Replaying history: learning world history through playing

Civilization III for approximately ten hours prior to the study in order to become familiar with concepts and issues relevant to the game.

9 This was made possible only by the smaller class size of this case. (There were only five students present).

10 Deciding how to deal with African civilizations was particularly difficult. The Bantu are a large language group extending across sub-Saharan Africa. Few historians or archeologists would argue that the Bantu are a unified group in any way, or that any of Bantu-speaking settlements were positioned to begin building cities by 4000 BC. The most logical candidate for a sub-Saharan African civilization probably would have been located in Mali or Ghana (Seed, personal communication). However, archeologists find new signs of ancient sub-Saharan African civilizations regularly, and it is theoretically possible that a Bantu-speaking civilization existed in a sub-Saharan African river valley.

11 A noteworthy exception to this pattern is world historian Pat Seed, who teaches a course at Rice University on Spanish and Portuguese Colonization as depicted through computer games. I am indebted to Pat for her intellectual guidance.

12 Although one might not be accustomed to thinking of mathematical and paper-based models as simulation systems, the abductive process of observing physical systems, building mathematical formula to account for those observations, and then testing the formula against other observations is essentially the same as computer-based modeling processes. See Peirce (1878/1986) for an excellent description of this inquiry process.

13 Food packages are combinations of foodstuffs. Diamond uses this concept to compare civilizations that continued and abandoned hunter-gathering lifestyles.

14 The text that was removed largely consisted of descriptions of failure or factual reports of students’ blow-by-blow progress in the game such as what they built or what technologies they were discovering.

15 I acknowledge that the theoretical language of activity theory, particularly the notion of contradictions, probably entered my thinking during the case studies; however,

16 The commonalities between Loewen’s (1995) critique and Andrea’s critique are striking. Loewen begins his book Lies My Teacher Told Me, “High School students hate history. When they list their favorite subjects, history invariably comes in last. Students consider history “the most irrelevant” of twenty-one academic subjects commonly taught in high school. Bor-r-ring is the adjective they commonly apply to it.” (p. 12)

17 “Do Nows” were short activities designed to activate prior knowledge or stimulate reflection, as well as to get students on task.

18 The (civilization, date) notation following a students name indicates who they are playing in the game and what year their game is in.

19 As Deborah built her cities, she used the “city view,” a little-used feature that allows the player to view his city’s houses, shops, roads, improvements, and wonders. Kathy looked on as Deborah switched views, and tried it for her city. Soon, Dan was looking at his cities, as well. Many students also enjoyed the “palace view.” The students who earned “We love the king days” reveled in this reward as well.

20 Many students were confused about Civilization III’s turn-based format. Whereas in a real-time strategy game, players click on units and the units begin moving to a new location automatically, in Civilization III, players direct units and then must wait for turns to go by before the units move. I anticipated this issue and explained the difference between real-time and turn-based gaming several times, but it took each of them at least four hours of game play before they understood the difference.

21 Kathy ordered all of her laborers to cease working and become entertainers (and had no idea that she had done so). Kathy was confused because entertainers are represented by colorful icons, and so the visual feedback suggested that turning a laborer into an entertainer was a good idea: Meanwhile, her civilization starved and went bankrupt as they entertained one another rather than producing food, gathering natural resources, or engaging in commerce.

22 Where possible, I drew on the text from the Civilization III Civilopedia for this text. However, Sandy’s initial take on the Civilopedia was that it was written above these students’ reading level, so I simplified language. I also had to add text for several civilizations that are not included in the game, including the Aborigines, Bantu, Celts, Incans, and Polynesians.

23I hoped that the questions alleviate tension by communicating that questioning assumptions about the concept of civilization is acceptable, draw in skeptical students, and give me a chance to learn more about their thoughts and attitudes toward social studies.

24 I realize that choosing the Bantu as a plausible “civilization” in 4000 BC is contentious. The Bantu are essentially a language group which originated in Western Africa and spread across Africa, mingling with other civilizations. Jared Diamond argues that sub-Saharan Africa’s environmental resources made it unlikely that agriculture, and hence “civilization” would develop among the Bantu peoples. There is some evidence of ancient African civilizations, beginning around 200 BC; however relatively little is known about ancient African civilizations. As a result, I weighted the game play against the Bantu – giving them less access to food resources and adjusting their cultural bonuses – to reflect their geographically and historically disadvantaged status.

25 He later did by colonizing Alaska in order to “replay” Steward’s Folly.

26 Restarting games is a very common practice among casual players because recovering from failed strategies can be very costly. This recursive process of trying strategies and restarting games is a common way that Civilization players learn the game system.

27 MCAS are the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System exams, a high stakes testing exam that will prevent students from graduating from high school should students fail.

28 Later, Sandy made similar observations, remarking that this unit was “one of the few things that Dwayne showed up for all term.”

29 One day after class, I sat next to Jason on the subway after school. We mapped out how to strategically build cities in North America in order to take advantage of natural resources (i.e. coal, iron, cattle grazing lands). We drew a map of North America on the back of Jason’s notebook and plotted how he could build a string of cities across the Midwest that would be as industrial production centers of various types (i.e. raw goods, irrigation, and commerce).

