a blog for organizers, coaches, participants and fans
Ethics Bowl Organizers: here’s a new judge recruitment video all but guaranteed to turn your lukewarm “Maybes” into enthusiastic “Yeses!” The secret is SuperSocrates. He’s irresistible…
Credit to Northern California HSEB co-organizer Chris Ng for the idea!
The below guest article is by Dr. Jana Mohr Lone, renowned philosophy for children expert and Executive Director for the Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization (PLATO), a longtime Ethics Bowl supporter credited with founding and running the Washington State High School Ethics Bowl and currently involved in developing the Middle School Ethics Bowl. This first of two articles is on improvements being implemented on the middle and high school levels. Her second article, which will release a week from today, is on innovations on in-class Ethics Bowls she’s been running for the past four years with students in grades 4-8.
There has been extraordinary growth in the number of Ethics Bowl events – particularly at the middle and high school levels – over the past ten years. Ever since Bob Ladenson created it over 30 years ago, the spirit of the Ethics Bowl has been one of innovation and openness to change.
The organization I lead, PLATO, has run the Washington State High School Ethics Bowl for the past thirteen years. During that time, we have developed several innovations designed to enhance the dialogical aspect of the event and to “level the playing field” (so to speak) between students and schools entering the event with what are often vast disparities in resources.
In 2015, after running the event for two years, we concluded that some of the event’s features detracted from its dialogical and inclusivity goals: the event was too structured, the structure didn’t account for significant differences in preparation time, especially between private and public schools, and the scoring was overly complex. As a result, we made the following changes to the format used by the National High School Ethics Bowl:
Some of these innovations have been adopted by the Middle School Ethics Bowls as well as a few other State High School Ethics Bowls. Following the Middle School Ethics Bowl model, we now use one case per round; both teams give presentations on that same case. A description of our rules and structure is available on the PLATO website.
Pre-college philosophy O.G. Jana Mohr Lone recently reached out to share a new Ethics Bowl Start-Up Kit created and curated by our friends at PLATO, the Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization.
Designed to empower teachers to begin hosting Ethics Bowls in their classrooms ASAP, the description concisely explains what Ethics Bowl is, the lesson plan outlines the main steps, the rules confirm expectations, the rubric and scoresheet ensure judges are aligned, and the moderator script helpfully distinguishes what should be said aloud in red from context and instructions in black. For example, “Both teams now have up to 2 minutes to confer before they will engage in an open dialogue. Give the teams two minutes to confer. If they go to two minutes, tell them that time is up.”
PLATO has so many wonderful resources, and is leading the nation in promoting Ethics Bowls on the middle and elementary school levels in the U.S. Jana’s actually PLATO’s Executive Director, teaches philosophy for the University of Washington, and in 2012 published a book on my personal bookshelf, The Philosophical Child. Thank you, Jana and team for all you’ve done and are doing, including creating and sharing the new Ethics Bowl Start-Up Kit! It’s now permanently linked here on EthicsBowl.org’s Resources page.
I’m excited to share the agenda for this Saturday’s free online Ethics Bowl workshop. There’s also a brief pre-session Friday evening, but Saturday’s the main show. The opening and closing sessions are for everyone, but attendees can choose to follow three themes in between: Ethics Bowl in the Classroom (focused on direct usage for education), Producing the Ethics Bowl (for current or aspiring organizers) or Engaging the World (for those most interested in expanding Ethics Bowl, using it as an outreach vehicle for philosophical ethics and/or a counter to the increasingly debased and violent political culture).
You can see from the details that these will be hosted by Ethics Bowl ALL-STARS. I’ll be in the Engaging the World Zooms, but whichever of these tracks speak to you, definitely take advantage – open to Bowlers on both the high school and collegiate levels, and I’m sure the organizers wouldn’t turn away Ethics Olympiad enthusiasts (same thing) or folks working on the middle school or other levels. One of the sessions is on non-Ethics Bowl variants such as Bioethics Bowl, so I’m sure Ethics Slam enthusiasts and others are welcome as well. Register for free for the Zoom links!
