Have you ever been to Lithuania? It had
never occurred to me to go there. But the International Philosophy Olympiad
2014 was celebrated in the capitol city, Vilinius. So the four member American
team – two students and two teachers – traveled there to celebrate our annual
event with teams from 40 other countries. It turns out to be a gem of a city in
a country that used to be the biggest one in Europe! For the past 1,500 years
the country has been expanding and shrinking as the spoils of war seemed to
have dictated. It is currently a small country South of Poland and Latvia and
just West of Russia. Thirty-five percent of its landmass is covered in trees!
Beautiful.
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This is the opening
ceremony of the International Philosophy Olympiad 2014 in Vilnius, Lithuania on
May 15th in Town Hall. The USA Delegation is being presented to the national
delegations of 41 countries present for the essay competition. L to R are
Delegation Leader, Joseph Murphy, students Lisa Mordkovich (D-E '15) and Dan
Gottlieb (Bethpage School '14), and Frank Murphy, USA Delegation Assistant
Leader.
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The American Philosophy Olympiad – the
US regional branch of the IPO – chose two young philosophers to represent the
USA this year in the most successful essay competition in its short history.
Dan Gottlieb from Bethpage High School on Long Island, NY and Lisa Mordkovich
from Dwight-Englewood School in Englewood, NJ traveled with us in a busy
scholastic time of year in the USA to write a philosophy essay in two World
languages other than their native one; Dan in French and Lisa in Spanish.
There were four topics offered to the
international group of high school students from which they could choose to
write. Lisa, for example, wrote on some of the ethical questions regarding the definition of murder. One may
write in any one of the following languages; English, French, German or
Spanish. But the requirements of the IPO stipulate that high school students
must write their philosophical essays in a language other than the official
language of their national origin. This requirement has something to do with
questions of perspective and an attempt to try to deeply understand life lived
in a “foreign” language. It's an approximation of the other. I guess this is
like you walking a thousand miles in my shoes.
I’m going to quote
rather extensively from something Lisa has recently written about her
experience. In another post I’ll quote Dan.
“….The IPO went far beyond my expectations, for many reasons….
When I got there, I was shocked to find that everyone was very welcoming, and
very genuinely interested in each other; there wasn't any "catch".
The fact that we were all technically competing but still able to become so
close in such a short time is astounding to me. I think there should be greater
efforts to do the same by hosting events like these for various areas of
interest (especially philosophy) in our own country.
The high point of the trip for me was
getting to meet and spend time with many other students from all over the
world, especially in a city as beautiful as Vilnius.... I was asked fascinating
questions about how life is for students here (both in America and at Dwight
specifically). Getting to represent my school and my country in such a large
international exchange was the most gratifying part of the experience.
Furthermore, being able to flow into philosophical conversations with all of
these new-found friends was great because it felt very organic to me; even if
people had radically different perspectives, the quality of conversation was so
memorable because everyone who came there seemed passionate about philosophy in
general. Everyone I met there loved to question the meaning of their lives and
the world around them, so that was hugely inspirational.”
Now, you can go to the following
websites to read extensively about this year’s event as well as some of the
history of the IPO, the people, places, pictures, topics, national websites and
blogs, Wikipedia entries and all things related to the IPO.
