Clay --

Loved your argument here and as a strong proponent of "Simulation Education", liked many of your examples.  But children can be equally or more engaged, and perhaps learn even more, by solution-oriented, positive simulations as well, the primary one being the Model United Nations, probably the dominant simulation model worldwide.  I encourage you to look into it under International Model UN Assoc imuna.org (imuna.org) and under Model UN at the United Nations Association of US website (unausa.org). 

As I serve on the board of both these organizations and teach as well, I have longed argued that simulation/experential education is clearly a better, more intuitive, more involving and more effective way to educate for the active, global problem solver (much like John Dewey argued in "Democracy and Education" so many years before me) than all the damaging and corrosive high stakes test creating the opposite: the non-involved, learning and issue-resistant , passive consumer trying to fill emotional intelligence needs with promoted false products and addictions.
Now who would prefer that kind of education?  Oh, yeah -- but that doesn't mean we educators and parents should fall for it and lose our children and their thinking potential to it.  Or, at this point, lose our whole world since this thinking is the essence of "non-sustainability" of this planet and the people on it.

What always cheers me, is the children:  the potential is all there in all of them if we just started to engage them in the learning that involves them on all levels and really "teaches" them so they can in turn, teach us a different way forward.
I'd love to stay in touch and to see what other "Simulation" education units you gather. 
Best,
June Gorman
Educator/Educational Theorist
Education Chair, United Nations Association of the USA (UnitedNationsAssoc.)
Board Faculty Representative, International Model United Nations Assoc. (imuna.org)
Steering Committee, (UN Global Compact) K-12 Sector for Sustainability Education (K-12SustainabilityEducation)

@Cornelia, Good one - thanks for that.

@June, great comment. Funny, I have to admit to a skepticism towards M.U.N., based on observations of how it's been done in schools I've worked in for the past eight years - BUT I'll be the first to cop to ignorance here, since I've never seen it from the inside.

I'm in much fuller agreement about the problem-solving, solutions-based approach you suggest, though - but wonder if the ideal situation wouldn't combine the two: experience the hardship (simulated, and the realer the better) first, internalize those impressions in ways no book-studying can affect, and _then_ shift to the solutions-based final stage.

I think I just put my finger on the thing about M.U.N. that struck me as needing improvement: students do a lot of research about these issues, but by stopping there, stay at arm's length from experiencing even the slightest taste of how it feels to live them.

Thoughts?

I'm not sure I like the idea. I fear it might be trivializing. I mean, sure, you can play the sweatshop game for a day, but after class these are students who will go home back to their normal lives, and can distract themselves with such thoughts while they "work". And you can't hit them. You can't make them come into the sweatshop hungry, desperate, futureless, and truly afraid. As for simulating life with an STD, or life as an undocumented student, or homelessness... Well, that is probably going to be extremely uncomfortable for the students who do live under those conditions, wouldn't you think?

S.P., I agree with you about the danger of trivializing, and meant to address it in the post. The next post may persuade you it's worth doing anyway - but no doubt, planning would have to take into consideration research and strategies to keep it as real as pretend can be.

I agree with you, Clay, about a combination between the simulation (for instructional purposes) and the problem-solving, solutions-based concept (for assessment purposes). The way I see it, the instruction is great, but what will come of it? The only way to make it real and authentic is to do something WITH that simulation. Otherwise, it is at risk of becoming a "So what?" experience. The ideas you discuss in this post remind me of The Wave by Todd Strasser (pen name Morton Rhue), a novel I've used at the MS level.

@Adrienne, The thing about the Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes racism simulation featured in "A Class Divided" (and in the next post) that strikes me is that it seemed to change the students _permanently_ into more compassionate, anti-racism people.

That it was delivered to third graders may be key: impressionable enough to learn from experience, so that "So what?" doesn't enter into the picture as it would with older students (and neither would the need for assessment?).

Do you worry that assessing and/or grading for such simulations would be more likely to turn them into schooly eye-rolling experiences? I do.

