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.