They Don’t Think Like Clones
By Raghu Bommas
“Clones will be good for society… they can become policemen,” Nik, a high school student, stated. The three students
across from him didn’t defy him on this idea. They could have
retorted that the clones would turn their backs on society (think
Terminator) or that humans would hold strikes against the
government for the loss of jobs, if not lower pay in the police
field.
Such is the challenge that these high school students are
presented with in debate—thinking within time constraints in
the most widely-spoken language on earth. And as any TEFL
teacher or English as a second language learner knows, English
is challenging in and of itself. It is not unusual to hear a ????
As the Macedonian educational system stands accused of
not encouraging critical thinking, debate fills the void for those
who partake in it. Students are pressed to think on their feet
when cross-examined and when addressing arguments in their
rebuttals. Despite my feeling that I have spoon fed the students a few times with arguments from an online database, my
students have felt compelled to add more arguments and dig
up data to strengthen their positions. There is a point of diminishing returns though, meaning that the more that data is
expressed, the less it does for one’s argument. This was precisely the problem with our opposition in Bitola in a couple of
instances—heaping mounds of data without having connected
[isn’t it so] or ????? [meaning] slip out in the midst of a rebuttal or a cross-examination. It’s also not unusual for a student to
just switch altogether into Macedonian to complete a thought.
And it’s not unusual for the judge to penalize a team for doing
so. This is debate in English after all.
The format we use is named after a philosopher named Karl
Popper and it has become popular in Eastern European and
Central Asian high schools. “Originally created by the Open
Society Institute (OSI) as a more flexible team debate format,
Karl Popper debate […] focuses on relevant and often deeply
divisive propositions, emphasizing the development of critical thinking skills, and tolerance for differing viewpoints.”
(brought to you by Wikipedia) I will spare you the details and
just point out that George Soros, the multi-billion dollar investor, is an advocate of Karl Popper’s work and through OSI, has
supported this type of debate.
them to their points. There is only so much room for the regurgitation of facts and figures for time is needed to explain just
how they support a team’s position.
Given the time pressure and the requirement to think quickly to respond to the opposition, it becomes difficult to avoid
grammar errors like make a research, born a child, there are evidences, and 42 millions of abortions. They understand though,
that the fewer mistakes they make, the clearer they become in
expressing their arguments and they fully accept corrections
that are made in earnest.
Of course, to focus exclusively on grammar mistakes is to
be completely amiss of the overall objective of thinking and
addressing others’ arguments. They have learned, for instance,
that they can give in to the opposition on a point without fully
conceding it and it is practically inconceivable that at this junctu re, a student of mine would not address the “clone police-
- pauza