I keep hearing about The Wave. I'll have to put it on my list of books I plan to read if only I still read books ;-)

@Adrienne, The thing about the Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes racism simulation featured in "A Class Divided" (and in the next post) that strikes me is that it seemed to change the students _permanently_ into more compassionate, anti-racism people.

That it was delivered to third graders may be key: impressionable enough to learn from experience, so that "So what?" doesn't enter into the picture as it would with older students (and neither would the need for assessment?).

Do you worry that assessing and/or grading for such simulations would be more likely to turn them into schooly eye-rolling experiences? I do.

I keep hearing about The Wave. I'll have to put it on my list of books I plan to read if only I still read books ;-)

@Clay - I get that, about the permanent change. I'm not suggesting otherwise. I'm thinking beyond that box, about other possible simulations a classroom teacher could do -- and let's be honest about our MS and HS students, who are not as impressionable as 3rd graders.
I am not suggesting that the simulation be assessed. I am suggesting, like you referred earlier, that the simulation be the instruction and project-based solution (post-simulation) be the assessment. 
Just playing devil's advocate, I can think of many things (history lessons in particular) that don't need simulation. Renaissance England (context for Shakespeare), for example. However, I can think of many more where it would indeed be relevant. And thinking of this again today, one day later, I am reminded of a course I took during my teacher training -- Role Drama in the classroom. The entire course was how to use role play and drama as an instructional tool. I used to do much more of that than I used to... and now I'm thinking it's time to use it again. (I used to give entire hour-long lessons acting in role, and requiring my students to do the same. Why and when did I stop doing that?) Thanks for evoking the memory to kick me into gear.

Want to do a sweatshop activity that's relevant to NCLB?

Turn your classroom into a SOL test prep sweatshop.  Have them do multiple choice exercises until their fingers fall off and berate them for not doing it right and yell at them about how they are going to make the whole school fall behind because they can't get it together.  It teaches children about sweatshops AND helps improve test scores.

Win-win, I say.

You are very right in this post about http://www.iamgoingtocollege.com/character_education/index.htm">character education. I am a teacher and I also have strong emphasis on this factor. Teachers need to be very conscious about this problem.

@Adrienne, points well-taken. I think we agree. You remind me of an impromptu simulation I did for an Asian history class. We were doing the division of Korea after WW II, which the U.S. State Dept. literally decided in 30 minutes using nothing more than a National Geographic map. So I came into the class wearing my old army uniform, bellowed "At-ten-SHUN," and berated the students who didn't snap to attention and had them do it again.

I then gave them their "mission": in groups, they were given maps and "sit-reps" (situation reports) about the Soviet troop advance into the peninsula, the indigenous political party-in-exile expecting sovereignty upon Japan's defeat, etc. - and told they had thirty minutes to assess the situation and present a plan to contain communism and protect our national interests. It's the only time I can think of where, as you suggest, I too played a role in the simulation. It was a blast, and pretty close to real-world, all things considered.

Report back if you do any interesting stuff along these lines?

@Tom, as usual, you slay me.

An effective methods solution needn't be "either/or" but instead is usually a "both/and" approach.

Read about the subject, but incorporate as many primary sources as possible.  Nothing kills the joy for learning like a textbook.

Then have a simulation or field experience.

Finally, synthesis and application:  give the students the opportunity to integrate theory with practice through creative projects that demonstrate their learning.  A few "final project" suggestions for the sweatshop idea: have them write a new bill to be sent up to Congress; write an employee bill of rights; present an argument on the proper role of authority in the work place; design work teams that serve to build both the workers and the company without being overrun by the politics:  focus on compassion and the inherent dignity of a job well done.  These are just off the top of my head; I'm sure that others have much better ideas.

The simulations can be potent teachers themselves, but are so much more effective when they are part of a bigger, engaged pictures.  If they can get up close to ideas and get messy with them--especially boys--the learning will stick.

