The Reality of Games

SimCity day three.

Today the eleven kids who played on day one got a second crack at this game. What was interesting was that many of these kids had written in their blogs about how difficult this game was proving itself to be and how they were seeing how societies had to progress slowly and carefully along set lines with certain priorities. I expected today to be a day where many of the groups restarted their games and set themselves to the task of working within the guidelines of societal development that we started with. Instead, as usual, the kids found a way to do their own thing.

Looking through their budgets, working desperately to find a way to make them balance, trying to work out a tax scheme that would keep their city alive as well as promote development, someone was wise enough to find the button allowing them to take out a loan. That was the end of careful societal development. Budgets ballooned, and kids who had started the game with 100,000 Simoleans and then worked themselves into the hole now found themselves with budgets of 500,000 to work with. To heck with balance and slow development, on with the expansionary visions!

I could have been disappointed. I could have been mad and forbid them to take out a loan. But as I wandered throughout the lab today watching the delighted faces of the kids who had found a solution to their problem, I thought about reality. The reality is that almost every Western society is based on credit, and vast loans that our governments owe to other nations. Just as our governments had, the kids found a solution to their problems; they found a way out and a way to finance the development of their societies.

We will finish playing next Tuesday, giving each group of eleven kids three periods to play. On Wednesday we begin debriefing, looking at what they have learned over this time, and putting this in some historical context. With this discovery today, the kids have broadened out this debriefing session into much more realism then I was expecting. We now have totally new topics and ideas to explore. Ideas of sustainable societal development and the credit system which I was in no way expecting to get into with them. This is the value of letting kids solve their own troubles, of having wide-open learning experiences, and of using tools such as games in the classroom.

By the way, the adventures of SimCity day one can be found here.

Comments

[Darren Kuropatwa]

Clarence,

I am absolutely facinated by your Sim City experiment.

8 years ago, when I was working in Quebec, I worked with a team of teachers, math, science, english and the technology teacher. We taught a closed grade 9 class in a programme called TOP; Technology Oriented Path. We were looking at using Sim City 3000 as a platform for teaching all four subjects. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depends on your point of view) I moved to Winnipeg just before we got a chance to implement our plan.

I wish I was a student in your class. When you blog about, in a way, I am. ;-)

[Jana Engle]

Hi Clarence-

I read about your use of Sims at the Carneval of Education. Sounds really interesting! I'm working with the German version of The Sims in my Level 1 German class. The majority of my students are familiar with the game, which helps them navigate the German version and pick up some great vocabulary along the way. I also have SimCity Deutschland, which my Level 3 German students are addicted to.
Anyway, how are you using the classroom blog with this? Is it working well? I'm considering converting some of my journal activities to a blog- could I have a look at what your students have done?

[Robert]

I've introduced my son (in 2nd grade) to
SimCity at home. He became very intent
on growing his city as large as possible
(in population), and reacted with dismay
whenever a neighboring city overtook his.

Not very sophisticated about the finer points
of urban design, but he seized on the goal of building an arcology early on. That, and lots of schools and libraries.

Thanks for sharing your experience - it shows there are many places to explore with this learning tool.