THE
GREAT
DEBATE
SUN FEB 07 1988 ED: FINAL
SECTION: NEIGHBORS MB PAGE: 14 LENGTH: 52.24" LONG
ILLUST: color photo: Lisa Nass with Scott Shapiro (DEBATE); photo: Ethan Hollander (SCHOOL ),
Lisa Nass and Mindy Zane with Jason Auerbach and Joshua Wallack and Mike Kraener and Sally Kfir
(SCHOOL )
SOURCE: DAN FROOMKIN Herald Staff Writer
DATELINE:
MEMO: COVER STORY
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THE
GREAT
DEBATE
It is a Friday evening, and debaters from schools across Dade are gathered in the fluorescent glow of
Palmetto High School's halls, waiting for the district finals.
They are competing in all the different areas that comprise modern forensics -- from team debate to
the performance of humorous skits. But senior Mindy Zane, Miami Beach High's premier debater, is
pursuing the art in its purest form: the one-on-one debate, the Lincoln-Douglas.
One of Mindy's three victims tonight is from Palmetto Junior High -- a blazer-wearing freshman
whose stomach starts to hurt the minute he realizes the sweet-looking girl in the pink sweater and big
glasses is none other than . . . the legendary Mindy Zane.
"I feel," says the suddenly sweating freshman, "that I will lose."
Saying that Beach High has a fine speech and debate team is like saying that the Boston Celtics play a
fine basketball game, that Winston Churchill had a fine way with words, that the pope is a fine Catholic.
The three large glass cases in coach Ed Cobin's classroom are not enough to hold the shining trophies
the team has racked up over the years. The walls are covered with plaques.
Since the team formed in 1949, it has won the National Forensics League championship three times.
It has won the Florida district championship 17 times in 25 years.
When the Beach team last fall won first place at the state Congress championship -- the students go to
Tallahasee and pretend to be legislators -- it was the 16th time in 20 years.
In addition to the team victories, each year Beach students walk off with innumerable first-, second-
and third-place awards for individual achievement. And there are only four seniors on the team of 37.
"You go anywhere in the country," Cobin said. "They know Beach High."
They know Beach High in Dade for sure. "It has a tradition of being a very stable and successful
program," said Palmetto High debate coach Fran Berger, herself a former Beach High debater. "Mr. Cobin
puts in a lot of hours."
Beach debate also is big business. Students sell ads in a debate calendar, pass the hat to city boosters
and raise $15,000 to $25,000 a year. The money pays the team's way to national tournaments. This
weekend, 15 team members are at Emory University in Atlanta. Next weekend, they go to Harvard.
The resolution states the value to society of mandatory AIDS testing outweighs the loss of personal
privacy rights. The Palmetto freshman is arguing the affirmative; Mindy is arguing the negative. The
topic was announced months ago.
The freshman enters the classroom, where a judge is waiting, and asks if he may go to the bathroom.
Mindy, relaxed, sits down to wait.
When the freshman returns, he recites his opening statement. He is sniffling. He says AIDS testing is
society's only hope and worth a slight restriction of individual liberty.
He swallows. "If you're dead you don't have any liberty at all," he says. He ends his speech. He is not
breathing very well. "Is there some way to turn on the air?" he asks.
It is time for Mindy's cross-examination. "How can you guarantee that these tests will be accurate?"
Mindy says. ". . . How accurate is accurate? 100 percent? 98 percent? 99 percent?"
Under this barrage, the freshman is helpless. "OK," says Mindy. She can't wait; she's on to her next
point, questioning her opponent's word choice.
"Perhaps I should rephrase that," says the freshman. Mindy smirks. It is a smirk so wide and so large
it seems to encompass the room.
Debaters have an image problem. Does the word "nerd" spring to mind? "I've been called a nerd,"
said Robert Foster, a 10th-grade debater at Beach High. "But of course not for long, because I'm a big
guy."
At Beach High, debate also has a reputation of being tough. "Tough to get in, tough to be in, tough to
stay in," Robert said.
There are three novice debate classes at Beach High, then the two varsity classes: speech and debate. It
is within the varsity team that bonds are formed. "Our team feels like a family," said junior Scott Shapiro.