The more I read of the above the more I realise how powerful theatre is. Often when asked what one remembers of their school career the answer has something to do with a play where there was phaps audience participation in the form of role playing, which is what all of the above is discussing. I believe anything may be enacted and through roleplaying through engaging the stomach, the heart and the mind simultaneously, that roleplay will remain engaged and need only minute and gentle pinprick of the first moment of role-paying to re-engage fully. One day I hope those three or four 'P's you speak about will invite theatre groups to visit schools at least once a semester/term to affirm what the hard-working teachers/educators are doing and help lift the quality of life for the growing child.

The more I read of the above the more I realise how powerful theatre is. Often when asked what one remembers of their school career the answer has something to do with a play where there was phaps audience participation in the form of role playing, which is what all of the above is discussing. I believe anything may be enacted and through roleplaying through engaging the stomach, the heart and the mind simultaneously, that roleplay will remain engaged and need only minute and gentle pinprick of the first moment of role-paying to re-engage fully. One day I hope those three or four 'P's you speak about will invite theatre groups to visit schools at least once a semester/term to affirm what the hard-working teachers/educators are doing and help lift the quality of life for the growing child.

Speaking of Social Justice and Equal Civil Rights for Schoolchildren, Why isn't anyone outraged that Physical (Corporal) Punishment (Paddling with wooden boards) of Schoolchildren is legal and practiced in 21 states without parental consent or notification for minor infractions with legal impunity? 

Just last week 01/09/09, my 12 year old daughter told of an incident that took at her middle school where a student (all the kids know who he is) was paddled in the hall of her 6th grade building and that he received 5 blows.  I asked her how she knew that her received 5 blows and she said she could hear it.  How's that for a healthy, safe and supportive learning environment?  Also, the teacher keeps her wooden paddle with holes drilled into it in her desk drawer and takes it out to threaten the kids with physical punishment.  The atmosphere in schools in the 21 states that still allow this type of "Punishment" of school children is of fear and intimidation, not very conducive to academic or social achievement.  Teachers who hit kids are teaching them to use physical violence assault to solve their problems.  The U.S. Dept. of Education Office For Civil Rights collects paddling statistics from schools (voluntarily, not mandatory) and publishes reports. 

U.S. Government is aware of the unequal, detrimental treatment of schoolchildren by educators and dismisses it as a "local issue."  My husband and I have been communicated with our local school board on three occasions, written letter to request they prohibit Corporal Punishment in our schools 2/08, verbal and written presentation to Board of Education 4/14/08 and written letter informing the Principal and School Board of the above mentioned incident and requesting the Abolish Corporal Punishment of Children in our Schools Immediately, update the Discipline Policy to 21st century standards and enroll at risk faculty members in training that utilizes effective non violent Discipline techniques 01/12/09.  To date, we have received NO RESPONSE to any of our attempts to communicate with our local school board.  ALL children deserve to be treated with human dignity and respect if we are ever to experience PEACE in our world.

My first husband told me of an experiment they did in school. They were randomly assigned 'jobs' with a fictitious pay scale. Thus, the students were divided into 'haves and have nots.' I don't remember how the experiment ran, exactly, but some made money on the stock market and got rich, others slaved away on minimum wage. The experiment ended when the 'poor' students staged an oprising after one strong 'poor' girl picked up a puny 'rich' boy, turned him upside down and tried to ram him into the ground head-first. Everyone got an idea of how money corrupts and how anger breeds in the lower social classes.  

I also think there should be simulation training to stop kids from picking on one another.  Bullying and teasing should NOT be tolerated.  School was torture for me as a kid because I was picked on so much.

