Gifted Tongues: High School Debate and Adolescent Culture

Painfully accurate in places, this portrays the life of a mid-Western high school debate team as a window on the entire world of "policy" debaters in the '90s. Although the Minnesota context is unfamiliar to me, I experienced waves of awkward deja vu about my own experience about a decade earlier in another middling debate state. The author, a sociologist, writes without snark or academic cant. He admits that his son did well enough to win the nationally prestigious Tournament of Champions in the late '90's. I'd say this work does a fine job of capturing the main experiences and drama in the tiny world of forensics. Several micro-worlds could be studied further, namely, the atmosphere of summer institutes (esp'ly Northwestern's cherubim), a close study of the high-powered atmosphere in a dominant debate school, such as those in Chicago's North Shore, and a study of the influence of high school debate on those who participated in it. (One of the funnest facts from this book was that Michael Stipe, lead singer of REM, was a high school and college debater, and his song, "The End of the World as We Know It" evokes his memory of the many nuclear wars he must have spoken about in his time debating.) The only weakness in this book: a paltry index, which could not possibly have been put together by anyone who'd read the book. Two of the most quoted people, James Copeland and David Zarefsky (the most experienced sages of high school and college debate, respectively) have no index entry. For extra credit: I highly recommend the documentary, RESOLVED, which covers in 90 minutes the entire range of "policy" debate.

This is an outstanding book. Gary Alan Fine looks at high school policy debate from the point of view of an academic sociologist. The subtitle says that this book is about high school debate and the adolescent culture, but Fine does much more than deal with that: This is the only ethnographic research into the subculture of high school debaters that has ever been attempted. Sounds deadly dull, doesn't it? Well, it's not. This is, in part, because Fine was a high school debater, and his son was a high-level, national circuit debater; thus, Fine has a feel for the human side of the activity. Further, he is one of those rare academic researchers who can weave the results of his research into a well-written narrative. I coached high school debate for fifteen years. In my view, Fine captures what it really feels like to be part of an activity that is highly valued by adults but not at all understood by them. He relates the exhilaration of winning, the camaraderie of being part of a team, and the frustrations of working oneself to the brink of a breakdown doing something that not even one's parents or friends actually understand or care about. But why should anyone not associated with high school debate care? We are constantly told that education is in crisis and that US students don't do anything well-- except wear baseball caps backwards and listen to rap music. Obviously, that's an exaggeration, and most kids and schools are doing fine. But there is a whole subculture of high school kids-- the debaters-- who are doing better than "fine"; they're willing to spend literally hundreds of hours a year researching complex social and political issues and to subject themselves to the searing pressures of competitive public speaking as they advocate positions on those issues. Understanding what makes those kids tick is important, if for no other reason than that a large fraction of lawyers and legislators are former debaters. These kids are literally going to be running the world some day. So, Fine's study is important. It is also good reading, and, since it does not deal with debate theory at all, it's accessible to non-debaters. In fact, it might be most important for those who haven't had any contact with the world of debate to read it. I highly recommend this sensitive, compelling book. (My one and only complaint about this book is the picture on the cover. I have never, ever seen a debater look like that. Indeed, it looks like a kid trying to impersonate Hitler. Why did the production staff select that picture?)

Fine is a sociologist, and so you find out a lot here about the culture of debate. I found this right on target as both an old regional policy debater (similar to the Minnesota teams profiled in the book) and the parent of a national circuit policy debater (similar to the teams Fine's son participated in). Fine does a great job explaining the differences between these and the tension between them. There's NO debate theory or how-to in this book -- but then those books don't really contain a consideration of the culture of debate, either.

I debated in the National Forensics League and the Urban Debate League for two years, and GIFTED TONGUES does a never-before-seen job in detailing the high school policy debate sub-culture. GIFTED TONGUES is the only book in the market that goes into the workings of several modern high school policy debate teams. Other books that claim to attempt to describe policy debate are out of date with the times.GIFTED TONGUES might not have much insight into complex policy theory, but it's defintely worth your time if you're a novice HS debater OR a debate coach who wants advice to increase team membership, watch for pitfalls, and promote team morale.