There is no feeling in the world quite as amazing as standing in the middle of a dirty, littered, empty tab room, watching the sunset through the window (and the dust), seeing a slight breeze send one last, unclaimed “Certificate of Achievement” fluttering to the floor, knowing that we just concluded the largest debate tournament that (we think) Afghanistan has ever seen… and we rocked it.
Today has been a fabulous day.
Debate tournaments are always hectic, and today was no different. I was coaching, judging four of the six rounds, training judges, and running the “tab” room (tab is the process of tracking all of the results- wins and losses, speaker points- and deciding who breaks to semifinals, etc.). At most tournaments, I do one of those. I hit the ground running at 6:30 am this morning, and we didn’t get a break until after 7:30 tonight- which isn’t a big deal for tournaments for us (I’ve had tournaments that were MUCH worse), but for Afghans, it seemed like a really long day.
We told the kids to be there by 8 am. 8 am normal time, not Afghan time. We thought they would be late, but about 20 of the 36 debaters actually showed up at 7 am to practice before the rounds began. I was at the guest house so I could use the online tab program, and the tournament director, Josh McCormick, called me from the university at 8:30 to tell me that everyone had arrived and I could print and bring the pairings- the list of which team would face which team.
We had three rounds in the morning, and then a break for lunch. By lunchtime, we had two (of the eighteen) teams who had won all three rounds, and five other teams who had won two and had really high speaker points- meaning they had a shot at going to semi-finals. I didn’t judge the fourth round, so I was sitting in front of the ballot computer (using the spreadsheet program that I created because we couldn’t access the Internet and use our online software- pretty fun!) as ballots came back with judges’ decisions. The four other debaters from the US- Josh, Clayton, Rachal, and Nick- and the executive director, Aref, were standing over me with hungry looks on their faces. Every time a ballot came in, they all leaned closer- who won? who won? who won??
It was a ridiculously close break for semifinals. Two teams had a 4-0 record (they won four and lost zero), and we had to choose from the five 3-1 teams based on speaker points. Remember Razia? She and her partner had a 3-1 record and 277 speaker points. The last two semi-final teams had 3-1 records and 286 and 278 speaker points. We were so disappointed- Razia and Hotak missed the semi-finals by one point. Later, when we calculated speaker awards, Razia missed by two points and Hotak missed by one. So frustrating- but still an incredible achievement for their first tournament.
The final four semi-final teams came from three different universities and included, completely by accident, four female and four male debaters. We were so excited- it’s been difficult to convince the girls to try debate and difficult to convince their professors to let them be on the teams. One team tried to send eight guys, arguing that their girls didn’t have much experience. Two of those girls took second place overall.
One of my teams won the tournament. They were from Tabesh University, which has only been open for two years and which offers limited English classes. The two debaters, Shirzai and Ahmed, did a great job. They went 4-0 in rounds and had high speaker points. The two other teams from their school, Suliaman/Abuzar and Musa/Moosawi, picked up one win during the entire tournament, but when results were announced, it was as though the entire team had won. No bitterness, no rivalry- just pure excitement and genuine happiness for the success of their teammates.
It was a hectic, busy day. I ran from tab room to topic draw to prep room to judging to tab room. Most of us didn’t have time for the sit-down lunch that was provided, and by the end, we looked like we’d been rolling in the dirt because the building was so dusty and we were so hot. Some teams were upset- the team of girls who lost in semi-finals had tears running down their cheeks, and Razia spent fifteen minutes telling me why the judge who gave her a loss didn’t deserve to be judging. Others were ecstatic- the look on Ahmed’s face when they announced the winners was priceless.
Watching them debate these controversial, semi-political topics was priceless. “Afghanistan should develop nuclear weapons.”
“Freedom of expression is necessary for the development of a society.”
“Pakistan is the biggest threat to Afghanistan.”
“The U.S. should establish permanent military bases in Afghanistan.”
“The security situation in Afghanistan is improving.”
These aren’t topics that most Afghans talk about, yet there we were. Watching students who have been learning debate for two weeks give claims, give impacts, give rebuttal, say in the semi-final round that their points were “damn clear.” Watching students who, two weeks ago, couldn’t wrap their minds around the concept of “cross-examination,” couldn’t figure out how to respond to their opponent’s arguments without just repeating them, couldn’t give a speech in English to save their lives, had no idea how to argue something that they didn’t necessarily believe.
Yet there we were.
