Rethinking debate pedagogy

New debaters are not interested in format, they're interested in how do I come up with what to say, what can I say, what should I say, which are the exact same concerns one has outside of a debate competition and in the world, like, what can I say, what's relevant for me to say, what's appropriate for me to say. That's where debate pedagogy should start.

And all the things like, you have this much time, etc., these stress people out. Like when I was at this junior high competition last week, they were just stressed out because I didn't use all my time. I told them, it's fine. As long as you say one or two good things, you don't have to use all your time. And then they said a bunch of stuff and they only used like two minutes. It was fine.

But when you stress them out and you're like, you have to use all four minutes, they're not going to know what to do. It's the wrong way to teach it. You teach it as this kind of oppressive cage or soccer field or limited thing like a sport instead of teaching it as, this is an opportunity, this is a resource. These rules are resources for you, not limitations.