Simulations
American Politics
As part of the American Politics class, we simulate the American Revolutionary War using the game Liberty or Death by GMT Games. This game treats the war as an insurrection against the British Empire, but also shows the students how complicated it really was. Teams of students play four different "factions" in the Colonists, the British, the French, and the Native Americans.
The purpose of simulating this conflict is to bring something that happened almost 300 years ago into the front of the students' minds, opposed to simply referring to the idea of independence as an abstract concept.
You can find more information about Liberty or Death here or here.
For a future class
In the future, I would like to teach a class on insurrection, insurgency and counter-insurgency. In the past, I have taught a class on counterinsurgency and would like to teach that class again. If I am able to offer that class again, I will use a game called Labyrinth by GMT Games to simulate the current struggle against terrorism.
This game simulates the struggle through event cards that in and of themselves are able to tell the history of the fighting, politics, and international relations.
Both of the "games" I mentioned were wonderfully translated into Korean (rules, cards, etc.) and thus will be much easier to implement in a class of Korean students. Those are only two of the games I currently have. I have a number of games that would serve as wonderful simulations and teaching tools in classes if I were given a chance to use them. Below you can find a sample of the games I currently own. If you navigate to my BGG page (by clicking "Philosoph's), you can see my full collection. Many of my games simulate either actual conflicts, or hypothetical conflicts based on historical events. They all can be a learning experience in one way or another and I appreciate learning about various conflicts from many different time periods.