John Hunter didn't plan on being a teacher, let alone such a great one. I think this is what may have played into his idea for the World Peace Game. For instance, I doubt that if he hadn't gone off to India to become all transcendental, that he would have been nearly as in touch with what education should be, teaching children how to solve problems in the world. After attempting traditional teaching in the first year or so, Hunter decided to try a new way of teaching. This was him challenging his students to take charge of the society on a 4 foot by 4 foot piece of plywood which he called the World Peace Game. Now that the idea has developed, the game is 4 levels of Plexiglas, ranging from the depths of the ocean for submarines all the way up to space for rockets. Hunter explains the rules, and then basically lets the kids off to rule the world... and fix the problems which they are sure to encounter. All 50 problems are just as plausible as they would be in the real world, nuclear leaks, extreme weather disasters, economic crashes, global warming, international disputes and the list goes on. Although the entire game relies on the students, Hunter includes interesting requirements within the initial assignment, one of these being writing letters to dead soldiers' parents. Every time they lose one of the play soldiers in their country they have to write a letter to that soldier's parents explaining what happened and why they are dead. The point of that is to ensure that the kids carefully contemplate before they choose to go into combat. Situations like this show the students the effect of such violent action in the world. Within the game, little miracles occur every year, like the little girl who risked an attack on another country which ultimately saved the rest of the world from being taken over. Or the class who pooled all its' money together to help the poorest country win the game with less than 5 seconds left. Proof that spontaneous compassion exists and happens all the time in very unlikely situations. As someone who also shares a belief in miracles and hope for the future, I can only hope that these children take the skills they learned in that class to ensure miracles exist in the real world when we really need them. John Hunter brings up the idea that students need the chance to be human, which involves real-life consequences and rewards for how they decide to run their country as opposed to simply being graded for their ability to put facts onto a piece of paper. I really think that if history and social studies classes adopted this idea to put into their lesson plans it would engage students in a completely different and really impact teenagers' decisions and how they deal with their everyday issues. Hunter ended his talk by saying, "I can only hope that my students picked up critical thinking tools from this, if only they did and then they can save us all." I think that if most gifted programs begin using his example, a peaceful future could be within reach.
Within Hunter's talk I noticed that he used less physical cues to get his message out. Instead, he weaved a story out of his idea to keep the audience attached. He brought in many concepts that Pink has written about, obviously story, but empathy, play, and meaning also. He also comes off as more humbled than most, this leads him to come off more soft-spoken, but really his words had just as much meaning in them. Throughout he didn't move much at all, unless he was mimicking people he was describing. He smiled quite often and used personal pictures as background. He also brought in students' commentary and opinions of his game which helped give insight into what it's like for those involved. Over all, I really enjoyed John Hunter's talk and what he is trying to do with his teaching style is one faucet which will lead to fixing the world's problems in the future.
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