Rhetoric Podcast - Fabiola & Lauren

Lauren and Fabiola discuss their experiences volunteering at the Boston Debate League (BDL), a non-profit organization that promotes debate in inner city schools. They mention how the BDL prepares young students, particularly those of black and Hispanic descent, for college and future careers through public speaking skills. Lauren is impressed by the enthusiasm and organization of the students, while Fabiola highlights the inclusivity of the BDL, including debates in Spanish for the large population of Spanish-speaking students in Boston. They discuss how the BDL connects to their rhetoric course, emphasizing the importance of memorable speech and intentional speaking. They also mention the canons of rhetoric and how the BDL teaches students to present facts and information effectively. They appreciate the individuality and mastery of topics that the students demonstrate. Overall, they praise the BDL for providing a platform for young students to have their voices heard and learn impor Hi, I'm Lauren. Hi, I'm Fabiola. And today we're going to talk about our experiences at the Boston Debate League and how we can connect the ideas of orality and culture to this experience. These ideas are topics we've been learning about in our rhetoric course so far this semester. So before we begin kind of talking about this, I want to introduce what exactly the Boston Debate League is. And basically the BDL is a non-profit organization in the city of Boston that promotes debate within inner city schools. So they provide debate coaches and they host tournaments across the city for young school children, as young as the age of 11, to participate in these debates. And they actually continue mostly all throughout high school until they graduate. So this non-profit is actually pretty special because it attempts to prepare young students, and especially those of black and Hispanic descent, for college and whatever their future career might be through learning the skills of public speaking. So Lauren and I both had the opportunity to volunteer at some of these debate tournaments. And so I want to ask Lauren, what was your experience like volunteering? Yeah, so going into this, I really didn't have an expectation of how things were going to play out, except that I just remember being a middle school kid and didn't expect it to be something that was taken very seriously. I was very wrong. Everyone was so enthusiastic and it was really inspiring to see the way that these kids really want to win. And they were so organized and so prepared. It was just a really cool experience, in my opinion. So Fabiola, do you want to tell me a little bit about your experience? Yeah, so in my case, I was actually able to judge the debaters that were speaking Spanish, which is something that I think is also really special about the VDL because it's not only that they're attempting to teach these skills of public speaking, but they're trying to adapt to their population, which in this case, the city of Boston has a huge population of Spanish-speaking students, especially within the Boston public school system. So I felt like in many ways, I was watching some of these kids kind of peek out of their shell as they were slowly building up the courage and confidence to present and defend their arguments. And I think overall, it was just a really impactful experience. And especially being a Boston public school alum myself, I loved being able to connect with the community once more and kind of be a part of that event. Yeah, that's a really good point. The inclusivity is something that really stuck out to me and how they have a free extracurricular activity for these kids to be a part of. It's just really amazing. I went to public schools most of my life, and the only real extracurriculars we had costed money, which totally is so different from this experience. And I think it was really great for the kids. Yeah, I completely agree. I think it was definitely like – it's definitely an amazing effort. So kind of connecting it back to our own courses in college, I think there are many connections we can make between this experience and what we've been learning in our rhetoric course. And I personally would like to start by connecting it with Walter Ong and the passage that we read from him titled Some Psychodynamics of Orality. So in that passage, Ong describes how everything that's said in oral cultures has to be memorable because otherwise people are going to forget. I mean, there's only so much that you can contain, like, without writing it down. So of course, you know, everything has to be memorable. And I think that in the case of the BDL, this is a skill they're definitely picking up, especially as they're trying to persuade their judges. And I could see this skill being super useful to them in the future. I mean, oftentimes people are not actively taking notes on presentations at work, for example. So it's not always about what you say, but also how it's said and especially how it's remembered. Lauren, do you, like, have anything that you think could connect to Ong? Yeah. One of the things that stuck out to me about Ong was thinking memorable thoughts. And this is something that the debaters were able to do amazingly well. They had really good rhythm, and the people who were kind of experts at that really stuck out to me as a judge. How they said things was really important to the decision that was made at the end of the day. And it was really amazing how they could avoid verbal tics, especially as such young students. This really got me thinking about the canons of rhetoric and how they connect to how the debaters worked. And that's actually, like, really interesting, too, about it's so, I think in our modern culture, we often dismiss, like, the power of orality. And so you bringing up, like, the canons of rhetoric, that's something we definitely don't normally think about, yet you