Kaczmarek,+Sheryl

Newburgh Free Academy
__**Policy Philosophy**__

I have been judging and coaching policy debate for more than 30 years. I remember debate before counterplans and before kritiks. I remember inherency. I remember life without politics disads, but I have also written kritiks and counterplans, and, heaven help me, even politics disads, and voted on inherency in the 21st Century. I am probably as open-minded about debate arguments as anyone you'll ever be judged by, other than the fact that I really don't like cursing in rounds (or my classroom) and would prefer that both teams offer ARGUMENTS and that they CLASH with the arguments offered by the opposition (performance can be a way of making an argument, just to clarify, but I believe performance should contain within it actual arguments that allow for the possiblity of clash). I am increasingly disturbed by the trend in debate where one side or the other presents arguments which are so undeniably true that there is no room for clash and I strongly believe that both sides ought to have an EQUAL chance to win the round from the time the round begins until it ends. Strategies which effectively deny one team the chance to meaningfully compete seem anti-educational and seem to stifle the free flow of ideas which I believe ought to set competitive debate apart from all other communications forums. I am just old-fashioned enough to believe that the resolution has meaning and would prefer to hear debates which in some way connect to the resolution, although I can live without that if necessary. I flow on a laptop and can get down lines from cards in addition to tags, assuming the people reading the cards are capable of articulation. If I can't understand it, I will neither flow it nor read it after the round, and that is a problem because I take the flow very seriously. I am alarmed by the fact that the advent of "flashing speeches" seems to have made debaters less capable of following (or even taking) a flow. I no longer judge very often because many of the tournaments we attend seem to find me useful in a tabroom, and we can no longer to afford to travel the circuit as much as we used to, but I am Newburgh's only coach, so I have been very much involved in the arguments we run and and the arguments we have faced. Don't let the fact that my 55th birthday was July 4, 2013 fool you. I am not necessarily your mom's judge, unless you want me to be.

__**LD Philosophy**__

I come to LD after many years of coaching and judging policy debate. That DOES NOT mean I want LDers to be policy debaters -- I can still judge policy anytime I want to hear policy debaters. What it DOES mean is that I take the flow very seriously. I write down a lot (originally on a computer, but I discovered after hand surgery when I had no choice that I actually like flowing LD on my iPad, so I do that instead when possible) and I want to see CLASH. My background means that I have a fairly comprehensive understanding of the theoretical issues (kritiks, topicality, solvency, conditionality, etc.) that have wandered into LD and that I can flow as fast as debaters can articulate (although speed is NOT essential, or even necessarily desirable given the complex philosophical issues encountered in LD). There aren't any particular arguments I love or hate, although I should say again here that I do believe both sides should have an equal chance to win and I am uncomfortable if one side or the other offers a position that effectively denies the opposition the chance to compete because what is being argued is literally not debatable. What I really want to hear is debaters telling me WHY I should vote for them, with specific reference to the reasons why the arguments the opposition made are less valid. I expect voting issues to be clearly articulated in the final rebuttals and am favorably impressed when arguments throughout the debate point me in the direction the debaters want me to go. I have no particular need to hear value premises if burdens or some other standards are established, but I need to know how each speaker wants me to vote and why. As I said in the policy note above, I do still believe that resolutions have meaning -- if they didn't we wouldn't keep getting new ones. Therefore, my preference would be for less framework and more discussion of resolutional issues, but since it is the debaters who decide what we cover in a round, I will go where you go. I guess, if I were to sum up my approach to judging LD in a single sentence, I would say that I expect both debaters to battle for my mind by putting competing arguments on my flow.

Last Updated: January 13, 2014