Exercising ethical intellect A redeveloped RVE curriculum, which
if you are affected by climate change
‘It wasn’t adversarial. It was good
delves deeper into ethics and real-world
(for example, if your house ends up
training not to have to take the opposite
issues, spawned the idea, last year,
underwater)’.
perspective, but to have an honest
for students to be given the chance to
Louise Brown, Head of the Sociocultural
discussion about the issues.’
Studies Faculty, said the activity gave
‘I liked the approach of the judges. Their
students the chance to draw on various
way of thinking was deep, and their
aspects of their learning across a range of
questions made me really use my brain!’
subject areas and apply those learnings to
‘It was great to have a different lens
participate in an ‘Ethics Olympiad’ for the first time. Expressions of interests were invited from students in Years 8 and 10, which eventually led to two Year 10 teams and one Year 8 team becoming involved in the pandemic-induced online event. The Olympiad demands the same intellectual rigour as a debate but does not take the same format. Students work as a team to apply ethical theories to real-life case studies and respond to questions while building and critiquing their own and others’ arguments. St Margaret’s teams discussed such topics as ‘do we have a responsibility to know how a charity spends our donated money’; ‘at what point in a relationship do you disclose you’ve been in gaol’; ‘does the government have a responsibility to compensate you
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new situations.
[through which] to think about issues.
‘This process is an excellent example of
Now whenever I hear something [ethics
deep learning and knowledge transference,
based] on the radio I can often relate it
which is a key learning goal of our
to what we learnt and engage with it in a
academic framework.
deeper way.’
‘It also gives students the chance to engage
‘I loved learning about the ethical theories
in and understand civil discourse, and the
– Deontology and Consequentialism.
importance of showing respect to the other
The training session we had before the
team members and alternative views.’
competition was really helpful – there were
The Year 10 St Margaret’s blue team won
all these theories we’d not come across
the Silver Medal for the Queensland
before and we were then able to use them
heats and went on to compete in the
in our own presentation.’
international event.
The resounding consensus of students was
We asked the students to comment on
to continue to compete this year.
their experience:
