July 8, 2007

Speaking up, speaking out
Education: Jordan students were filmed on their journey to winning debate title.
By Kevin Butler, Staff writer

LONG BEACH - In "Resolved," a documentary about competitive high school debate, a student looks downward and pauses, reflecting on what arguments he should use to persuade the listening judge to declare him and his partner the winners in the contest.

Suddenly, the silence is broken when the debater begins speaking so rapidly that most people unaccustomed with high school forensics couldn't possibly keep up.

Typical of the predominant debating style nowadays, complex sentences are emitted in just a few seconds.

Periodically, the student pauses from the rapid-fire speech to take two quick gulps of air, which sound as frantic and deep as if he had spent two minutes underwater and just emerged on the surface for air.

But in the new, feature-length documentary, which earned an audience award at the Los Angeles Film Festival last month, into this lightning-fast forensic world enters a two-person debate team from Jordan High School that tries to shake things up.

In the film, the team of Richard Funches and Louis Blackwell, who are black and now former students of the inner-city North Long Beach high school, stick out. They stand out in an activity where few of the high-powered teams, mostly from private schools, have black members.

The documentary shows the Jordan pair - who after becoming state champs have since graduated and gone on to compete in college - trying to change the style of debate by speaking more slowly and drawing on personal experiences during arguments, instead of relying just on research by experts.

Focus shifted

The film - which also profiles a white team from Highland Park High School in University Park, Texas - gives a glimpse into the somewhat insular world of competitive high school debate.

Replete with jargon and a rapid speech style referred to as "the spread," the activity of debate seems far afield from what the ordinary person might expect - slow speeches designed to appeal to a wide, layperson audience.

The film's director and producer, Greg Whiteley, said he thought of spotlighting high school debate in a way similar to documentaries that have explored the cultures of other competitive activities, such as Scrabble and spelling bees.

During the course of filming, however, the emphasis in part shifted to the arguments presented by Funches and Blackwell, who came out of nowhere in the debate community to become state champions in 2005.

The students, now both 19, shifted focus during their senior year to argue that the structure of debate itself had the effect of excluding minorities and low-income populations from the activity.

Unlike students in better-off high school programs, during their senior year Funches and Blackwell didn't have a debate class, meaning they had to practice after school. They worked on the side, Funches at a Food 4 Less.

They couldn't afford expensive subscription-based research databases some other teams used and didn't have the travel money to hit the national tournament circuit to the extent of other schools.

Those kinds of disparities "have never been thought of as a problem because ... the debate community is mostly an affluent community," Blackwell said.

Personal touch

The pair would discuss the inequities during debate rounds in an effort to change the way debate was done. They also brought their own or their friends' and family members' personal experiences to bear when discussing such issues as racial profiling.

"We felt like a lot of urban minorities ... didn't necessarily have adequate resources or equipment to debate the way" most teams debate, Funches said.

The style of rapid speaking and jargon-filled prose also is exclusionary, Funches said, leading him and his partner to try to switch the conversation during debate rounds to argue about the structure of debate itself.

"We decided to throw out all the evidence and talked about why that debate wasn't going to be educational for us," Funches said.

Their debate focused on personal experience, passion and comprehensibility, among other things.

Body counts

Too often in debate, the rapid-talking tactic results in a victory for the team that throws out the greatest number of arguments, even though some center on outlandishly imaginative scenarios like nuclear war, said David Wiltz, a former Jordan debate coach who worked with Funches and Blackwell.

In the documentary it's pointed out that in policy debate - in which debaters discuss national policy choices - judging the winner often boils down to balancing body counts.

The affirmative or pro-side argues that their particular policy saves thousands of lives while the negative or anti-side claims the policy will result in a larger number of deaths, through extreme scenarios of genocide or war.

The team was making an effort to step outside that framework, Wiltz said.

"What we were saying is that the issues we were bringing into the round were more real and had more impact than any other issues we can discuss," Wiltz said.

The tactic of discussing race and class leaves some opponents shown in the documentary bewildered. The strategy was not without controversy, Funches said.

Some of their opponents from different backgrounds understood their perspective, he said. Others reacted differently.

"There were several people who wouldn't even shake our hands after the round," Funches said.

Despite the controversy, the pair pushed forward with the strategy, which proved to be a winning argument in competitions.

But winning was not the point of the tactic, Funches said, a fact that distinguished the team from other debaters.

"I felt like it was more than just a trophy that was on the line," he said. "It was my personal worth, and the thing that I fought most for, which was respecting differences and bridging the gap between disconnected urban minorities and debate."

Debate a savior

Funches and Blackwell didn't have debate in mind when they first enrolled at Jordan High School.

Funches ended up fleeing into a debate room for safety during a 2003 melee at the school. He got interested after talking with the debate coach.

Funches said that debate kept him focused and out of trouble.

"Debate kind of saved my life," he said.

A teacher recommended that Blackwell join the debate club.

After beginning to debate their sophomore year, a coach paired the two, and during their first competitive appearance together they won the regional novice tournament.

Whiteley went to an important, large high school tournament held in 2005 at UC Berkeley to film part of his documentary, where a coach suggested he watch the Jordan team.

"They were the only two African-American kids that we could see that were competing successfully in the activity," Whiteley said. "So they stood out that way, but they were just really engaging ... I just really enjoyed being around them."

Although the pair had a certain swagger, the Jordan team wasn't in the top echelon at that point, which was not surprising, since many of their competitors had been debating since eighth grade, he said.

"You could tell that they had talent, and they were both extremely bright, but it just takes awhile to learn the language of debate," he said.

After that, the two got much better, winning the state championship in 2005 and getting exceptionally high ratings from judges on their speaking ability.

The debate community wasn't used to hearing the name "Jordan High School" announced in a major tournament awards ceremony.

No one has heard the name announced there lately.

After the pair graduated in 2006, the debate program ended at Jordan.

The program was funded by a three-year, $175,000 grant from the L.A. Urban Debate League. The grant, which ended in the 2005-2006 school year, funded Wiltz's position, travel expenses and competition entry fees for students, according to district officials.

When the grant ended, there was no funding to continue the program, said LBUSD spokesman Chris Eftychiou.

Wiltz now teaches at Jefferson High School in South Los Angeles, where he is starting a debate program.

"We're proud of what Richard, Louis and their coach accomplished here," Eftychiou said. "Perhaps the movie will generate some interest in starting the debate team again at Jordan."

Blackwell and Funches received college debate scholarships. Blackwell attends Cal State Fullerton and Funches goes to University of Louisville in Kentucky.

Blackwell said that he felt that the administration at Jordan High school became supportive of the program only after they started winning and that the interest waned after they left.

"They started having interest after we were successful," he said.

He hopes that his success at Jordan will create more interest in debate programs at inner-city high schools, as well as more confidence that students in such programs can succeed.

"I think maybe people could look at me and say, `You know, it's not impossible,"' Blackwell said.

Editor's note: Whiteley is currently fielding offers from companies interested in releasing "Resolved" in theaters, followed by television airing and then home video release. The trailer can be seen online at www.debatemovie.com.