Session 1: 11:30 a.m. to 11:50 a.m. (I assume all these times are EST, New York)
Opening Plenary Facilitated by: Rachel Robison-Greene
The APPE IEB Chair Elect briefly welcomes participants. We will also take a quick look at our webpage to help folks new to Ethics Bowl navigate their way around it.
Session 2: 12:00 p.m. to 12:50 p.m.
Getting Started with Coaching Facilitated by: Greg Wright
In this session we will discuss the most important elements a new coach will want to know such as how to go about preparing for competitions, structuring practices, basic strategies for success, getting team consensus on positions, etc.
Session 3: 1:00 p.m. to 1:50 p.m.
Advanced Coaching Facilitated by: Jeffrey Nielsen
In this session we continue the discussion from Session 1,but with an eye towards more nuanced issues, such as advanced coaching strategies, the distribution of responsibilities in case presentation, recent trends in presentation, ensuring that students aren’t entirely focused on winning, etc.
Session 4: 2:00 p.m. to 2:50 p.m.
4A: Track 1 Session: Ethics Bowl as a Class Facilitated by: Mike Ashfield and Rachel Robison-Greene
It is increasingly common for schools to offer Ethics Bowl classes for credit. In this session, we will discuss ways of engaging in this practice. We will discuss syllabi, assignments, and common challenges associated with running Ethics Bowl as a class.
4B: Track 2 Session: Organizing Ethics Bowls Facilitated by: John Garcia
In this session we will discuss the various elements involved in organizing an ethics bowl such as recruiting and training judges and moderators, scheduling matches, planning for facilities and food, etc.
4C: Track 3 Session: Virtues of the Ethics Bowl Facilitated by: Mark Doorley, Deborah Mower, and Alex Richardson
In this session we ask our esteemed panelists to address questions such as “Why participate in Ethics Bowl?” and “What does Ethics Bowl do for our students?”
Break: 2:50 to 3:30 p.m.
Session 5: 3:30 p.m. to 4:20 p.m.
5A: Track 1 Session: Using Ethics Bowl in the Classroom Facilitated by: Jonathan Spelman and Rachel Robison-Greene
Some faculty members across the country use the Ethics Bowl as a component of their courses. For example, some might use it in a general education ethics class populated by students from a wide range of backgrounds and interest levels. This session will explore strategies one might use to implement Ethics Bowl in such a class.
5B: Track 2 Session: Getting Buy-in Facilitated by: Alan Tomhave
A successful Ethics Bowl program depends on having a lot of support. This session will focus on getting the relevant university administrators, community members, faculty members, and students to support your program.
5C: Track 3 Session: Bioethics Bowl/High School Ethics Bowl/Community Facilitated by: Richard Greene, Leo Kirby, and Jennifer Parks
In this session we hear from folks who have been involved in non-IEB Ethics Bowl and Ethics Bowl adjacent programs about how their programs work and how others can participate.
Session 6: 4:30 p.m. to 5:20 p.m.
6A: Track 1 Session: Community Engagement/Service Learning Facilitated by: Rachel Robison-Greene
There are a range of ways in which faculty across the country engage their students with their respective communities through the Ethics Bowl. In some cases, these methods can help students earn community engaged or service learning credit at their institution. This session will explore ways in which this can be done.
6B: Track 2 Session: Case Writing Facilitated by: James Day
In this session we hear from the chair of the IEB regional case writing committee about what successful case writing involves and ways that those who are interested can become involved in case writing.
6C: Track 3 Session: Ethics Bowl in Challenging Times Facilitated by: John Garcia and Richard Greene
The current political environment poses a variety of challenges for both those who compete in Ethics Bowl and those who organize ethics bowls. We will discuss some of the recent problematic issues and anticipate some worries to come.
Session 7: 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
What Did We Miss? Facilitated by: Richard Greene and Rachel Robison-Greene
Continuing a tradition dating back to the very first Ethics Bowl workshop in 2014, we’ve set aside some time for participants to generate the discussion topics. We encourage folks to consider what they would like to know about the Ethics Bowl that wasn’t discussed in the preceding sessions, and raise those topics in this one.