If I weren’t heading home to spend only a few weeks with my family before I start work, I would definitely change my ticket and stay longer. If I could, I would stay here indefinitely, host another tournament, get these debate clubs going long-term. The kids kept asking when they could do this again, when they could debate again. We had to tell them we didn’t know. This was such an experimental program, but judging by the success, I think it’s safe to say that the Kabul Invitational may just become an annual event. There is nothing I would like better than to come back next year and help host it again.
Showing posts with label debate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label debate. Show all posts
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Debating in Afghanistan
The Kabul Invitational Tournament, a tournament to which I’ve dedicated the last three weeks and a lot of others have dedicated much longer, will take place “tomorrow.” Hopefully.
Running a debate tournament in Kabul is nothing like running a tournament in the States. If you’ve ever been to a tournament at home, you know that they are chaotic to say the least. There are a lot of coaches and students and pieces of paper floating around, and it’s tough to keep track of it all. But at tournaments in the States, you work with kids who have been taught to think critically, most of whom have at least some debate experience. You have a location reserved months in advance. You have Internet that works, and you don’t have random power outages that sometimes last two minutes and sometimes last two hours. You know ahead of time how many students are coming and how many judges will be there. You don’t have military checkpoints at the entrance to the university, and you aren’t expected to schedule a full hour for a complete sit-down lunch. Your tournament can start early, and most participants know that it will run until well after dark.
None of that is true in Kabul.
In the three weeks that we’ve been here, we’ve put a lot of time into this tournament, the exhibition debates at the universities, and the debate workshops we’ve been teaching. And we’ve made a lot of progress. We’ve gotten trophies purchased, teams trained, certificates made, ballots written, judges recruited. We’ve even gotten the sanction from the International Public Debate Association, which is pretty cool. (If you go to www.ipdadebate.info you can see it!)
Unfortunately, Afghans don’t believe in making To Do lists and checking things off. We paid for our trophies, but the company just told us they are sorry for the delay and they’ll try to get them to us tomorrow morning. We don’t have a location; Kabul University initially agreed, but the president told us last night that he has changed his mind. We have to provide lunch for all of them, and we haven’t yet figured out how to do that. We have to reimburse students for the transportation costs (400 Afghanis each, which is about $8), and all the money we exchanged is in 500 Afghani notes. We have tentative lists of students, but we don’t know who will show up or if they’ll be on time or if the high security will let them on campus.
It’s a little stressful, but we are trying to teach ourselves to go with the flow. This is a very new concept here, and we have to remember that these students and professors and judges aren’t seasoned debaters who have been doing this for six or seven years, as the rest of us have. So we are just crossing our fingers and praying that it will all work out!
Despite all of the frustration, I have to tell you how much I am loving this job. There are busy days and boring days, but my favorites are the workshop days. Last Saturday, my partner Clayton Goss and I went to Kateb University to teach the second of two four-hour workshops. We met these students three weeks ago when we did our first exhibition debate at their university, two days after we arrived. Clayton and I interviewed them all, chose eight students (four men and four women) for the workshop, and wrestled with their schedules until we could plan for two Saturday afternoon workshops.
Five students showed up that first Saturday.
One of the missing students was my favorite, Razia. I wrote about her once before. She’s an amazing student, a political science major, who dreams of becoming the first female president of Afghanistan. She is very progressive, and wears a chadar that starts at the bun at the nape of her neck instead of at her forehead like most girls’ do. Gasp!
We were really disappointed when she missed last week, but she called to apologize and asked if we could train her later. So last Saturday, she showed up at 12:30 and sat through a one-hour crash course on resolutions and claim/warrant/impact. We had taken over two hours to teach that to the entire class, so I didn’t think she would be able to pick it up quickly enough. But she did. We were finished in under forty minutes, and she had such a firm grasp on the concepts that I joked that she should be teaching me.
We also did our first practice debate round that afternoon at Kateb, and Razia and her classmates did awesome. Most rounds we’ve seen so far have included little to no rebuttal, definitions, actual questioning during cross-examination, or anything else we’ve been teaching them for three weeks. Most rounds consist of four speakers who stand up and make claim after claim after claim after claim. Which isn’t exactly a debate round.
The debate at Kateb was different. Razia paired with Hotak, another promising debater, on the negative, and Farzana and Qadir were on affirmative. They made claims, but they backed them up with evidence and then they challenged their opponents’ claims. The first time I heard Razia say “My opponent said…” I wanted to stand up and cheer!
