High School Debate Judging

The last weekend of November I agreed to be a debate judge at an American style public forum debate. Debating is the rage here in China, particularly among the students who want to study at American universities. Most students who participate go to international divisions of their high schools, and take a portion of their high school curriculum in English. The kids know that extra-curriculars can affect their admissions chances, and it’s all about getting into top colleges.

Group of high school debaters; our school has a debate club with about 20 participants.

It’s kinda funny how extra-curricular activities work here. At the school where I teach the students basically have to do an extra activity that they will list on their applications. The activity groups meet once a week during school hours, and debate is one of the choices students can pursue. The school also organizes a field trip / academic project to a neighboring province once a year. It’s mandatory, but students all list it as an extracurricular. So, many of the students’ activity lists look quite similar. I feel like a grumpy old man; “back in my day, extra-curricular meant that students actually did something on their own and showed some initiative!”

Let’s get back to the debate. Basically these kids have some interest in debate, but many of them are doing it more or less to spruce up their application resumes. Considering I had no experience with debate I was curious to see how it worked. They also paid around $75 a day – less than I make at my day job – but still a decent amount for China. So when I heard through a co-teacher that the debate was in need of judges I got in touch with the organizer and signed up.

The debate was run by the National High School Debate League of
China (check out their website here if you are interested).

If I could turn back the clock I’d probably pass on the debate. It’s not because I didn’t like the actual judging – that part was interesting enough – but the problem was the location of the competition. It was on the other side of town, and I had to transfer twice taking a bus. I could have taken a taxi, but I didn't want to spend a third of the pay just getting there and back.

On Friday I left my school at 4:10 pm, thinking I could get out to the school and grab dinner before our training session started at 6:30. Traffic downtown was so bad that I skipped my bus connection and took the subway, then walked 4 kms to get to the school. I didn't get to the meeting until 6:45, which was still probably faster than the bus. On the way back traffic was better, but I still didn’t get home until 10 pm! All that for less than an hour and a half training session!

Gavin (left), an adviser to the China Debate League, ran our training session

I had to be at the school on Saturday morning at 8:30, so I set off from my place more than two hours earlier. This time traffic was better, although it still took me close to a full two hours to get there. We had about 20 debate judges and 60-70 teams (pairs of two) participating. Everyone was involved the first day, and based on team performances 32 made it through to Sunday’s single elimination tournament.

The job was no walk in the park. We were given a short training session on how to judge, but many matches had no clear winner and it basically came down to my personal choice. Maybe they did have a clear winner, but I couldn’t tell! We were supposed to judge based on the quality of ideas presented, not things like confidence, pronunciation, and fluency. There was a separate ranking for that; we awarded each individual member of the debate speaker points based on their speaking abilities.

The debate itself was about patents. The question was: “Patents should not be issued for life-saving medicines.” One team was the CON side (in support of patents), and the other team PRO (against patents). A coin flip decided which team could choose their side. Each team had five minutes to present their opening arguments, followed by a rebuttal, summary, and final focus by both sides. In between each round was “crossfire,” when teams could ask each other questions, and in essence all rules were off. It seemed strange that the entire debate concerned one question, so those who made it through to the final rounds had been talking about patents for close to ten contests.

The issue may rouse passions for some, but I doubt many Chinese
high school students give a crap about patents for life saving drugs.

During opening statements, or the contention round, every team read a pre-written speech. Many teams also had typed up a speech for the rebuttal. The point of the rebuttal should be to directly address the opponent’s contentions, but a lot of the debates were basically teams re-stating their claims and little substantive clashing on key points of contention. So in the end it was hard to put the speaking skills aside and judge on the quality of the arguments.

I judged eight debates on Saturday – each lasted approximately 45 minutes and involved lots of writing on my part – so that evening I was exhausted. A colleague from high school had organized a Thanksgiving party at his place, but by the time I got back to my neck of the woods it was going on 9 pm and I needed to recharge the batteries.

Secret Santa gift exchange at Steve's; I didn't make Thanksgiving,
but at least I was at the Christmas party.

Early to bed, early to rise – I got up just before 6 am on Sunday and set off for the second day of debates. Fortunately as the rounds went on the work load lessened. I adjudicated four rounds, including the semifinals, which had a panel with two other foreigners (aside from the semis and finals it was just one judge per debate). We all picked the same team, although I felt that the quality of debating wasn’t as good as several previous rounds I’d watched. The team that made it through my side of the bracket lost the final, even though when I watched they seemed to be winning the contest. Maybe I was giving incorrect judgments the whole time!

The debating itself was good to experience, although the school was just too damn far from my house! Even if it had been closer, the workday was longer than my current job and the pay less on a per day basis. It was good to try for a weekend, but if the opportunity comes up again I’ll probably give it a pass!