An adaptive and collaborative approach.
Unlike any other debate camp in the country, the RKS practices what we call the “No-Lab Curriculum.” The No-Lab Curriculum is a dynamic, collaborative, and adaptive structure that balances skills development, intellectual growth, and healthy living. Other camps are organized through the formation of the “lab” – insular classroom-style structures which are implicitly and explicitly predicated on scarcity. Scarcity of contact with instructors, exclusivity built internally to labs where some students rise to the top and get all the attention while others are left wanting, scarcity in knowledge production as labs are pitted against one another to beef up the atmosphere of anxiety and competition. At the RKS, we believe not only that students at all levels are worthy of instruction, but also that the most skilled and most talented students benefit from an adaptive and collaborative environment in which everyone matters. The success of the RKS scholars and college alumni in competitive debate is but one metric by which to measure our methods. The character of and the lifelong skills students take with them into the future is another. If debate is to be its best version of the competitive, intensive, and intellectual engaging activity that we love, then our format for education needs to reflect our values. Debate’s benefits are best realized in an environment in which faculty and instructors see themselves as educators first and coaches second. Students most benefit when all approaches to argumentation are honed and tested together. To that end, there is no distinction at the RKS between plan-based debaters and plan-less debaters. We won’t separate out debaters because we live in a dynamic and complicated world that requires engaging others, and because we fundamentally understand that every student is more competitive when they are taught to think in conversation with one another. We will teach you where you are at and in what styles you are interested. We believe that “the clash of civilizations” is a bad metric for understanding debate’s strengths and possibilities. We’re far more interested in developing curriculum that can enhance student learning and competitive success in the world we live in, not the world for whom some are still nostalgic.
At Wake Forest, we take up this challenge to produce competitively successful, whole, and holistically-minded debaters in honor of our own experiences as educators and in honor of the legacies of Ross Kennedy Smith and Maya Angelou. Ross K. Smith, for whom the RKS Wake Workshop is named, was a legendary debate coach and speaker at Wake Forest for over thirty years. As the former director of the Wake Debate program and the summer workshop, Ross instilled a belief that the debate workshop is not summer “camp” but a place where really hard work is done in the name of becoming the best debater possible. The summer debate workshop was to be a place where both people and arguments grow. Ross’ legacy lives on in the many coaches, lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, educators and other civil servants who emerged under his tutelage. Ross Kennedy Smith inspired a passion for policy debate in all its iterations. The way he lives on here is perhaps best encapsulated in the gratitude he offered to the debate community in a note titled “Thanks to our competitors,” where he said:
“Thank you competitors. Every one of you, coach and debater, who face our teams and push our teams to think harder, research deeper, get outside of our narrower confines. You pose questions to our coaching, without which questions we could not learn and improve.”
In his spirit, at the RKS students will learn how to develop argument – to critically read, think, analyze, compare and speak with one another and competitively against one another, in order to become the best in their craft.
Maya Angelou was an acclaimed poet and writer (best known for writing I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings), civil rights activist, and professor at Wake Forest University. In 2008 when discussing her role as an educator, Angelou said, “I’m not a writer who teaches. I’m a teacher who writes. But I had to work at Wake Forest to know that.” She also said, “I work very hard, and I play very hard. I’m grateful for life. And I live it – I believe life loves the liver of it. I live it.” In her spirit, at the RKS we facilitate an environment in which students can practice what they preach. An environment in which we will practice excellence in argumentation, strategy, delivery, and an environment in which concepts come to life because we strive to apply them to life.
So, at the RKS you will work on developing deep understanding of the geopolitical frames and philosophical concepts, seeing and executing the strategy through the 2NR/2AR, research, spin, and most importantly, doing the work to make yourself the best you can be in what we are here--individually and collectively--doing. May the best argument win!