Is anybody familiar with the simulation game featured in the documentary World Peace and Other 4th Grade Achievements?

Asked by LostInParadise (32216

) June 24th, 2012

I just learned about this from a TED talk. Here is a shorter version, which is a trailer for the documentary. If both of these are too long for you, here is a brief summary. John Hunter is a fourth grade teacher, who has created a simulation game for relations between nations. The object is for all countries to come out ahead, which apparently the students are able to consistently achieve by the end of the school term.

It all seems impressive, but it also seems a little too good to be true. Pardon my skepticism. I would really like more details about the simulation game. I visited the Web site associated with the program, but there were no details.

Here are some of the things I would like to know.
What are the basic rules of the game and how complicated is it?

John Hunter has been using this simulation game for 30 years. Is it being used in any other schools?

Does the game encourage development of language and mathematical skills?

Can the game be extended to simulations from other periods in history?

I might be mistaken, but I believe that the class is for gifted students. If so, can the game be played by classes of ordinary students?

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1 Answer

This is interesting and I’m certain it could serve as a valuable aid to teaching a whole slew of subjects.

“The object is for all countries to come out ahead.” If that’s really the case, then the game seems flawed to me from the outset and it would naturally drive the players to cooperative and altruistic behavior. In real life, leaders of truly independent nation states get little to no credit for improving conditions in countries other than their own.

Are students really free to realistically role play dictatorial regimes? Coming at it like these students, if it’s called the “World Peace Game”, I’m not sure my efforts would be appreciated by the teacher if I embarked on regional or world conquest and wholesale internal repression of dissent, even if such would be the logical outcome of my government’s ideological makeup. And leaving out such countries would seem to make world peace much easier to achieve.

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