What we can all learn from Debate Club
In a recent episode of Malcolm Gladwell's podcast, Malcolm goes back to debate school after a chastening experience in a public debate. Having lost badly to his erudite opponent in front of a packed auditorium in Toronto, the prolific author and popular intellectual takes himself off to a debate club for teenagers in New York. In a spirit of humility, he learns the basics from the children and reflects on why he lost so badly. The fundamental reason for the defeat becomes achingly apparent: being good at talking is not as important as being good at listening. This revelation struck a chord with me, and it is one of many lessons that we, as adults, can learn from the discipline of Debating.
We are currently working on a Debating project with local schools, in which we collectively commit to regular debate clubs, culminating in a competition later this month. As part of this process, I have sat in several debate sessions, and have experienced a similar epiphany to Gladwell. In fact, I have found myself using some of the techniques in SLT meetings and in other aspects of life. The realisation to me is clear: if we want to create good leaders and citizens, learning how to debate is incredibly powerful.
Policy v philosophy
At recent debates, I have found the most interesting motions to be those around policy rather than those around philosophy. So, "this house would remove British citizenship from this who have been members of terrorist organisations" is more 'policy' in British Parliamentary-style debating, whereas "this house believes animals have rights" would be more philosophical. As a school leader, it is the real-life policy debates that are more relavent: there is no doubt that a good debate around the SLT table can lead to better decisions, better implementation, and better final outcomes. As one of the top debaters in our sixth form explained to me, he likes to use two key weapons in policy debates in order to generate ideas and to structure his arguments: the mechanism of the policy and the effect on stakeholders.
Mechanisms and Stakeholders
The mechanism for implementing a policy under debate was overlooked in many of the student debates I watched. However, when a student did focus on it, they often found a winning line of argument. By mechanism, we mean 'how' the policy could be implemented - and there will be positives and negative arguments to be found here: the greatest policy idea might have an undeniable 'why' motivating it, but 'how' it looks in practice could be made to seem completely impractical. So while the opening statement may focus on the 'what' of the policy, and hint at the 'why', the development of the idea by other team members must focus on the 'how': this is the format of many an operational meeting. The second pillar is the 'who': stakeholders.
In schools, the stakeholders are various and all must be considered: often this complexity is overlooked by those who haven't worked in leadership in a school environment. Let's take the motion, 'this house would move all parents conferences online'. This is a question that pretty much every leadership team in every school will have grappled with over the past two years. The final decision will be easier for some than others, but what is uniform across schools is the diversity of stakeholders we need to consider. What is best for the students, the parents, the teachers, the admin staff, the IT team, the caretakers, ...? In a recent survey of parents we found a near 50-50 split between preferences for online versus in-person parents conferences. This is where a clear debate, weighing up the relative needs and opinions of all stakeholders is needed in order to come up with a policy decision. As one senior leader put it, 'whatever we do, we are going to p*** someone off'. This is perhaps the essence of leadership - sometimes there is no right decision, there is just a decision, and a humble commitment to reviewing and improving it over time.
Listening
In her fantastic book, Scout Mindset, Julia Galef describes the skill of Active Listening. She describes how any good 'scout' needs to consider the intellectual landscape of all sides before returning with a line of argument or a decision. Crucially, if the landscape changes, the strategy or idea such change accordingly. This is where Gladwell went wrong, but the best debaters and leaders excel. They use phrases such as:
'building on the argument outlined by my colleague'
Or
'adding to the point made by...'
Or even,
'to challenge the assertion of...'
And my favourite,
'just to push back a little on the point made by...'
Only an active listener can argue in this way, and they are all the more persuasive for it.
The audio of the New York debating club in Gladwell's podcast really captures the essence of a high quality classroom debate. As a result of the wise input of the students and teachers, the podcaster reflects on the dangers of being lured into an ad-hominen mindset: 'play the ball not the man', as we might say in football. In the public debate, he is riled and emotional, to the extent that he forgets to listen to the argument he is re-butting. As one of the teachers begins to understand this as Gladwell's Achilles Heel, he gently poses the killer question:
"Also, did you take notes?"
The silence tells us he did not - and speaks to the killer weapon of the master active listener - always bring a notebook to a meeting.
Links
Malcolm Gladwell, Revisionist History Podcast:
Juliet Corbett, in strategic thinking for school leaders:
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