Ethics Olympiad
The Ethics Olympiad provides students and teachers with a creative mechanism to develop skills in communication, critical thinking and respectful dialogue while exploring ethical issues.
On Wednesday 25 November, four Year 9 students spent the day problem solving and exploring ethical issues with schools from all across Victoria. The Olympiads have spent the last few weeks preparing responses to eight ethical dilemmas and thinking about all the concepts involved in these issues and some ethical structures to examine.
They then presented a response to a question based on these dilemmas and responded to questions from the other team and the judges, to develop a fuller understanding of the concepts involved. Unlike a debating model, this is more like a sophisticated discussion in a coffee shop with your friends, turning over the idea and coming to some logical conclusions.
Over the space of the day, we saw the development of sophistication in argument and strategy. Teamwork, collaboration and communication were critical to the team’s success and their ability to learn from previous rounds to develop strong ways of working. Our team was given a commendation and the team looks forward to taking part in the event again.
In the words of our team – Rosa, Tom, Anita and Angus
We learnt how to become moderate and humble in our way of presenting our philosophical ideas in a clear and concise manner, and not in a combative argument. We also learnt to explore alternative ways of thinking and we felt enlightened by our opportunity to take part, and the content we investigated was honestly really interesting. The judges provided really helpful constructive feedback and it taught us how to take a philosophical approach and look at the ethical side of things. Overall we are super grateful to have had the opportunity to take part in this competition and we learnt so much!