"When one person does well, everybody feels like they did well."
Many of Beach High's brightest students are on the team. And though the team used to be guy
territory, this year almost half the varsity debaters are girls.
But there are very few blacks and Hispanics on the team. Not only are almost all the debaters non-
Hispanic white, they're almost all Jewish -- about 85 percent, Cobin said.
Cobin says he has tried to recruit a more diverse body of students -- the school is 67 percent black and
Hispanic -- but with little luck.
Cobin thinks this may be an unfortunate side effect of the debate tradition at Beach High. That
tradition started when the school was mostly Jewish. Many former students are pushing their kids toward
the program, while the blacks and Hispanics are generally newer arrivals to the Beach.
Mindy starts her opening statement by quoting Harvard philosopher John Rawls on the inviolability
of human rights. She is looking up from her paper, her eyes boring into the judge's. The freshman is
biting his nails.
"Individual rights are essential to society," she says, noting a mandatory AIDS test would impinge on
those rights -- and wouldn't work anyway.
The freshman gets nowhere in cross-examination.
Forensics today includes a wide range of competitive speaking activities.
There is humorous interpretation. Scott Shapiro plays all the parts in an eight-minute Twilight Zone
spoof. Using voice, posture and facial expression, Scott is alternately Rod Serling, an old woman who
discovers that her dog is really a little man in a dog suit, and the little man.
There is oratory. Junior Lori Schneider has spent months preparing and perfecting an exhortation
urging her peers to volunteer for charities. She notes that volunteering broadens business and social
contacts, and assuages guilt.
There is extemporaneous speech. With as little as half an hour to prepare, students give five-minute
speeches on current events. On the eve of the latest contra aid vote in Congress, junior Melissa Brown
delivered a three-point argument against the aid. The contras abuse human rights, can't win anyway, and
U.S. aid violates the Arias peace plan, she says. Sophomore Bruce Libhaber argues the Sandinistas are
repressive and contra aid would force them to adhere to the peace plan.
It is time for closing arguments. Mindy stands and puts her notes down. "By all means, eliminate
AIDS. But don't" -- her left hand slashes through the air -- "go about it by invading my personal rights.
I'm not asking that much."
After six minutes, she has raised each of the freshman's arguments and dashed them into a million
pieces.
The freshman is unhinged. "She thinks it's important to spread the disease," he says. "If we allow the
AIDS virus to continue, we might as well kill all the people and stop the suffering."
The freshman closes. He mutters, "Please vote for the affirmative side."
Debate and speech -- the way Ed Cobin has taught it at Beach High for the past eight years, the way
Ralph Carey taught if for 13 years before -- doesn't just produce a lot of trophies.
It teaches the kids how to be reasoned and articulate in the normal world, too. They don't hesitate to
talk among adults. "You're no longer afraid to just get up and say what you mean," said Demian
Rosenblatt, a sophomore.
And these students are current events mavens. Like no other class at Beach High, debate and speech
demands and inspires fanatic attention to the issues facing the world. Students scour the newspapers and
magazines. They watch the evening news and Washington Week in Review. They keep voluminous files
on topics, from AIDS education to tropical deforestation.
Eye contact is handy. Said Eric Jacobs, with a piercing gaze, "It's a lot easier to get someone to go
along with what you're saying if you're looking at him." Debate teaches a skill of dubious moral value --
the ability to fluently defend a position you find repugnant. But even those debaters who don't intend to
become lawyers say the skill is a good one to have. Being exposed to another side of an issue often
strengthens, rather than weakens, their opinions, they said.
And being on a strong team develops modesty in these students. "I don't think the purpose of debate is
to destroy the other team," said debater Joshua Wallack. "The purpose is to learn."
With the debate over, Mindy shakes the freshman's hand and thanks the judge. The freshman is
putting his 40 minutes in hell in perspective. "I feel that it was an educational experience," he says.
Mindy gives the freshman some credit. "For a novice, he was very good."
How does it feel to win, Mindy? She defers her response. There is, after all, a small chance that she
lost. "The judge could have been someone who didn't know what was going on," she says.
But he did. She won. Hands down. She normally does. ADDED TERMS:
END OF DOCUMENT.