That's Debatable

Friday marked the debut of the high school's English-language debate team. I assembled this ad hoc group of six about a month ago and circled a few dates on the calendar for competitions against students from other high schools where volunteers have mustered a team.

In preparing them, I reached back into my own rather extensive debating experience and guided the students through the at-times Byzantine rules of debate, occasionally peppering the instruction with funny stories and specific situations they might expect to encounter themselves.

Wait, I didn't do any of that. I didn't do any of that because I've never debated in my life.

You know that saying about the blind leading the blind? Well, what if the blind are under the impression that one among them can actually see? That's got to boost their confidence.

Now, I explained to the kids that I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of a debating team. But I came to all our meetings armed with information regarding strategy and rules, and lots of practice topics and exercises (courtesy of another volunteer, the Mr. Miyagi to my own Ralph Macchio karate-impaired kid). So I've spent the last few weeks fielding every conceivable question about debate, answering those I could and delaying those I couldn't until I could look them up.

After taking what could charitably be called a laizez-faire attitude towards researching their topics, the students spent the better part of this week in somewhat of a panic, pulling it all together. But, really, they did a fantastic job lining up their arguments and were eager to partake in several run-throughs, with me playing the part of the other team.

Wednesday night Jillian and I had the six of them over for dinner. The fare was Mexican and, hilariously, the students had no idea what to do with the tortillas and ingredients. After a demonstration in which I layered the goods and Jillian, well, did the hard part, rolling the taco up into commercial-worthy shape, the kids jumped in and really enjoyed themselves. Above all, it was an opportunity for us all to talk about Macedonia, America, our impressions, and their plans. This is a truly impressive group of students with excellent command of English.

So Friday came and everything went extremely well. All three schools came to the debate prepared for the three topics at hand: Is the death penalty justifiable? Should drivers be allowed to use their cell phones? Should sex education be taught in public schools?

After spending a good amount of time ensuring that my kids simply understood the procedures of a debate, I was more than delighted to see them not just handle the format, but use it to their advantage. On more than one occasion I was stunned at the quality of their off-the-cuff rebuttals. They had done their research and were able to synthesize that with what they were hearing from the other team to produce really quality responses.

Terribly nervous before the debates, the students were (rightfully) very proud of themselves for their effort afterwards. And already asking about the next competition...

One of my teams in action on their way to victory

My other team, also victorious

Scenes from Spring

A student that I'm tutoring from the high school recently told us (in a remarkably off-handed kind of way and totally out of the blue): "Oh, don't worry what people say. They see you running and they just think you're with the American military collecting information on political parties."

Well, I'm glad to hear the Department of Defense is world-renowned for its physical fitness, but how one makes the leap in logic from jogging to surveillance is beyond me. I can only assume this is the work of a few really bored individuals who vastly overestimate the reach of American, well, caring (though, truth be told, this sort of activity has been suggested by advocates of the intelligence community). Gee, and I really thought we were doing a great job as unassuming teachers in the community schools.

But to paraphrase Paul Simon--be careful, this sneaker is really camera.

Seriously, we were recently out on a fine spring afternoon, snapping photos around town. We quickly learned to be subtle, as it seems that locals find it a bit odd to see we Americans with a camera in our hands. C'mon folks! Would the Pentagon really arm us with the base model Nikon from Best Buy? And why would they want a picture of this budding tree?

Anyway, below you'll find some decidedly un-convert pictures from around town as the warm weather has begun its descent.

Cleanup Day

A few years ago, while researching a paper at URI about the environmental movement during the Sixties and Seventies, I was struck by descriptions of our rivers, lakes, hillsides, and streets. It was eye-opening to learn how polluted and trash-strewn the U.S. was before we came to our senses and adopted the three R’s. Of course, it also helped that we were by then a very wealthy nation. Ecological consciousness tends to follow prosperity.

Which explains Macedonia.

Last weekend we took to the backyard, which is really more like this sort of deep ditch along the side and back of the house, and excavated what had to be several generations of discarded bottles and shiny wrappers. It was like a poor man's cultural history of the town. "Ahhh, I see that in the late 80's Schweppes Bitter Lemon was in vogue. It then went out of favor, only to come back strongly sometime between 1997 and 2003 A.D. Discuss." Jillian even found what appeared to be a cow skull. Yeah, we really felt like archeologists.

Our two hundred square foot backyard yielded—wait for it—five full bags of trash.

Macedonia is a struggling nation and the environment is not of particular concern, just as it surely was not so important in pre-affluence America. But we’ve seen some evidence that this is beginning to change—a recent town cleanup day, our Lorax-esque tree-planting holiday, and many of the students at the high school speak about the condition of the environment with genuine bitterness.

Even as Macedonia's economic situation improves, cleaning up the country is a daunting task. The sheer volume of garbage scattered throughout our town, for instance, makes any really meaningful pickup very intimidating. Well, we started in our own backyard. A few neighbors passed by offering curious glances. Maybe it was my surgical gloves or the cranium Jillian was holding, but I’d like to think they were processing: What’d ya know? A few trash bags and an hour of your time go a long way.

Yuck.

Jillian unearths some...nylons