PHOTO: In the beginning at the workshop

We expected 20 and 60 came. There was a Saturday afternoon workshop scheduled at a high school in suburban Winnanden in Stuttgart, and the attendance was a surprise and a delight.  About 20 had confirmed but 60 showed up for a three hour debate workshop. Hosted by Angelika Hoeness, the speakers were Bojana Skrt and myself. It rapidly became clear that the number of people wildly exceeded our expectations, and so the program had to be redesigned on the fly.

It began with the usual talk about why debate is a good choice for those wanting success in the 21st century and a description of how debate is exploding all across Germany and the globe. This was followed hy a simple argumentation workshop that examined:

1. Common argumentative fallacies and how to refute them;

2. The common structure for building arguments; and

3. The four step refutation process and how to apply it.

Based on the assessment done early in the workshop, people were divided into two groups: less experienced who requested a basic public speaking experience workshop, and a more advanced group who wanted some experience at proposition strategy. Bojana took the public speaking people and had them do the refutation exercise we had designed.

<== Proposition analysis groups at work

The two workshops did a great job, and the only problem was that there were far more people than we had anticipated. Instead of two groups we needed four to give them the personal attention we had hoped to give. But, as happens with such things, you just do the best that you can. I fired out motions to groups of three and had them come back and report their strategies, and then gave them another  motion and sent them off. Meanwhile, Bojana was off in a room with 40 people trying to hear them speak for 60 seconds at a time and give them feedback. In my groups I assigned them a motion and sent them off to come up with an interpretation, three main arguments and some rhetorical framing and slogans for the debate. They came back group by group and reported to me as I gave them feedback about their issue and interpretation choices.

We got together at just before 5 PM and did some closure programming with those who were left, About 20 people left at 5PM when the small groups ended, but a lot of people still wanted more. We got together and talked about how to gather more information, how to scan the news successfully for debating and I talked to them about the Debate Central website and how they can use it http://debate.uvm.edu .

<== Those who stayed until the bitter end

The applause was unexpectedly long and the thanks were very strong and genuine. It was a difficult job but I think we did a good job and I felt like they appreciated our efforts.

Mission accomplished.