War or Peace?

I was walking with the dog crew at the park tonight and I explained what we did in class this week. I was telling them about the simulation (War or Peace?) that Mr. Emerson and I ran with the U. S. History classes this week.

The students were broken up into 7 nations of different strengths and had to develop foreign policies for the impending war between Nurovia and Atweena. There was some backstabbing, a bit of treachery, and a smattering of honest negotiations. The simulation continues until there is only one nation standing, or until all nations declare "peace." What the students don't realize is that we will be able to draw on the lessons from this throughout our entire study of WWI.

Everyone said that their history classes in high school were never like this. That put a huge smile on my face. So many people have had boring history classes and they end up taking very little away from them. I always aim to be memorable and I am sure that I fail at that goal often. This week, Neil and I succeeded. How do I know? We had students from previous years ask to come back and participate, we had students talking about what they did in class outside of class, and I saw it in the students eyes.

I know that they will retain more about WWI because of War or Peace? and the lessons from history are so important to understand so we can stop making the same mistakes.


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Location:Hubbard Park, Montpelier, VT