Tobias Park's Lincoln Douglas Debate Course
With the advent of the Internet, social media, and instant-messaging, many of today’s teens are unprepared to go out into the world due to insufficient communication and thinking skills. Lincoln Douglas Debate solves this dilemma by teaching students to communicate effectively and think critically in order to glorify God.
Roy Disney, brother of Walt Disney, once said: “It’s not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.” This statement, which was the basis behind Disney’s decision to buy PIXAR, represents the fundamental idea behind LD debate.
Lincoln-Douglas (LD) Debate is all about VALUES! In every LD round, you have an ultimate concept that you value, and you consider that value to be higher and more important than any and all other possible values. Then, according to logic and syllogism, you conclude that whichever side of the debate LEADS you to that most important value must therefore be the side that should win! LD is very philosophical in nature. It asks why we do what we do, or why we should choose one particular option above another option. And thus, it contemplates how society should be structured.
As an extremely simplistic example, say you’re looking to buy a car, and you really really want a car that’s very safe. Basically, then, you want to base your car-buying decision off of safety. Because what you care about the most is being safe, you want to buy the safest car you can find. You eventually decide to buy a Honda because they have more airbags and are thus safer than Toyota’s. You just did an LD Values debate in your head! You said that your highest value is safety. Then you concluded that, since Honda’s are most safe, and the value of safety is most important, you should therefore buy a Honda.
Competing in LD Debate at homeschool debate tournaments forces teens to think critically, communicate clearly, argue effectively, defend their positions, and wrestle with relevant issues that impact the world we live in. When these teens enter the world as adults, they will not only be better able to communicate with those around them and think logically; they will also be better equipped to share and defend the Gospel.
Through 30 short video lectures, this course teaches you the skills needed to compete in LD debate for competition in Christian homeschool high school leagues, with special focus on competition in the NCFCA league. In fact, the NCFCA-specific resolution for the current year will be used as a sample. At professional 4-day-long tournaments, you will debate about relevant, complex, real-world topics such as nationalism vs. globalism, the right to privacy vs. national security, freedom vs. regulations in economics, rehabilitation vs punishment in criminal justice systems, freedom of the press vs. national security, etc. You will learn the fundamentals of case construction, cross-examination, and rebuttal/refutation strategies from a national-level LD debater and debate case writer (Tobias Park) with 4 years of debating experience.
Tobias competed in Lincoln Douglas Debate with NCFCA for 4 years in high school. His debate accomplishments include:
Tobias is currently at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute studying Computer Science and enjoys the hobbies of photography and amateur radio. Visit his main website at kd2eom.github.io.
Ethos Debate - they have a blog filled with helpful debate articles. They also offer paid debate coaching and debate summer camps if you are interested in that.
Monument Publishing - this company publishes the Red Book for LD every year. The Red Book is usually the first resource recommended to new debaters. It has information on how to debate as well as resolution-specific articles. (NOTE - the Red Book gets updated every year when the new resolution comes out. Make sure you buy the correct edition which corresponds with the resolution you will be debating!) They also publish books called Keys to Lincoln-Douglas Debate and Keys to Cross-Examination, which you may find helpful.
DFW Speech and Debate - another website which offers helpful debate products and services.
Ziggy Debate - this website coordinates online practice debate rounds between students. After you sign up, you are assigned to an opponent every week, and you debate them over Skype or an equivalent video call platform. Ziggy also assigns you a judge who fills out an online ballot with feedback.
NOTE: I am not receiving any money by recommending these companies, and I do not receive any commission if you use their services. They have not asked me to do this; I am doing it voluntarily. They don’t even know that this course exists :) I used to work with Monument Publishing, but I no longer do and again, they have not asked me to do this, and I am not receiving any compensation by recommending them.
Email: tobiasjpark73@gmail.com