Watching these students improve and learn and take an interest in debate makes the frustrations worth it. These are smart students who want to change their country. They see the issues of security, of education, of corruption, of ineptitude, and they want to fix them. They’ve never been taught how to listen respectfully to someone else’s arguments, and they don’t know how to create questions based on what they heard. These ideas are so normal so me, and so foreign to them, but I love watching them figure it out and learn. These kids are going to change the world someday, and it’s so cool to be a part of it.
Running a debate tournament in Kabul is nothing like running a tournament in the States. If you’ve ever been to a tournament at home, you know that they are chaotic to say the least. There are a lot of coaches and students and pieces of paper floating around, and it’s tough to keep track of it all. But at tournaments in the States, you work with kids who have been taught to think critically, most of whom have at least some debate experience. You have a location reserved months in advance. You have Internet that works, and you don’t have random power outages that sometimes last two minutes and sometimes last two hours. You know ahead of time how many students are coming and how many judges will be there. You don’t have military checkpoints at the entrance to the university, and you aren’t expected to schedule a full hour for a complete sit-down lunch. Your tournament can start early, and most participants know that it will run until well after dark.
None of that is true in Kabul.
In the three weeks that we’ve been here, we’ve put a lot of time into this tournament, the exhibition debates at the universities, and the debate workshops we’ve been teaching. And we’ve made a lot of progress. We’ve gotten trophies purchased, teams trained, certificates made, ballots written, judges recruited. We’ve even gotten the sanction from the International Public Debate Association, which is pretty cool. (If you go to www.ipdadebate.info you can see it!)
Unfortunately, Afghans don’t believe in making To Do lists and checking things off. We paid for our trophies, but the company just told us they are sorry for the delay and they’ll try to get them to us tomorrow morning. We don’t have a location; Kabul University initially agreed, but the president told us last night that he has changed his mind. We have to provide lunch for all of them, and we haven’t yet figured out how to do that. We have to reimburse students for the transportation costs (400 Afghanis each, which is about $8), and all the money we exchanged is in 500 Afghani notes. We have tentative lists of students, but we don’t know who will show up or if they’ll be on time or if the high security will let them on campus.
It’s a little stressful, but we are trying to teach ourselves to go with the flow. This is a very new concept here, and we have to remember that these students and professors and judges aren’t seasoned debaters who have been doing this for six or seven years, as the rest of us have. So we are just crossing our fingers and praying that it will all work out!
Despite all of the frustration, I have to tell you how much I am loving this job. There are busy days and boring days, but my favorites are the workshop days. Last Saturday, my partner Clayton Goss and I went to Kateb University to teach the second of two four-hour workshops. We met these students three weeks ago when we did our first exhibition debate at their university, two days after we arrived. Clayton and I interviewed them all, chose eight students (four men and four women) for the workshop, and wrestled with their schedules until we could plan for two Saturday afternoon workshops.
Five students showed up that first Saturday.
One of the missing students was my favorite, Razia. I wrote about her once before. She’s an amazing student, a political science major, who dreams of becoming the first female president of Afghanistan. She is very progressive, and wears a chadar that starts at the bun at the nape of her neck instead of at her forehead like most girls’ do. Gasp!
We were really disappointed when she missed last week, but she called to apologize and asked if we could train her later. So last Saturday, she showed up at 12:30 and sat through a one-hour crash course on resolutions and claim/warrant/impact. We had taken over two hours to teach that to the entire class, so I didn’t think she would be able to pick it up quickly enough. But she did. We were finished in under forty minutes, and she had such a firm grasp on the concepts that I joked that she should be teaching me.
We also did our first practice debate round that afternoon at Kateb, and Razia and her classmates did awesome. Most rounds we’ve seen so far have included little to no rebuttal, definitions, actual questioning during cross-examination, or anything else we’ve been teaching them for three weeks. Most rounds consist of four speakers who stand up and make claim after claim after claim after claim. Which isn’t exactly a debate round.
The debate at Kateb was different. Razia paired with Hotak, another promising debater, on the negative, and Farzana and Qadir were on affirmative. They made claims, but they backed them up with evidence and then they challenged their opponents’ claims. The first time I heard Razia say “My opponent said…” I wanted to stand up and cheer!
Watching these students improve and learn and take an interest in debate makes the frustrations worth it. These are smart students who want to change their country. They see the issues of security, of education, of corruption, of ineptitude, and they want to fix them. They’ve never been taught how to listen respectfully to someone else’s arguments, and they don’t know how to create questions based on what they heard. These ideas are so normal so me, and so foreign to them, but I love watching them figure it out and learn. These kids are going to change the world someday, and it’s so cool to be a part of it.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Afghanistan- starting a new adventure!
