Wargaming in the classroom - interesting!

[Hobgoblin]

http://warontherocks.com/2016/04/wargaming-in-the-classroom-an-odyssey/

[eilif]

Absolutely Facinating!
I've read a number of reports of folks starting after-hours wargaming clubs in schools but not much about actually incorporating it into the classroom and nothing at all with actual military professionals as students.

[FramFramson]

Wargaming by military cadets is as old as wargaming itself - in fact that was the original purpose, before it was developed as a hobby. As far as I know this sort of thing has always been going on, though it's typically with plain counters or old-style paper markers (like "XXX Corps") rather than with lovingly painted hussars or space marines.

More personally, I've often run into military folks in wargaming groups I've been part of in the past.

[warlord frod]

Yep nothing really new here. When I was teaching Jr and Sr High history classes I used toy solder games to teach the American Revolution, The American Civil war and WW II. The Jr General web site is run by a history teacher who has used paper solders and Toy soldiers to teach even more periods.

Like Fram I have run into a good number of active military gamer's over the years who have talked about using games in training.

[Brummie]

The underlying point of the article was true though.

A lot of wargaming has been left out of education for all sorts of nonsense reasons (mostly to do with human perception rather than fact) when doing War Studies at Wolverhampton, although we had one course dedicated to wargaming and many of the lecturers were into that sort of thing, the University as a whole, especially those of a particular political leaning with something to prove wanted it ousted.

Other academics believed that anything with 'gaming' in its name could not be used as an educational tool.

[Hobgoblin]

Wargaming by military cadets is as old as wargaming itself - in fact that was the original purpose, before it was developed as a hobby. As far as I know this sort of thing has always been going on, though it's typically with plain counters or old-style paper markers (like "XXX Corps") rather than with lovingly painted hussars or space marines.

Yes, I know about the history of Kriegspiel, etc. I recently read Jon Peterson's Playing at the World, which traces the origins of D&D back to Prussian military academies.

What interested me about the article was not "wargaming to teach strategy", which is as old as the hills, as you say, but "wargaming to teach history" - which is significantly different from what the Kriegspiel tradition was about.

When I read history, I was told by my tutor "stare at maps until it all starts making sense". So what struck me about this was that board-based wargames are a perfect way to get people to stare at maps until it all makes sense.

[warlord frod]

What interested me about the article was not "wargaming to teach strategy", which is as old as the hills, as you say, but "wargaming to teach history" - which is significantly different from what the Kriegspiel tradition was about.

After rereading it I see what you mean. That was the reason I used it in the classroom and it helped my students understand why battles went the way they did and what the human cost.

I also agree with Brummie that if it has been neglected it is likely for reasons of political correctness and its effects upon military educators.

[Elbows]

Good article, but one of those which makes you ponder "why did it take so long...".

People often discard games as just that: games.  Not things with which to build strategic thinking, resource management, time management, communication skills, etc.  Oddly we do it with toddlers and infants and at some point along the way we somehow think they lose their benefits.  It's a brilliant, simple, wonderful way to get people talking, engaged in the topic and very often add a more understandable visual component to a lesson.

[Skyven]

I ran an after hours wargaming and FRP group at a boarding school.

We got complaints from the board of governors (not suitable for a top ten public school!), parents association (its the devil's work, you know), several teachers and house staff (you need to have a psychology degree if you are going to do this with impressionable children).

The drama teacher complained that only he was allowed to do role play at the school. Fortunately the Head at the time was on my side.

(I did successfully use D&D dice in my probability classes and for creating nets.)

[CptJake]

We used various micro armor games at the Armor/Cav schools in the early 90s to learn tactics.   They had some neat terrain boards.   I think the rules were the brain child of one of the teaching staff, nothing complicated.   The 'ref' (one of the instructors) carried a baby food jar cleaned out with a couple of dice in it, he would shake, look at the results and implement some manner of pain upon us students to punish us for whatever dumb ass thing we did.   

We even had tactics tests using the terrain boards and mico armor, but they were not really a war game at that point.   

At the Intel School we used a couple commercial computer wargames/simulations for various lessons.   No board/table top games.

At Ft Hood there was a big Sim Center that had HUGE terrain boards, one of all of the NTC/Ft Irwin, one for Korea, and some for various other places.   Units would use micro armor, again with the staff providing the OPFOR players and refs.   You would have a guy like me 'play' a BNs recon assets.   I would have my actual RTO with me and a radio.  I would have to call in what was happening to the BN TOC which would have been set up out in a field near the Sim Center, and they in turn would give me fragos and such.   You would generally have one 'player' for each company.   The also ran full division exercies ina  asimilar manner, but there would be more automation (a computer 'game' called JANUS for example, where different 'players' ran their company unit or whatever, and reported to higher via phones/radios.  BN TOCs were set up and reported via typical tactical channels to the BDE TOC, and so on to the DIV.   TOCs would have to 'jump' (move locations) during the exercises which always complicated matters, trying to switch responsibility from the TOC to the TAC and back again never seems to go smoothly, info/data gets lost.