With a regional win, Choate Ethics Bowl takes one step closer to Nationals. Photo courtesy of Ms. Amy Foster
On Saturday, January 25, Choate’s Ethics Bowl team won first place out of the 13 teams participating in the Connecticut Regional High School Ethics Bowl at Yale University.
The Ethics Bowl team began rigorously preparing for this tournament at the start of the school year. The team initially worked with less experienced members to teach ethical frameworks and theories, outline the competition procedures, and hold general discussions of ethical cases from the official National High School Ethics Bowl (NHSEB) case set. These cases are presented to teams during regional competitions. Toward the end of fall term, the cabinet members finalized the two competing teams, the Jets and the Sharks, through an in-house tournament. In the winter term, the newly formed teams devoted an average of ten hours each week to working with specific case sets, polishing structuring and speaking skills, and undergoing practice rounds.
In an ethics bowl competition, teams are presented with cases entailing complex ethical dilemmas around which they build their arguments. Ethics Bowl differs from the traditional style of debate competition in the sense that competing teams do not have to stand on the opposite sides of the issue but rather advocate for whatever argument they believe in. Demonstration of the ability to defend the team’s stance with thoughtful reasoning and respect toward all participants determines the winning team.
At Yale, all teams participated in five rounds before the two finalists were determined through their tournament record. The Jets, formed by Will Greve ’20, Anya Miksovsky ’20, Tyler Neri ’21, Carmen O’Conner ’21 and Isabella Grau ’22, entered the finals undefeated. For the finals, the case that the team considered dealt with the ethical dilemma of donating for the reconstruction of Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral after its destruction from fire last year while overlooking the needs of people in warstruck or impoverished areas. The essence of the case challenged the members to define the value of art, history, and culture. The team argued that although these elements allow human beings to live a fulfilled life, the basic needs of humans must be addressed before rebuilding Notre Dame.
The hard work of Ethics Bowl’s members indeed paid off on the day of the tournament as they won in the end by a slim but clear margin of two votes in favor and one vote as a tie. Isabella Grau ’22, one of the newest members of the team, said, “My first experience with an Ethics Bowl was amazing. The first round I got to go [to] was most memorable, and winning the competition made my experience even more exciting.”
The journey of the Ethics Bowl team continues as it begins to prepare for a virtual competition against The Lincoln School in Rhode IslandTK. “I am looking forward to gaining more experience and improving my public speaking skills,” said Grau. The winning team of this competition will be qualified to compete in Nationals, which will be held at the University of North Carolina — Chapel Hill in April.
Ethics Bowl Vice President Tyler Neri ’21 said, “I am looking forward to the upcoming competition. It is exciting because it is a new team we have not yet faced. It is also exciting compared to other competitions because the winner of the competition will be determined in just one round, while most competitions offer a chance to recover even if we lose one round.”
Ethics Bowl is in the midst of reviewing feedback and comments from this past tournament in preparation for this pivotal competition.