see an organization like BVL, you know, putting so much effort into trying to prove, similarly to Ong, that orality is actually quite useful in our modern culture. And it's definitely something that, although we often dismiss, we should pay more attention to. That really connects to the idea of intentional speaking, and that was the main focus of one of the first articles we read for class, called Stop Saying I Feel Like by Molly Worthen. This article, to me, seemed like it was about academic or stimulating conversation and possibly even debate. So one of the things that stuck out to me, connecting the article with the Boston Debate League, was how strong of a stance the debaters had to have. If they wanted to win, they needed to be very assertive, and honestly, that's something that even I struggle with. They're so young, and it's just really amazing how professional they sounded and how their conversations were able to be less confusing in the long run because they kept stuff like, I feel like, out of the conversation. There's no room for feelings in that, and having emotions in conversations is just something that really demotes the conversation and makes it less strong, in a way. Yeah, and I think this whole idea of keeping emotions separate from, basically, facts is something that we definitely talked about over the semester, and especially with Plato and Aristotle, both of which, in their own way, basically argued that good rhetoric was based on truth, on facts, and it shouldn't have much to do with persuasion. I think in most cases today, we can see that most of the stuff we consume within the media is all based on persuasion, and they're really reaching out on mostly an emotional appeal. So when I look back at this BDL tournament and this whole experience, I think it was so useful for the students to be able to just go off of the pure stats, facts, and information that they had. Like Lauren said, there's no room for emotion, which I believe, in the case of Plato, who really strongly believed that truth was what good rhetoric was based on, I think he would agree that the BDL is trying to make a good attempt at keeping that good rhetoric alive. Something that I just heard you mention was the fact that they were all given materials, and I think we can go back to the idea of the canons of rhetoric and really think about how they used those, and how they had their own spin on the same materials. So invention is just kind of how they could persuade the judge, and honestly, I think the most impressive out of the canons were arrangement, style, and delivery, and how they each had such a unique variation on the same materials. They chose to arrange the information how they thought it would best benefit them, and that stuck out. If people organized things in a really good way, then that was really convincing. The way they delivered things was also really impressive. I definitely agree. It was really impressive how they each had their own way of presenting the information. I mean, I actually thought, before I started the volunteering shift, that I might get bored, because I thought that they were all basically going to be saying the same thing, but in reality, each team had their own special, like you said, style and way of doing it, and that's actually something that reminds me to another article we read titled If You Have Something to Say, Then Say It, and that was by John McWhorter, and he basically, in his article at one point, talks about how today when we're practicing speeches, we oftentimes care more about how we present the information and we care less about really mastering our topic, and I think that while the Boston Debate League obviously, you know, wants these children to really master how they present the information, the fact that they all receive essentially the same packet and they have to figure out how to work with it is an example of how the BDL also wants their students to really know what they're talking about, which I think when we look at professional, you know, debates and speeches today, that's what we want our speakers to have is these, you know, really well and robust, like, backgrounds in their topics, so I really thought that that was admirable of the organization as well. In the end, picking a winner was so hard for me, because everyone did such an amazing job and worked so hard to deliver their information in a meaningful and memorable way. The BDL is just a great way for young students to have their individual voices heard, and while they still may be a little bit shy, like Fabiola said earlier in the podcast, they were really able to come out of their shells. It's great to be out of your comfort zone once in a while, especially when you're learning such important skills. And while I was finishing up with writing advice and picking a winner, the opposing groups actually started talking to each other about what they were debating on. The Boston Debate League is giving these students information about the world around them, which is a really great thing. Yeah, and I mean, I think lastly, just to end, the Boston Debate League is not just about picking up a new skill, it's not just about doing something for a college application. They really are exposing these students to a completely new world that they might not know of. And so I think it's a really impactful mission overall, and I just really enjoyed the time that I spent there volunteering. I don't know about you, Lori. What did you do? Did you like it? It was such an enjoyable experience. It did feel a little bit weird being the oldest one in the room and kind of being in charge of them, but it was honestly just such a great thing to be a part of and something that I honestly wish I learned in school. Yeah, I agree with that, too, about being the oldest person there. That was really strange. But yeah, so thank you so much for listening to our podcast today. We hope you enjoyed. Thank you.