Well, it’s been over a year since I posted to this blog, but since I’m off in a foreign country again and have lots of wonderful friends and family trying to stay in contact, I figured it was time to resurrect it. I probably won’t be able to write to everyone individually, but I’ll post things on here and try to add personal comments, and feel free to write back to me via comments here, emails, or Facebook. It makes my day when I hear from home!
I’m currently living in Kabul, Afghanistan. I arrived four days ago, but it feels like so much longer! I’m here for a month, interning for a nonprofit called the Banyan Tree Network (BTN) and teaching debate to university students here. (I just learned- “Afghanis” refers to the currency. The people are “Afghans.” I’ve been saying it wrong for ten years now!) I came with a group of five college students (Clayton, Nick, Josh, and Rachal) from various schools across the US, and it’s been so much fun so far. We spend a lot of time together, between work, meals, transit, and “chill time,” but we get along really well, and I’m really enjoying it.
The work is amazing. We have a grant from the US Embassy to give exhibition debates at five universities, teach debate workshops at each university, and host the 1st Annual Kabul Invitational debate tournament, the first such tournament ever hosted in Afghanistan. At this tournament on June 16, the students we select from the five schools will debate each other using the skills they will learn in the workshops we are teaching. It’s really interesting- we have to teach basic debate and public speaking and persuade them that debate is important and useful, all while working with students who speak English as a second language.
We really encountered language barriers yesterday when we did our first exhibition debate at Kardan Institute of Higher Education (only public universities are allowed to call themselves universities). We practiced in front of the BTN staff first, and when we asked for feedback, they told us our example of Iran could be seen as offensive, that they didn’t know what a Japanese internment camp was, and that we TALKED TOO FAST!! So… we started again at square one, and when we did the second debate, it was much better. We had to talk S-O S-L-O-W-L-Y to be understood, but it was good practice.
The culture here is so different, but it really isn’t as scary or weird as some of you probably imagine. Some things live up to stereotypes: we go through military cement blocks to get to our compound (house), women have to cover their heads with scarves (chadaran) in public, and the patriarchal society definitely exists. But contrary to popular belief, not all Afghans hate Americans, want us to leave, or want to hurt us. In fact, everyone I’ve met so far supports the US being here, is glad that we came, and believes that Afghanistan needs us here. They are so curious about our culture- we’ve had amazing talks about everything from education systems to the status of women (which is changing here! So cool! They even said they might be able to find a group that will let me play soccer with them, which women never get to do!) to corruption to the Barcelona-Manchester game. So academic, I know.
Listening to them, I’ve been struck by the fact that our societies are so different, but we have such similar ideologies. These youth want change as much as we do. We live in totally opposite cultures, but we all want to see our countries, our world, improve, and we all have dramatic ideas about how we can help. Maybe my generation is young and stupid, but we aren’t willing to live with the status quo and I love seeing how passionate they are about change. All of the students I’ve talked to so far recognize that Afghans aren’t taught how to debate, how to argue with reason instead of with fists, how to think critically or use logic. It isn’t a part of this culture. It is so exciting to be introducing it to them and I really believe it’s going to make a difference. I talked to a girl yesterday who blushed as she told me that her dream was to become the first female president of Afghanistan. If that’s not progress, what is?
It’s time for bed, but I have to share one last thing. I’m absolutely loving the chance to learn another language. You probably know about my passion for languages and that I’ve been studying both Spanish and Italian for the past year. The languages of Afghanistan, Pashtu and Dari, are nothing like those Romance Languages, but they are really cool nonetheless. I’ve been trying to learn Dari as much as I can, and I’m picking it up quickly. I’ve learned the basic grammatical structure- adjective, noun, verb- and the verb conjugations, which weren’t too hard. Now I’m learning random words: Salam alaykum! Sobh ba khayr! Chetor asten? Khub astom. Mekhayed chai sobh? Bale! Man goresna astom! (Hello! Good morning! How are you? I’m good. Do you want breakfast? Yes! I’m hungry!) I’ve also learned a bunch of random words- monozara-debate. maris-sick. E chandi ast?- how much does it cost? loftan- please. tashakor- thank you. Wow, that list was longer than I thought and there are still more, so I’ll stop boring you. Suffice it to say, I’m having fun learning new words every day. Even cooler? According to the Afghans I’ve talked to in Dari, I don’t have an accent at all! Ah, I love languages.
