Chances are, if you\u2019re like me you\u2018ve never heard of an \u201cEthics Bowl\u201d before today. At a very basic level, it\u2019s a debate-style competition with matches in which two teams come up with their best answers to ethical dilemmas and are then scored on the quality of their answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, as opposed to a typical debate format, in an Ethics Bowl the opposing teams are tasked with making their opponents\u2019 answers better, rather than tearing down their answers. The two teams are then given a series of scores by a panel of judges and a winner is decided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On February 24 and 25, the Manitoba regionals took place with Miles Macdonell Collegiate taking first spot, beating out Kelvin High School Team \u201cSocrates\u201d in the finals. Both teams will go on to represent Manitoba in the national competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Estelle Lamoureux, a former principal of Coll\u00e8ge Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau, now retired, has been organizing the Manitoba High School Ethics Bowl for the last nine years. Originally, she brought teams from Manitoba to South Carolina to compete, but in the last few years Ethics Bowls have gained so much popularity across Canada that there is now a national competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This year will be only the second ever National Ethics Bowl held in person, with the previous two forced to be held online due to the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lamoureux says that to her the major draw of the event is the team building it fosters. \u201cIf you’re an engineer, you’re gonna be working in a team,\u201d Lamoureux said. \u201cIf you’re in a relationship, you have to listen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the emphasis Ethics Bowls put on collaboration towards thinking deeper into a subject, Lamoureux sees the roughly 1300 former participants becoming leaders in their university careers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou know what my concern is [in society]?\u201d said Lamoureux. \u201cCritical thinking. My concern is about how divisive we’ve become. People are not listening to each other and everybody thinks they\u2019re an expert.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Out of 18 teams competing, Kelvin was the only school in the competition with two teams, with its third place Team \u201cPlato” finishing in a tie with the Goose Lake High School Team from Roblin, Manitoba.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Goose Lake team was composed of students ranging from grade 9 to 11, and drove over four hours to attend the competition. All five members had never taken part in an Ethics Bowl before, and so didn\u2019t really know what to expect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHonestly, we were on the way here and we were like, \u2018oh, at least we’re trying, like if we get third last [we\u2019d be happy], or even get second to being last,\u2019\u201d recalls Goose Lake\u2019s Taeyun Kim. \u201cWe were like, as long as we don’t get dead last, it’s okay. We never imagined an opportunity like this, to be in the top four.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“What really struck our team was that we personally thought it was gonna be just all facts, facts, facts, which was what scared us.” said Roaa Yousif, a Goose Lake member. \u201cBut when we got there, we entirely acted out of compassion and as if we almost took the cases personally, with all of our responses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Goose Lake High School has around 150 students and the Ethics Bowl team says there\u2019s a lot of focus put on their sports teams. However, with this result, they\u2019re hopeful more students will become interested in similar events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI don’t think I’ve ever heard \u2018let’s support our Ethics Bowl team\u2019 [over the intercom],\u201d said Hayley Allen. \u201cBut now it’ll be something that people will think \u2018we should support that team!\u2019 And I’m not saying they’re not supporting us, people just don’t really know about it. And it’s one thing that we think that people should maybe know about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Team members also kidded that now they\u2019ve got more bragging rights. “Let’s be honest\u2026having this be shown that we did so well, it’s kind of gonna give our school a new thing,\u201d said Allen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Like we’ll go back [and] we’ll tell the Dauphin school like an hour away from us: ‘we’re smart too, you guys!\u201d said Yousif.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lamoureux hopes that the future will see even more schools from more remote locations compete in Ethics Bowls. \u201cI think that the big challenge for us is to reach out,\u201d Lamoureux said. \u201cI’d love to bring in a school from the town of Churchill, but it would cost a fortune.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you want to get involved in volunteering, contact Estelle Lamoureux at elamoureux@shaw.ca.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The national competition will take place in Winnipeg at the National Museum for Human Rights on April 28 and 29.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3283,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"blog-category":[22,23,133],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marl.mb.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog\/3291"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marl.mb.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marl.mb.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/blog"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marl.mb.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/marl.mb.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog\/3291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3462,"href":"https:\/\/marl.mb.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog\/3291\/revisions\/3462"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marl.mb.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marl.mb.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"blog-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marl.mb.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog-category?post=3291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}