Tuesday, June 25, 2013

World Peace Game

The game that John Hunter invented sounds extremely interesting for adults, much less 4th grade children.  What a fantastic idea to allow children to explore situations in the world through a game.

Children pay much closer attention to current events than adults give them credit for.  John Hunter developed a game for children in his class called the World Peace Game.  This game involves many scenarios that happen in the world today, and he has his students work out these problems in his class.  I imagine this to be a very complex version of Risk.  There are armies and oil fields, governments and religious groups all operating and making decisions at the same time. 

This idea of giving children a complex situation and asking them to solve these problems themselves is great.  It requires critical thinking and problem solving skills.  It makes them think of cause and effect, and how one decision will impact many others.  They are learning even more about the reports they hear on the news and it makes them think of how this issue may have happened. 

John Hunter is a teacher of gifted children.  I don't see how teachers other than gifted could possibly fit this whole game into their curriculum, but I could see taking a piece from it and incorporating it into a lesson.  This game could definitely fit into the new Core Standards.  It teaches new and richer language and thought provoking ideas.  Teachers could take a couple of these world problems, break the class into small groups and have them work on a solution.  Then have the students write a paper on the experience using sources. 

This is a fantastic idea and I will definitely think about incorporating ideas from this game into my lessons in the future. 

http://www.ted.com/talks/john_hunter_on_the_world_peace_game.html



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