This is just disgusting. Children in the public school ARE slaves in a sweat shop of mindless busywork, hostages for six hours a day, confined to a building, devoid of play, physical activity and the arts. Then, children are forced to be slaves for several more hours each night doing more mindless busywork! This lasts for 13 years of their lives! The best years of children's lives are wasted on producing useless output for useless grades, having their minds, bodies and wills controlled, regimented and stifled for the sole purpose of becoming obedient and productive cogs in the working world "someday". How about we "simulate" democracy and freedom by actually allowing children to live in a democracy and be free? Imagine children learning what THEY want to learn HOW they want to learn it! Imagine youth learning via the method that nature intended them to learn thorugh: PLAY! Imagine childhood actually being joyful! Imagine socialization that is actually positive and mutually benefical and not toxic and tormenting! Read anything by John Taylor Gatto, especially "Dumbing Us Down". Matt Hern, Jan Hunt, John Holt, Steven Harrison and others have paved the way for the millions of unschoolers and homeschoolers living and learning truely in freedom and joyfully- living democracy instead of having life "simulated" for them. How about we turn the buildings of confinement that we call public schools and turn them into community learning centers where people of all ages can go for support, enjoyment, inspiration and can both teach and learn (or not) whatever they wish? How can we think we are going to change this country when we are churning all young Americans through the same antiquated, failed system that they did in the 1850's when public school was first forced on the population? Public school was instituted to produce obedient factory and mine workers and soldiers- How will this oppressive, abusive system of compulsory education raise the kind of progressive, compassionate, empathic, creative, social-justice-minded individuals that we hope to raise?

Sweatshops are still producing goods in our factories sent overseas and the foreign factories that produce cheaper products which we gleefully buy.

You NEVER want this Government brandishing their FEAR-tactics to your kids! We, as adults, CAN HANDLE IT. I don't know about you all but I'M QUITE STUFFED when it comes to ingesting that cancerous Government FEAR bundled in lies.. Don't vote for it! Don't vote for it! DON'T VOTE FOR IT!!!

The curriculum in government schools no longer supports the initial intent of an educated public, but rather has been replaced with one that guarantees government support. It's as if teaching a student how to turn on and off a light using a switch is as important as teaching him how electricity works.

Instead of increasing programs that teach specific opinions, we must demand that government schools be limited to teaching basic facts upon which each student is then able to form his own opinion, rather than sputter back what has been force fed to him.

Children should not be subject to government experiments in education just because their parents can't afford private education.   That is morally repugnant.

@Elle - teaching basic facts is itself an experiment, since its a top-down choice by those in control. And the stultifyingly narrow minds such an education would produce is pretty morally repugnant too, in my book.

A bit of training in the Golden Rule - you know, that "basic fact" of moral and religious teaching common to Jesus, Buddha, Aristotle, Seneca, and countless others - doesn't seem such a repugnant thing for an American kid to learn. Especially if his/her home conditioning doesn't provide that kind of opportunity.

What happened to learning reading, writing and Arithmetic? Some children still can't read or write after attending Social Schools.

I taught kindergarten for many years and used to do a very effective simulation (similar to the blue eye/brown eye experiment) to give my students an experience that would help them understand why we celebrate Martin Luther King Day.  I told them that we were going to act out a story about going on a bus ride.   Chairs were arranged to serve as a bus and students were given either a green face or a purple face to wear around their necks.  A green face person was chosen to be the bus driver and two others were selected to be police officers who waited at the police station.  All of the other children were given pennies to ride on the bus.  I then laid a yardstick on the floor to mark where the back of the bus began and told them that purple people were only allowed to sit at the back of the bus.  Indignation began to show on some of those kindergarten faces at that point.  They all got on, giving their pennies to the driver.  When it came to the last person to get on (strategically chosen to be a green person), and there were no seats left, a purple person was ordered to give up her seat.  This little girl, who I named as Rosa for the "play" refused to give up her seat and the two green-faced police officers took her to jail.  Everyone got off of the bus and the bus driver counted his pennies.  Then a purple person, who I named as Martin, oganized a bus strike to protest the unfair laws.  For the next scene, the purple people acted out using alternative modes of travel (they loved that part!) and only the green people got on the bus.  When the bus driver counted his pennies at the end of that ride, the children  could see that he had gotten far less money and they completely understood the effectiveness of the strike.  The bus driver asked for the law to be changed, and then all the children rode on the bus sitting wherever they liked, and no one had to give up a seat when the bus got full.  After the simulation, the children where amazed to learn that it was based on a true story.  I then read some books about Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, and those five-year-olds had some very deep discussions about racism.  They understood the importance of Dr. King's dream and had a new appreciation for some of the rights that they had previously taken for granted, as well as for each individual's responsibility to value and support equal rights for all.  I liked this simulation because it simulated both a problem and a peaceful, effective solution.  Using the purple and green faces also created the distance of fantasy, which made it psychologically safer for young children to participate in, while still effectively getting the point across.

