From: Dennis Edmonds <dedmonds@mail.jhs.jordan.k12.ut.us>
Reply-To: ld-l@world.std.com
To: millerd@tabitha.pacificu.edu
Subject: The Value of Forensics
To Whom It May Cocnern:
I have been coaching high school debate and forensics for 26 years and
involved in the activity over 30 years. Why would anyone stay with a
backbreaking job which requires you to work six days a week but get paid
like the rest of the faculty who work a 5 day week--and stay with it
this long? Quite simply, there is nothing else in the curriculum with
the value of this unique program.
At every level of education, we constantly hear lip service being given
to teaching students to think. The reality is that 90% of our
educational program (and, sadly, that includes most college-level
education) teaches only one skill--memorization. Bloom's taxonomy, in
creating a heirarchy of intellectual skills, ranks memorization right at
the bottom. We can teach monkees, birds and other animals to memorize.
Shouldn't it be our most important goal to go beyond that and teach our
students the higher level processes, such as synthesis? And if it is
our goal, why does forensics have so much trouble surviving at all
levels, when it is the one program in the curriculum that focuses on
higher order thinking and synthesis. Why is it that an administration
can always find the millions it takes to keep athletic programs
alive--programs which really serve little justifiable funtion at the
university level (although I do believe they have significant value at
the secondary level)--but never seem to be able to find the few
thousands it takes to keep a strong forensics program alive?
A study published in 1992 in Fortune magazine asked the personnel
directors of the 500 largest corporatins in America what was the most
essential skill for success in today's job market? Their response?
Good oral communication skills! But when asked which skill new
employees were most deficient in, they again said oral communication. I
think that's a very sad commentary on the level of understanding and
appreciation that our entire education has for speech and forensics.
My program attracts the 'best and brightest' students in the school.
When they start to make college choices, one of the first things they
always check is the status of forensics at the schools they are
considering. Why? For some, they have an interest in competing at the
college level. But for others, they simply use it as an indicator of
the emphasis placed on academics by those colleges.
Thinking of dropping forensics? Why not just drop your English
Department. After all, they also teach communication, but in written
form--which comprises less than 15% of our total communication! It
would make far more sense to cut that program and keep and encourage the
program that attempts to train us in the skills required for the other
85% of our communication.
I have added below the thoughts of some of our country's leaders and
great minds in relation to forensics. After reading them, I hope you
will reconsider the value of one of the few programs which accomplishes
what so many other programs try to do, but fail. The measure of a
quality educational institution should be the quality of its forensics
program. Harvard, Stanford, Dartmouth and many of the greatest
institutions in the country seem to think so as they continue to have
active forensics programs.
Dennis Edmonds
Director of Forensics
Jordan High School
Sandy, Utah
What Others Say
Selected Quotations Exploring
the Value of Forensics
excerpts from an article by Suzanne L. Williams
Graduate Assistant at Wayne State University
John F. Kennedy
August 22, 1960
"I think debating in high school and college is most valuable training
whether for politics, the law, business, or for service on community
committees such as the PTA and the League of Women Voters. A good
debater must not only study material in support of his own case, but he
must also, of course, thoroughly analyze the expected argument of his
opponent.
The give and take of debating, the testing of ideas, is essential to
democracy. I wish we had a good deal more debating in our educational
institutions than we do now."
Raoul D. Kennedy
Attorney in San Francisco
"I truly believe I would have been as prepared for law school had I
simply debated and not attended college at all. I have found that the
practice of law--and I assume this is true of a large number of other
jobs--consists basically of trying to solve problems in an organized
manner.... Debate... placed a premium on the factors that I believe are
essential to effective problem solving, including...breaking an argument
down into its smallest components and then marshaling factual data...for
each element;...talking a problem through with others over a period of
time that a contention or issue becomes fully perceivable;...verbally
articulating ideas rather than just having a mental conception of
them;...and, finally, and perhaps most importantly, coming to appreciate
the stresses and rewards of competition."
Richard S. Schweiker
Former Pennsylvania Congressperson and Senator
Former Secretary of Health and Human Services
"Debate trained me to analyze and articulate the complex national
issues that confront our country today. Too, it was a tremendous help
in campaign debates for my House and Senate seats... My intercollegiate
debate training was the most valuable experience that I had at Penn
State. I derived benefits from it far beyond the normal extracurricular
activity that it encompassed."
Aristotle
from The Rhetoric
"If it is a disgrace to a man when he cannot defend himself in a bodily
way, it would be absurd not to think him disgraced when he cannot defend
himself with reason in a speech."
Thomas F. Hozduk
Los Angeles Attorney
"The wisest advice I can give to persons considering debate as an
activity is: "participate." In my opinion, hour- for-hour, the reward
for time spent debating is greater than any other activity available to
the typical student... In addition to the "academic" benefits, potential
participants should be alerted to the life-long friendships they will
develop, the opportunity to associate with competitive, creative and
bright young people, as well as the favorable view of the activity taken
by potential employers (particularly in the field of law)."
Jane Pauley
National TV News Anchor
"I didn't make varsity cheerleader. I thought my life was over. I
ended up joining the speech team instead. And within a year, I became
real good. My event was Girls Extemporaneous Speaking. They would give
you a topic, and a half-hour later you made a seven-minute speech on
it...By my senior year, I was state champion. And I made it to the
semifinals of the national competition. The six girls who were ranked
ahead of me are probably all arguing cases before the Supreme Court...So
I did find out my limitations. But in my smaller pond, I was a big
fish. And I can't imagine better preparation for what I do today."
Paul E. Kanjorski
Pennsylvania Congressional Representative
"It was my experience with debating and public speaking in both high
school and college that led me to become a lawyer, and ultimately, a
member of Congress."
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