Wargames and education

[CaptainHaddonCollider]

Hello all,
I am currently working on some alternative forms of education, and was wondering if anyone here is a teacher or part of your respective countrys educational system, and if so - do you use wargaming in your classes or extracurricular activities? How do you implement it in your work, and what systems do you find to be the best when teaching children/young people?

As for myself, I tried out a few Cold War board games that focuses on grand strategy with some students in our school history club last year, which was quite succesful and helped the students gain a better understanding of the dilemmas of nuclear warfare. Not a part of the core curriculum in Danish high schools, but if it gets people excited about history I consider my job well done.

[beefcake]

I'm a teacher, but no I don't use it in my class. I do teach coding (to a very basic degree) to children and will be getting the children to tell stories/game their learning through that.
I guess it would be interesting to get children, that are interested, to develop some sort of RPG tabletop game around whatever theme it is that your students are focusing on (thinking pre-highschool here). If we were looking at our countries history we could develop an RPG where,beforehand, the students need to study the culture and develop a better understanding of how different ethnic groups interacted with each other and viewing things from a different perspective. Then implementing this with a variety of choices. Some good, some not so good and then linking that with actual events that happened in history. The students would need to know how the cultures would react in these situations.
I'm not 100% sure about other countries education systems but we link our curriculum with key competencies, teaching children how to participate and contribute, manage themselves, thinking skills etc. I think using RPG's could lead children to think more deeply about actions and consequences in what they are learning but also to relate it to themselves.
Could be a great way to engage some children, probably not all though.

[Cubs]

A fella on another site (he may be on here as well) used a diorama and (I think) some basic wargaming to teach kids about the Roman invasion of Britain ... and possibly Norman invasion too ... my memory's a bit hazy.

I think it's a good idea if it draws kids in and helps them to understand the situations that historical figures were in, their restrictions, their goals, their decision making process and the effects (short and long term) that those decisions had.

I remember playing Kingmaker as a kid and it was the biggest help I had in understanding some of the bewildering nonsense of the War of the Roses.

[Harry Faversham]

I've always thought wargaming an invaluable tool in teaching the young precious life skills. How to lie, weasel, bully, cajole and cheat your way to ultimate victory at any cost...
is an art we seem to have lost forever these days.

[sukhe_bator]

My kids all played a Cold War game in their secondary school history lessons. They also played a Wars of the Roses game (not Kingmaker - which the teacher considered too arbitrary and randomly card based. I concurred having died on 3 occasions of plague in Shrewsbury when I played it at Uni!).
I remember a highly enjoyable game of Diplomacy in the 6th form, with cabals forming and reforming and whispered discussions and pieces of paper being passed left right and centre... It only taught me not to trust anybody however 

[fastolfrus]

Run a school club that plays a mix of games. Autumn term is usually "Empire of the Dead" (easy rules for the new intake, and allows us to keep a score-board).

But we have done a variety of historical games over the past few years

Burning the Whitehouse : http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=64708.0

Arnhem : http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=11923.0

[Vindice]

I'm a teacher. In my lessons we've refought Trafalgar, Waterloo and Hastings. Is slightly different to normal gaming and requires you to use homebrewed rules because the purpose is always to simulate something specific as a teaching point; for example, the Hastings one isn't a medieval wargame as such so much as a simulation to teach them about the relative power of a shield wall against missile, infantry and cavalry.

Outside of class time, Iron Cross has been invaluable for the smarter students in teaching them about the fluidity of modern battlefields.

[warlord frod]

I was a teacher (now retired) and I used war gaming a lot. You can find a lot of resources at http://www.juniorgeneral.org/