@Melvin,

Um, those things are still being taught. There's world enough and time for students to learn about life, too. Beware the logical fallacy of the "false disjunctive." The world's not always "either/or".

@Laurie,

I'm sympathetic to the unschooling movement (and though an early fan of Gatto, I later found him to socially conservative for my tastes, particularly about his desire to shelter children from critical thinking about their religious upbringing).

But I have one question for you: Who's going to pay for the one educated stay-at-home parent to _do_ the home-schooling in the vast majority of homes that cannot currently afford it?

Until home-schoolers can answer that, I argue we still need to care about public schools.

Character education works best when it is fully integrated into a school or classroom.  The International Character Development Program The Virtues Project has had great success with helping to change interpersonal communication in more than 90 countries over more than 15 years.  Cultivating character need not be expensive or labor intensive.  It simply requires a new set of skills and a different approach.  The U.N. and the Dalai Lama have recognized it as a global model program for people of all cultures.  It works with children very well but it can also work with adults.  For more information check out www.communitycharacter.com or  www.thevirtuesproject.com

Historical fiction is another way to reach children. There are lots of great stories being written for children and young adults which will definately get them involved. Plays, and movies that deal with these subjects can also be helpful. If the kids get enthusiatic then get them invoved in  an actual project dealing with the situation. I read about a class that raised money to buy other children out of slavery.

The best way I know to really learn lessons like these is through classic literature--or good historical fiction. You're right; textbooks aren't helping teach us history. Perhaps we should be choosing something proven over time--living books rather than  crusty old "fact" books devoid of any emotions or anything that would help answer the question, "Why do I have to learn this anyway?". Classics are very engaging--great springboards for further discussion that people will care about AND remember. Perhaps then adults will be "smarter than a fifth grader". All that TV show teaches me is that 5th graders have just studied the facts--they're fresh in their minds. Give them a few more years, and the meaningless "facts" they've once learned will also go by the wayside. With classics, the lessons are engraved into your soul.

Clay, I love this idea. If we had schools where you could do this, however, we wouldn't need it. As a parent, I'm trying to start an "embedded" charter school (within the public HS) where half the time students take real history, real geography (on maps that include Palestine), real economics, real American lit from all of the Americas. For the other half, they'd go off campus and learn farming, sewing, fixing appliances, animal husbandry, etc. All of the academic classes would raise global awareness, and the applied classes would raise donations for global charities. So students might learn to build chicken coops and someone who wants one would donate $200 to Heifer Int'l. 
We're doing this at a club level now, and asking local businesses like Newman's Organics and Netflix to match what the students donate. In this way, when you traumatize the students (harsh but necessary, imo) you can give them something constructive to do with their angst. So students could make sweatshirts and donate the proceeds to Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior - a group that takes on Disney, Wal-Mart, and others. Simply knowing how much work it is to sew something, even with the best of tools under the nicest conditions, has opened their eyes. 
But it would be great to have an actual curriculum, with crossover classes like the Chemistry of Dirt or Baking (not at the same time). A charter would also give us a way to pay 10 - 30 people in the community for the same cost as one retiring teacher. It wouldn't displace teachers but would transition gradually to a wider group that would each teach a few interested students what they know. It would also train students how to do real skills. Because they have no debts and no expenses, they're the only ones that can compete with sweatshop labor. If we can develop an alternative to the college track (other than the military or trade school-for-dummies) maybe we can raise kids who'll be an asset to our communities rather than serving the interests of corporations.

In elementary school we once spent an entire night simulating the Underground Railroad. We had to walk through the woods silently for what seemed like forever, and if we talked we got yelled at. We were "sold" as slaves, and we really learned what it was like for those people during the time of slavery. I've never remembered a lesson better than that.