TDI Interview Series #1: Whit Jackson

For the third year, The Debate Intensive is releasing a series of interviews with its staff members. The first installment of this year’s interview series features instructor Whit Jackson.

Whit debated for the Brentwood School and is currently a freshman at Williams College. As a debater, he reached semifinals of the Tournament of Champions, won the Meadows and Stanford Invitationals, and reached finals of Berkeley and Golden Desert. As a coach, his students have earned over 25 collective bids in the 2018-2019 season.

Whit will be teaching at both the core and focus sessions of the Debate Intensive this summer. Hear what he has to say about his favorite arguments and working as an instructor at TDI below!

You taught second lab at TDI last year. What was your favorite part of lab?

I really enjoyed the opportunity to teach second lab. Almost all of the students were just on the cusp of upper-tier talent and were dedicated enough to do the work to get to that point. For most of them, their problems weren’t basic technical skills but rather introducing small changes and introducing them to higher-level concepts such that they can realize their full potential. My favorite part was definitely watching my students grow from the first day of drills at camp through the end of the camp tournament – nothing’s more rewarding than seeing your students grow and gain confidence in their own skills. The students in our lab also became very close friends throughout camp and were a hilarious group of kids (their whiteboard drawing of David was on point).

Tell us about your thoughts on this topic. What have your favorite arguments on this topic been?

I’m conflicted. The topic could definitely have been a lot worse and it’s nice to have a topic with a clear actor, a wealth of topic literature, and a clear controversy. On the other hand, there are a number of concerns I have with it. It’s definitely difficult to negate from both a strategic and prep standpoint – there are way too many countries where it’s extremely unclear how there is any reasonable basis for giving aid. The main neg generics (eg. fill-in and terror) aren’t super strong and shouldn’t win most of the time against competent affirmatives. It’s certainly a topic which requires a lot of prep on both sides and has pitfalls but I think by TOC debaters should hopefully be prepared to go in-depth on all of the prevalent affs which should provide fruitful debates.

What advice would you give to young debaters trying to improve?

Start putting in work early. Do drills (and not just speed drills), prep, watch and flow as many rounds as possible, and do practice rounds with anyone you can find to debate. It’s easy to become complacent. The most successful debaters are ones who not only are technically proficient, but also have a deeper understanding of the topic, argumentation, and debate writ large that you just can’t attain if the entirety of your preparation is showing up to a tournament with cases you got from a teammate/the wiki/briefs. There’s no real shortcut to sustainable success – but if you put in the work success will come, even if it takes a while.

What’s something you’re looking forward to about TDI this year?

I’m super excited about the new location! I’ve only heard good things about Eugene, OR and the University of Oregon’s campus.

Time for a fun one. If you could have any superpower to use in a debate round what would it be and why?

Time travel, obviously. Debate would be so much easier if you always knew what your opponent was going to read and you could redo speeches you messed up!

See our full staff list here, and sign up for camp soon to work with Whit this summer!