Teaching Comparative

Playing games

From Saint Mary's College, South Bend, IN.

When I read this article, I was reminded of persuading high school sophomores to assume complex roles while "playing a game" called BafaBafa. It was a powerful learning experience for all of us. Unfortunately, its essential complexity didn't fit well with 55-minute classses and after school sessions could never involve everyone. After a couple attempts to make the simulation work, my teaching partner and I packed away the materials and maveled at the teaching potential of games. Well, educational games are coming back. Here's a New York Times article that offers some things you might want to search out.

Saving the World, One Video Game at a Time

"LAST week, in an effort to solve the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, I withdrew settlements in the Gaza Strip. But then a suicide bomber struck in Jerusalem, the P.L.O. leader called my actions 'condescending,' and the Knesset demanded a stern response. Desperate to retain control, I launched a missile strike against Hamas militants.

"I was playing Peacemaker, a video game in which players assume the role of either the Israeli prime minister or the Palestinian president... Just as in real life, actions that please one side tend to anger the other, making a resolution fiendishly tricky. You can play it over again and again until you get it right, or until the entire region explodes in violence.


“'When they hear about Peacemaker, people sometimes go, "What? A computer game about the Middle East?" ' admits Asi Burak, the Israeli-born graduate student who developed it with a team at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. 'But people get very engaged. They really try very hard to get a solution. Even after one hour or two hours, they’d come to me and say, you know, I know more about the conflict than when I’ve read newspapers for 10 years.'

"Video games have long entertained users by immersing them in fantasy worlds full of dragons or spaceships. But Peacemaker is part of a new generation: games that immerse people in the real world, full of real-time political crises... the United Nations has released Food Force, a game that helps people understand the difficulties of dispensing aid to war zones. Ivan Marovic, co-founder of Otpor (Resistance) — the Serbian youth movement widely credited with helping to oust Slobodan Milosevic -- helped produce A Force More Powerful, a game that teaches the principles of nonviolent strategy...

“'What everyone’s realizing is that games are really good at illustrating complex situations,' said Suzanne Seggerman, one of the organizers of the [Games for Change Conference in New York]... This is the central conceit behind all these efforts: that games are uniquely good at teaching people how complex systems work...

"In 2003 the Howard Dean campaign hired his company, Persuasive Games, to make a game that showed volunteers how the Iowa primary work was organized... Douglas Thomas, a professor at the Annenberg School for Communications, is developing a redistricting game in which players try to gerrymander different states..."

posted by Ken Wedding @ 9:01 AM