Hope all of you are well, and please do write to me! I’d love to hear from you!
Salam! Peace!
Rachel
PS- I tried to post photos but it didn't work. Sorry! Look on Facebook to see my lovely headscarf :)
I’m currently living in Kabul, Afghanistan. I arrived four days ago, but it feels like so much longer! I’m here for a month, interning for a nonprofit called the Banyan Tree Network (BTN) and teaching debate to university students here. (I just learned- “Afghanis” refers to the currency. The people are “Afghans.” I’ve been saying it wrong for ten years now!) I came with a group of five college students (Clayton, Nick, Josh, and Rachal) from various schools across the US, and it’s been so much fun so far. We spend a lot of time together, between work, meals, transit, and “chill time,” but we get along really well, and I’m really enjoying it.
The work is amazing. We have a grant from the US Embassy to give exhibition debates at five universities, teach debate workshops at each university, and host the 1st Annual Kabul Invitational debate tournament, the first such tournament ever hosted in Afghanistan. At this tournament on June 16, the students we select from the five schools will debate each other using the skills they will learn in the workshops we are teaching. It’s really interesting- we have to teach basic debate and public speaking and persuade them that debate is important and useful, all while working with students who speak English as a second language.
We really encountered language barriers yesterday when we did our first exhibition debate at Kardan Institute of Higher Education (only public universities are allowed to call themselves universities). We practiced in front of the BTN staff first, and when we asked for feedback, they told us our example of Iran could be seen as offensive, that they didn’t know what a Japanese internment camp was, and that we TALKED TOO FAST!! So… we started again at square one, and when we did the second debate, it was much better. We had to talk S-O S-L-O-W-L-Y to be understood, but it was good practice.
The culture here is so different, but it really isn’t as scary or weird as some of you probably imagine. Some things live up to stereotypes: we go through military cement blocks to get to our compound (house), women have to cover their heads with scarves (chadaran) in public, and the patriarchal society definitely exists. But contrary to popular belief, not all Afghans hate Americans, want us to leave, or want to hurt us. In fact, everyone I’ve met so far supports the US being here, is glad that we came, and believes that Afghanistan needs us here. They are so curious about our culture- we’ve had amazing talks about everything from education systems to the status of women (which is changing here! So cool! They even said they might be able to find a group that will let me play soccer with them, which women never get to do!) to corruption to the Barcelona-Manchester game. So academic, I know.
Listening to them, I’ve been struck by the fact that our societies are so different, but we have such similar ideologies. These youth want change as much as we do. We live in totally opposite cultures, but we all want to see our countries, our world, improve, and we all have dramatic ideas about how we can help. Maybe my generation is young and stupid, but we aren’t willing to live with the status quo and I love seeing how passionate they are about change. All of the students I’ve talked to so far recognize that Afghans aren’t taught how to debate, how to argue with reason instead of with fists, how to think critically or use logic. It isn’t a part of this culture. It is so exciting to be introducing it to them and I really believe it’s going to make a difference. I talked to a girl yesterday who blushed as she told me that her dream was to become the first female president of Afghanistan. If that’s not progress, what is?
It’s time for bed, but I have to share one last thing. I’m absolutely loving the chance to learn another language. You probably know about my passion for languages and that I’ve been studying both Spanish and Italian for the past year. The languages of Afghanistan, Pashtu and Dari, are nothing like those Romance Languages, but they are really cool nonetheless. I’ve been trying to learn Dari as much as I can, and I’m picking it up quickly. I’ve learned the basic grammatical structure- adjective, noun, verb- and the verb conjugations, which weren’t too hard. Now I’m learning random words: Salam alaykum! Sobh ba khayr! Chetor asten? Khub astom. Mekhayed chai sobh? Bale! Man goresna astom! (Hello! Good morning! How are you? I’m good. Do you want breakfast? Yes! I’m hungry!) I’ve also learned a bunch of random words- monozara-debate. maris-sick. E chandi ast?- how much does it cost? loftan- please. tashakor- thank you. Wow, that list was longer than I thought and there are still more, so I’ll stop boring you. Suffice it to say, I’m having fun learning new words every day. Even cooler? According to the Afghans I’ve talked to in Dari, I don’t have an accent at all! Ah, I love languages.
Hope all of you are well, and please do write to me! I’d love to hear from you!
Salam! Peace!
Rachel
PS- I tried to post photos but it didn't work. Sorry! Look on Facebook to see my lovely headscarf :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
