By Katie Krahulik
Staff Writer

Hofstra University hosted the Seventh Annual Long Island High School Ethics Bowl on Saturday, Feb. 6. Students from 16 different high schools in the Long Island region gathered in the Multipurpose Room at 7:30 a.m. to prepare for an analytically exhilarating day.

Bethpage High School took first place and will continue on to represent Long Island in the fourth annual National High School Ethics Bowl next month at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

The Ethics Bowl is not the same as debate club, according to one of the judges, Joseph A. Murphy.

“I was afraid that Ethics Bowl was similar to debate. But it is not at all. In debates, people might attack each other personally. That’s not allowed here. In debate you’ve got to have a pro and a con; I might be a pro but I have to argue the con. That’s not the case here at all. I say what I really believe and I back it up using good arguments,” Joseph Murphy said.

Student participants are given ethical cases months in advance to efficiently discuss the topics and prepare a presentation.

Shabienska Achil, a student member of the Sacred Heart Academy team, explained that the terms of the competition are not that simple. “You’re only given about two minutes to try and formulate everything you’re saying. It’s a lot of pressure, but it’s fun,” she said.

The cases presented are pressing or controversial societal issues which students on each team must present an argument for. Their presentation is graded on a point scale based on several factors. Teams can even earn points for courtesy.

The ethics bowl is about constructive criticism, as the director of Hofstra’s philosophy department Kathleen Wallace points out.

“There are team building skills including learning how to disagree productively with other people in a constructive way rather than not,” Wallace said. “They come from all levels from ninth graders to 12th graders, so it’s definitely impressive.”

Gina Aliberti, member of the champion team from Bethpage High School, experienced the benefits of her early exposure to philosophy in a selective setting.

“We were recruited by our teacher, Wendy Way. We either took her class or met her through philosophy club. Ethics is a branch of philosophy. So, if you take her class or you participate after school in philosophy club, she will often see that some people have a lot of potential and want to go further with philosophy,”

The Ethics Bowl was founded by The Squire Family Foundation. The director, Roberta Israeloff, spoke about her mission as a foundation head.

“Our mission is to introduce more students in the K-12 classrooms to philosophy,” she said.

Student moderators, Sarah Gerwens, sophomore philosophy major, and Courtney Joyner, freshman journalism major, also shared their impression of the young participants.

“A lot of the high school students are incredibly well spoken,” Gerwens said.

Joyner also spoke of their performance. She said, “I found it interesting how engaged the high school students were in the event and how well thought out their arguments were. It was surprising to see that they were able to overcome their emotional instincts to explore all the possibilities of each issue.”