Debate should be considered a recreational activity, rather than educational

The resolution "Debate should be considered a recreational activity, rather than educational" presents a false choice. I compared it to "Tennis should be considered recreational, not exercise." Or how about, "Polar bears should be considered fuzzy, not carnivorous"? I admit that debate is generally fun, and hence recreational. That leaves at issue whether debate is also educational, and if so whether if it ought to be considered educational as well as recreational. Pro's sole affirmative contention is that debate is fun, and hence recreational. I agree, so that leaves only the two latter points to discuss. My arguments that debate is educational are: 1. A debater must research the subject to prepare for the debate. Pro admitted that preparation for debate is educational, but only the narrow definition of "debate," meaning the actual back-and-forth interchange ought to count as "debate." Pro's argument is called a "debater's point." It is an appeal to an unreasonable fine point. I'll leave it to the readers of this debate to decide if the "activity" of debate cited in the resolution ought to be so narrowly construed. By comparison, when we consider the exercise value of sports, we always consider the training as well as the execution of a competitive event. 2. The debater will learn facts and logical arguments from his opponent in the debate. Pro argues that debaters rarely abandon their own arguments and accept their opponent's arguments. (He says that people are "ignorant," but he means to say that they are "dogmatic.") I agree that people only occasionally concede much during a debate, although I maintain that a good debater eventually learns to concede the obvious as a matter of boosting his credibility. But even if the debater refuses to formally concede a point, that doesn't mean he didn't learn something important. The next time he debates, he is less likely to make an assertion that is easily overcome by the facts or arguments he encountered in a previous debate. He learns whether he admits it or not. Pro claimed, "Because from what I've seen, is that you've done just that. You've have done your very best to argue each and every single little point to the best of your ability, not only in this debate, but with every other debate you have been in (at least on this site)." Pro's statement is clearly false. His major point in our current debate is that debate is fun and therefore recreational. I conceded that at the outset, and I pointed that out to him before he made the claim that I disputed "every single little point." 3. The debater will learn to analyze opposing arguments and to develop logical refutations. The debater is under pressure to respond to his opponent. The pressure is motivational, and motivation is critical to learning. The debater will try to remember what he knows about logical fallacies or the relevant facts and work them into a logical argument. I did not perceive Pro offering a rebuttal to this point, beyond the general observation that people are dogmatic. They are not dogmatic about their opponents arguments. 4. Educators have the expert opinion that debate is educational. I cited the number and variety of debate programs supported as educational activities in academia. Pro offered no contrary opinion from qualified educators that debate is not educational or that it ought to be considered as only recreational. 5. The audience learns from debates. While debaters either have firm opinions or are likely to posture certainty, the audience is far more likely to be open-minded. The audience will learn from the facts and logical arguments presented in the debate. Pro claimed that the people observing a debate "Except for in a judge's position, they are merely looking at the speaking skills of a debater, and seeing if they are knowledgeable on the subject." I challenged Pro to provide evidence supporting that claim, and failed to provide any." It is common sense that people watching or reading a debate are interested in the topic and will learn about it from the debate. ============ Debate is educational, but should it be "considered" only recreational? The job of schools is to provide education, not education. If the resolution is correct, then anything that is fun ought not be considered educational. That is then grounds for excluding it from curricula. So a teacher finds a way to teach an ordinarily boring subject so that it is fun, by the logic of the resolution it ought to be dropped. We would even run the danger that if a few students managed to think a subject was fun, then they would have to excluded on grounds that they were not being educated. I gave as an example the development by the U.S. Army of a PC game that teaches real combat skills. Should commercial success of the game for fun purposes invalidate its educational use? Clearly it should not. We should seek approaches that are both educational and recreational. We should not stigmatize them with a label of "recreational, not educational." In this debate I conceded every point that Pro made that I believed valid, most notably Pro's contention that debate is fun. I did not make any arguments that I did not believe to be true. I hope Pro enjoyed this debate and also learned something from it. I did. The resolution is negated.