Solving World Peace? (TED talk #8)

Based off of the TED talk by John Hunter on The World Peace Game

John Hunter gave an interesting and thought-provoking TED talk about how he has his students solve world peace. John Hunter, a teacher, invented a game that his students play where he puts all of the world’s problems on the table and has his fourth-graders solve them. This game is like the real world: there are countries, presidents, companies, money, and many more roles that the children assume. To win, all 50 problems must be solved, and the countries’ entire asset values must increase before the time runs out. The beauty of this game is that John Hunter allows time for his students to be creative so that they can figure problems out for themselves. Maybe if students were allowed time to have fun and play with the right side of their brain, they would become what Dan Pink is envisioning.

The main reason why John Hunter came up with this game is because he knew his generation messed up, and he wanted hid kids to have the tools to solve the problems that they created. It is very true though. All of the previous generations have created this world with global warming, political turmoil, shrining resources, hunger, and more. If schools teach kids that the world is fine, then the kids will grow up and have no idea what the statuses actually are. Schools need to bring in relevancy and criteria from today into our learning. I have had a great Social Studies teacher that I have learned more from than any other teacher. What makes her so great is not only that she teaches us all of the material in an easy to understand way, but that she connects it to the U.S. today. We don’t just talk about history; we talk about current events that are happening today. We could be talking about JFK, and then suddenly we will be talking about Obama. It all makes sense though, because she brings everything together that she teaches us into today. John Hunter is doing that with his world hunger game by having kids learn about the world today, but in doing so they also learn other skills.

Another beauty of the world peace game is that fourth-graders are the ones solving the problems. They can find out on their own what is right and what is wrong, what works and what doesn’t work because it is just a game. They can make mistakes without there being any real harm done, and then they can learn from them. It gives kids a chance to try out the real world, so that when they grow up they will already be one step ahead of people who didn’t play the game. Kids have a simple, no-complication way of looking at things, and that can be beneficial. When you get older you tend to make things more complicated than they need to be, which is why Adora Svitak’s TED talk comes to mind in this area. Adults have a lot to learn from kids, and this game proves it. Fourth-graders are very smart; they just need to be guided in the right direction. But, some of these problems are very adult-like. This game seems like it has a lot of information for kids to handle. Maybe if we start treating kids more like adults and with adult issues, they will be more literate and ready to tackle problems. However, when we do that, they lose some of that childish way of thinking. How can we have people think like a child in treating adult problems, but still have them have some of their adult assets?

In the game there is a secret saboteur that tries to undermine everything in the game. No one knows who they are, so everyone is a little more careful about who they interact with. John Hunter told a story about how there was a girl who, without warning or permission, decided to attack oil-rich ground. She had gathered her army and held the ground, allowing no one in or out. Everyone was upset with her, because they had no idea what she was doing, and this was the world peace game. A couple of days later though, it came to light that a country had military plans to dominate the entire world. Had they had access to that fuel, their plan would have succeeded. The girl was able to see the signs way before anyone else, and then started a small war to end an even bigger one. This reminded me of the movie National Treasure. In it, the main character steals the Declaration of Independence to protect it from getting stolen by someone else, who might have ruined it. He committed a crime to stop an even bigger crime from happening. He did something wrong to do something right. It is the same principle as is it good when a criminal is murdered? They were killed, but they did something bad.  Is it ok to break the law to save the law? The little girl went against what everyone else was doing, and stood up against what she knew. Sometimes you just have to follows your gut and believe you are right. A lot of the time when we are playing games such as jeopardy in class, I don’t want to answer the question because I am afraid that I will be wrong. It ends up thought that usually I am right, and then I get mad at myself because I had the right answer. It is good to have a saboteur/questioner in a group because they make everyone think more carefully and provide different perspectives to the group. In the game, if a military leader wages troops in a war, and some of them die, then the leader/student must write a letter home to the parents explaining why their son/daughter was killed. This again makes the kids think more carefully about what decisions they make, and it gives them a chance to explain their reasoning. How can kids start to think more carefully about what they say and do without having to write letter about everything?

This game uses collective wisdom. Instead of a teacher standing at the front of the class and lecturing the students, the students are able to learn from each other. I think that this works better because the students are not just learning the teacher’s viewpoints; they are learning what every other person thinks through discussion. This brings in mind Clay Shirky’s TED talk about how together we can learn from each other. This starts in the classroom.

At the end of his TED talk John Hunter tells another story about a group who was almost going to win the game. They had solved all of the problems, but one poor country had lost money (to win each country needs to gain money). With one minute left on the clock, the rest of the countries pooled together money and offered it to the poorest country. They accepted it, and won the game. John Hunter presented an interesting idea-spontaneous compassion. I wish he would have elaborated on it more, because it is very interesting. Is spontaneous compassion better than regular compassion? What are the benefits/negatives? Does it work? What even is spontaneous compassion (example?)?

I found John Hunter’s TED talk very interesting from a presentation style because he has such a different personality than what I am used to. He uses words such as beautiful and amazing, and is very passionate about what he is doing. He talks slowly so that you can understand him, and uses sly humor that is funny. He also had videos and pictures. The videos were great because they gave a glimpse at what he was really talking about. John Hunter’s culture and personality were different, which made him fun to listen to.

What matters? That we address real-world problems to children today, because then they will have ideas for how to solve them for the future!