From left to right: Matthew Howie, Gabriel Rocha, Aydin Den Ouden, Dominic Howie, Julia Sang, Sam Rocha, Tomas Rocha, and Micah Trotter.
Dr. Sam Rocha has directed a philosophy reading group at EDST with teenagers enrolled in various distributed learning programs in BC since the 2022-2023 academic year. This past November, the group attended the Ethics Bowl Canada Friendly Tournament at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue where Rocha volunteered as a judge. On February 24, the group competed at the BC Lower Mainland Ethics Bowl Regional Tournament at Simon Fraser University, sponsored by the SFU philosophy department and coached by Rocha. Ethics Bowl competitions begin with prewritten cases distributed in advance. In each round, teams of five are allowed blank scratch paper and a writing utensil and are provided with a copy of the case with one question by the moderator. Each team leads a discussion of one case and provides a commentary of the lead discussion on the case they do not lead. Judges ask questions to the case-leading team in each round. Clear and direct responses to questions with arguments and reasons and the consideration of opposing views, along with respectful dialogue and ability to amend or revise a viewpoint, are the skills required to succeed. In their debut competition, the Distributed Learning team won their first round, lost the two rounds that followed, and rebounded with two more wins to end the day 3 and 2. The team will continue its directed readings in philosophy and looks forward to the 2024-2025 Ethics Bowl season.