Yesterday, I became a debate judge. Yes, high school debate. That kinda debate. A light bulb is going off in a few people's heads, and they're right: I became a debate judge without ever having been to a day of debate class in my life. Adam, a lifelong debater and frequent judge, gave me a complete rundown of how to judge debate in basically a night, and I got up off my ass at 7:00 in the morning on Saturday to go with him to Round Rock High to spend all day judging. I passed myself off well enough, nobody questioned my experience or legitimacy (mostly thanks to Adam's teaching talents), and I made $100 judging less than 10 actual rounds of debate, although the downside was that I wasn't done until 6 at night. Still, it'll be easy money when all of my housemates and I go judge together next year.
The sad part was Round Rock High. Sweet Jesus. Upon walking in, it looked more or less like a normal public high school, until I noticed that the character-building posters adorned EVERY wall in the place. I expected a handful of the posters with "RESPECT" and "FRIENDSHIP" and "TRUST" and similar ideals to be here and there, but seriously, they were so frequent (seriously, every wall of every classroom) that I expected to see the Barney version of Big Brother suddenly appear on a giant screen facing the class. There were student-made posters everywhere. One history class I sat in for a couple hours had about 50 similar posters of Martin Luther covering the walls, all of them made with crayons and manila paper. The actual information contained on the posters mentioned, well, the word "Reformation" and that was about it. Not even "theses," "church door," or any of that stuff that we all thought everyone learned. But that wasn't the killer.
Walking down a hall with Adam between rounds, we came across a science wing of the school, where the walls were also decorated with crayon-on-manila posters, this time conmemorating the elements of the periodic table. Apparently to the chemistry students of Round Rock High, common table salt can be made with SODIUM and CLORINE. But that wasn't the killer.
The killer was judging Novice debate. For those in the debate circle, I was judging NLD. One girl in particular really baked my potato. For one round, I had a pair of black kids competing against each other, which wouldn't bear mentioning except that they were the only two I saw during the entire day anywhere, not just in my room. This girl, the product of a Texas public school and at least a freshman in high school, could barely read her own opening statement. Funny how they were debating over whether or not fund redistribution in Texas schools was a good idea.
Still, man. I knew education was in a sad state, especially considering Texas is 49th in the USA. But I honestly didn't realize that it was bad enough that kids who took the time to enter an academic competition would barely be literate in high school. It was a sad, sobering Saturday for me, but I felt much better after the Friday's run and 11 hours of sleep.