OOOh, I forgot... image credit goes to user Mosier (one of my school's librarians, or in this case, manbrarians) who was instrumental in not only his photographic assistance, but in coming into the classroom to help with rules explanation etc on a daily basis!
Why Finland is under Russia in that picture. It must be earlier than 1917 because Finland has never been under russia after that and will never be if it it Gods will.
Yet ANOTHER picture of an average-looking-white-guy-with-a-goatee getting thumbs left and right and shooting to the top of the ranks. PIGS! You're all PIGS! Can't you get your jollies at www.nice-hot-goatee.com and leave the integrity of this classy site intact?!?
This guy has the whole Darth Maul thing going for him.
No, I am Darth Scriv, not Maul.
This year, my Sith acolyte is a Turkish exchange student. In addition to getting him hooked on Diplomacy, I introduced him to Intrigue and Battlestar Galactica. Upon his crushing the puny humans as the cylon in BSG, he came to me and said, "Mr. Scrivner, I think I just had an evilgasm!"
Why Finland is under Russia in that picture. It must be earlier than 1917 because Finland has never been under russia after that and will never be if it it Gods will.
I was quite surprised with some of the alliances that emerged in several of those games. Without knowing the "conventional wisdom" about typical areas of influence and stalemate lines, there were some unexpected results. I remember being completely boggled when I saw one game where there was a German army down in Romania helping the Russians and a lone Italian fleet in the North Sea helping out England and France.
How is Dip. educational? As a geography lesson? Just wondering how you pull off a long game like this. Do you conduct one round per day, perhaps?
Learning negotiation, the importance of building trust, bluffing/detecting bluffs, spacial awareness/puzzle solving all strike me as extremely important skills. Most of them are not easily tested on a standardized test so I am (pleasantly) surprised that he is able to sell this lesson plan to the higher-ups, but becoming a good diplomacy player probably has more direct application in "real life" than many things you learn in school.
Not to say you should forgo other things, but a couple days (or a few minutes a day) playing this in a classroom rather than learning the intricate details of the Hawley-Smoot tarriff seems like a good idea to me.
How is Dip. educational? As a geography lesson? Just wondering how you pull off a long game like this. Do you conduct one round per day, perhaps?
Learning negotiation, the importance of building trust, bluffing/detecting bluffs, spacial awareness/puzzle solving all strike me as extremely important skills. Most of them are not easily tested on a standardized test so I am (pleasantly) surprised that he is able to sell this lesson plan to the higher-ups, but becoming a good diplomacy player probably has more direct application in "real life" than many things you learn in school.
Not to say you should forgo other things, but a couple days (or a few minutes a day) playing this in a classroom rather than learning the intricate details of the Hawley-Smoot tarriff seems like a good idea to me.
Especially when Diplomacy is the culmination of a unit that begins with Sun Tzu and Machiavelli.
Cool picture and fun idea. What I don't know is how you have the time in an AP class to do this. I do not dispute the value of "diplomacy" skills in life but I do wonder how this information is carried over to the AP exam. I assume it is AP because a unit on Sun Tzu and Machiavelli is pretty high end for standard world history.
Well, it's not an AP class, nor is it history - it's Twelfth Grade Literature/Humanities. Though, I sometimes treat my kids as AP students, at least with the level of difficulty of the material I select. By and large, I find my kids meet the high expectations I set for them (and anyhow, I am also teaching them HOW to read these things, not just assigning them and assuming they can read them as I would do in an AP class.) Lets be honest, if I taught to some flaccid and meaningless standardized test, I would have stopped at "See Spot Run" and be done with it.
[As an aside, I am not sure I want to teach AP kids. At least at my school, they are Stepford Bots, or Grade Mercenaries. Tracy Flick comes to mind as well. I prefer human beings, who, despite their flaws, including a penchant for apathy, are actually looking for an environment that awakens their intellect. Plus, as you correctly point out, two weeks on something like this would be impossible in an AP class.]
But, again, these are valid concerns. Our time is short, as teachers, and we ought not waste it--it's something I agonized over when I decided to present the unit - the two weeks time it took to do this was two weeks I was giving up elsewhere. Was it worth it? I think so, though I am about halfway done grading the final assessment.
As I said, I am hacking away at the session report that will hopefully address this. It's at 8 pages right now, and only half finished. Maybe I will put it up in stages?
Good for you for putting the effort you are putting into your work. Your students are lucky to have someone that cares enough to pursue their education with passion. Keep it up.
As I said, I am hacking away at the session report that will hopefully address this. It's at 8 pages right now, and only half finished. Maybe I will put it up in stages?
Posted Wed Feb 18, 2009 4:41 pm
