversity and was attended by 88 students from seven universities from all parts of Iraq.
For complete coverage, see posts at the World Debate Institute blog at:
The 7th International Debate Academy Slovenia was surely an international event.
Twenty-eight countries were represented: Singapore, Afghanistan, USA, Ireland, Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, Italy, Finland, Serbia, France, Croatia, Germany, Thailand, Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, Venezuela, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Scotland, Hong Kong, Moldova, Montenegro, England, Bolivia, Spain, Austria and Greece.
The event is sponsored by ZIP Slovenia and the World Debate Institute at the University of Vermont.
120 people including 40 teams from 28 countries gathered for the tournament at the Faculty of Public Administration at the University of Ljubljana. With fabulous hosting and hospitality skills Helena Felc made it all happen smoothly with the help of other dedicated volunteers.
The World Debate Institute at the University of Vermont USA and ZIP, Za in proti, zavod za kulturo dialoga/ Pro et contra Institute for culture of dialogue Slovenia invite all scholars and practitioners of argumentation, rhetoric, debate, and educators using deliberative education methodologies to the International Conference on Argumentation, Rhetoric, Debate and the Pedagogy of Empowerment -- THINKING AND SPEAKING A BETTER WORLD.
Two conferences have been held, one in Koper and the other in Ljubljana Slovenia. The next conference is planned for October 28-29-30 2010. The conference will be hosted by The University of Maribor, Faculty of Pedagogy, Department of Philosophy. http://www.uni-mb.si/
The conference will welcome scholars and educators from diverse fields for vigorous dialogue and exchange. This conference will unite scholars of argumentation…
Congratulations to Jack Gamble, Emily Pearce, Melanie Pope and Ben Woolgar, this year's England Schools Debating Team, who reached the Grand Final of the 21st World Schools Debating Championships and nearly defended their title. Instead it was last year's Runners-Up, New Zealand, who triumphed by a vote of 6-1 in an excellent debate.
Under retiring coach Debbie Newman the England Team has won 23 of its last 24 debates, and this year broke top of the team tab with 8 wins and 22 judges. Three of the team were ranked in the individual top 10, with Jack Gamble coming 6th.
A very British well done to them and also to New Zealand, who win the tournament for the first time since 1995 and the fourth time in total. England now join Scotland in having lost five Grand Finals (and won three each).
"Unless they intend to begin checking the bare backsides of every person coming into that country to find that tattoo that says 'Property of WBC' - they will have no way of identifying who is from WBC."
Fred Phelps is a man with bare backsides on the mind. The BBC reports that he and his daughter, from the famous Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas, have been banned from entering the UK to protest against a play called the Laramie Project in Basingstoke.
If the BBC is right, it seems Mr Phelps will go to extraordinary lengths to put his anti-gay views to the people of Hampshire. But should we be keeping him out of the country on that basis?There are two main lines of objection to protest tourism.
The first is that nobody - British or otherwise - should be allowed to campaign against a play…
Conor Gearty is eminent. This is, therefore, troublingly juvenile.
"There are two strands to the concept of liberty which are in opposition here. One is the libertarianism we have just been discussing, the "Englishman's home is his castle" school of thought. The other is the position of the civil libertarian who sees the freedom of protest as essential to the proper running of our democratic state because he or she ultimately believes in the power of the state to do good. The first wants to hide from society, the second wants to make it better. There is all the difference in the world between the individualism of the libertarian and the idealism of the political activist. The left naturally belongs with the second of these not the first."
This is a silly caricature of libertarians, who I suppose might choose to hide from society, but might equally…
Public debate held at the 2008 Intl Conference in Argumentation, Rhetoric, Debate and Critical Pedogogy, held in April in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Debaters included; Sam Nelson (Cornell), Alex Just (Oxford), Alfred Snider (Vermont), Rhydian Morgan (unaffiliated), Candace Williams (Claremont), Manolis Polychronides (Athens), Sam Greenland (Sydney), Anna Kerr (Ljubljana).
At long last, we're happy to announce the publication of new resources for tournament direction and hosting as part of a site-wide update of materials this school year. Many teachers, as part of the Middle School Public Debate Program, decide...
I know we tend to forget what we learned over the summer. So, a brief review. An argument has three parts: Assertion, Reasoning, and Evidence. We abbreviate these as A-R-E. Now, as someone who is interested in debate, I have...