30 Chris rediscovered the Polynesian civilization in Brazil after conquering them a first time in Peru. I explained how the game can “restart” civilizations that have been conquered since groups of conquered people might escape to form new cities or cities might spring from groups of people coalescing into agricultural communities.

31 Dwayne ended up on an unrealistic map because he refused to play on the historical scenarios provided. In the first few weeks of class, we decided to let him play the game he wanted rather than constrain him to our scenarios.

32 “Golden Ages” are the game’s way of modeling especially productive eras in a culture’s existence. When players build a “Wonder of the World” that is aligned with their civilizations’ culture (e.g. militaristic civilizations build a militaristic wonder of the world), the civilization may enter a Golden Age that earns it bonus resources.

33 In effect, he was creating a community of nothing but research scientists without laborers or any form of leisure.

34 Chris’s boat eventually sank

35 At this point in Tony’s game, I think the students and I all felt that we were in that boat together.

36 I found fascinating the extent to which a ninth grader with an arguably weak academic background who was failing most of his classes had mastered the rhetoric of colonialism and the sophistication with which he joked about it. The fact that he not only “got” the irony but could also play with it adeptly was impressive.

37 How players interpret the appropriateness of what specific structures and institutions is included in the game and particularly what is omitted (i.e. schools) may be worth further study.

38As I describe in the methodology section, Civilization III does not deal with religion, art, or culture in a particularly sophisticated manner. Although each plays into the game in raising a civilization’s culture and affecting citizen’s happiness, these are clumsy inclusions at best. At its heart, Civilization III is a materialist-geographical representation of history.

39 A few other students are not described in the cases due to inconsistent attendance.

40 Andrea felt, and the researcher agreed that more maps would have been helpful to geographically and historically situate her game play.

41 Presentations were a standard requirement across all camp sessions.

42 Dwayne’s fascination with Japanese history continued to manifest itself in his game play and became a running joke in the class, as we chided Dwayne for not being able to even find Japan on a map.

43 From an historical point of view, Civilization III’s modeling of disease may be one of its most problematic features. The game accounts for how particular geographic regions (i.e. swamplands) generate disease, but it does not account for the role of mingling populations in its spread, such as when European colonists met Native Americans and brought them small pox.

44 At minimum, 16 x 5 x 12 x 20 = 19,200. At maximum, 16 x 25 x 12 x 20 = 96,000.

45 Following Sandy’s advise, I decided to scaffold their presentations through this outline rather than have them develop their own.

46 Interview with Laureen Scibinico and Kristen Repoza, May 2002.

47 Some of these elements were notably absent from students’ games at this point in the activity.

48 Nadya did have a few interesting misconceptions about the game. For example, she wanted to know how players “collect” gold on the screen, akin to how one would collect gold coins in Mario 64.

49 Many game critics have noted similar patterns in massively multiplayer game play, where players will go through great lengths to get special clothing or matching outfits.

50 “We have about 50% of the world’s wealth, but only 6.3% of its population. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real test in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships, which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity. We need not to deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world benefaction – unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of living standards, and democratization.”

51 This same feature could possibly be used to help more isolated civilizations.

52 Such a value judgment is beyond the scope of any one study. What to teach and how to teach are intricately tied to local instructional goals, needs, constraints, and opportunities (Reigeluth, 1999). The teachers participating in this study all valued the units with Civilization III and expressed interest in continuing with similar studies; however, such considerations would situate this study in the realm of curricular theory, a philosophical enterprise which brings with it social and political considerations beyond the scope of this study.

53 Questions (d) what are the pedagogical potentials of games (specifically Civilization III), and (e) what pedagogical models are useful for thinking about games (specifically Civilization III) in learning environments, are explored in the next chapter (Chapter VIII Implications).

54 In some respects, the interface and game play of Civilization III is simpler than that of Civilization II. Some of units and elements from Civilization II were stripped away for Civilization III in order to appeal to broader audiences.

55 Recall that, in the case of one student, the Media teachers felt the game was simply too complex for her to grasp.

56 As the collaborating teachers did not understand the game, I became the primary resource for game assistance.

57 Comparing the academic achievement of students in these two groups would be difficult. I believe that they read at similar reading levels; both groups could read most of the words in Civilization but stumbled over bigger words. Students in the YWCA class had stronger identities as students, however.

58 In addition to an understanding of how the game could help them learn world history.

59 Recall that the regular instructor of this group had warned that some of the students would refuse to participate if only to be “antagonistic.”

60Bill made a similar comment: “When barbarians took over my cities I learned how to defend myself with archers and spearmen. (It made me more involved) because I knew how to rectify the situation, make my failures a success, learn from my mistakes

61 Will Wright recalled that he was reading a lot of Jay Forrester’s work on non-linear systems as he created the simulation game Sim City and that one of his goals in designing the game was to expose a broader public to the idea of emergence and non-linear systems.

62 One example of such pairing is how explorers go out and find information, and then socializers disseminate it throughout the game playing community. Elsewhere, Eric Klopfer and I have begun mapping these kinds of dynamic relations in scientific role playing games (Klopfer & Squire, 2003).

63 I recognize that after teaching several units with similar populations of students, patterns of play will most likely emerge, reducing some of the variability of this instructional approach.

64 Or perhaps as having disorders (i.e. Attention Deficient Hyperactivity Disorder).

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