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Teaching History In Schools With Video Games

Posted by michael on from the history-written-by-the-winners dept.

Joe writes "There's a story about a Massachusetts company, Muzzy Lane Software, creating a Civ-style simulation computer game to teach history to high school and college students. 'Our view isn't that you take the right video game, stick it in a classroom and everything gets better,' Mr. McCool said. 'But with the right tools, this can significantly enhance learning.'"

30 of 364 comments (clear)

  1. Well... by Lord+Graga · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When I was younger, I had a few of such games. The math ones were super fun, but the ones about history was seriously boring. It was just pictures with some added sound, and then a quiz to "test your knowledge". That wasn't fun.

    1. Re:Well... by JeffTL · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I guess they never gave you the good stuff, then.

      You know, Oregon Trail and the like. Not just pictures, and there weren't quizzes. Just lots of history and geography...and consumer economics.

  2. Of course by caston · · Score: 5, Funny
    I learned everything I need to know about Germans by playing Wolfenstein. ;-)

    --
    Beings aspergers AND pulling chicks... I enjoy the challenge!
    1. Re:Of course by OECD · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I learned everything I need to know about Germans by playing Wolfenstein.

      That's actually a good point. These 'games' are great at imparting the creator's bias. It's one of the things I love/hate about 'God Games' (think SimCity tax policy) but it unnerves me when people talk about their educational value.

      One safeguard is, of course, open source. It won't get the bias out of the 'games', but at least you can identify it.

      (And someone mod parent 'Funny'--the winking emoticon should have been a clue.)

      --
      One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
  3. So... by xenostar · · Score: 5, Funny

    So, like, the Nazis really made zombie monsters?

  4. Carmen Sandiego? by ajiva · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Does anyone else remember playing "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?". I loved that game, and I think its probably one of the biggest reasons for my love of history and computers! I can see good high quality video games easily making people love History and Geography! As a side note there were tons of spin offs from the "Carmen Sandiego" series. There was a "Where in Time" and there was even a TV Show/Gameshow!

    1. Re:Carmen Sandiego? by IWantMoreSpamPlease · · Score: 5, Funny

      I remember the game, but I was always waiting for the (never released, sadly) sequel, "Where in Hell is Carmen Sandiego?"

      --
      So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
  5. Learned more history from books than class by Ra5pu7in · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I learned (and still remember) more about history from all the historical fiction books I've read than I ever will from history classes. If they can keep the level of gamer involvement high, this makes great sense.

    Imagine playing as Alexander the Great, Julius Cesar, Attilla the Hun, or any other historical figure trying to build an empire. That could be interesting.

    --
    I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
    1. Re:Learned more history from books than class by stanmann · · Score: 5, Interesting

      YOu know what, empires are glorious. The Roman empire had running water. The ottoman empire brought peace and prosperity to the desert, the british empire advanced trade throughout the world, the egyptians built pyramids, etc.

      empires are what drives scientific advance because at the geographical heart of the empire there is peace for scientists to study and research.

      --
      Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
    2. Re:Learned more history from books than class by orthogonal · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I learned (and still remember) more about history from all the historical fiction books I've read than I ever will from history classes.

      Funny, back when I was studying history, I made a point to avoid reading historical fiction.

      The problem is that unless the author has a really good grasp of the history in question and the ability to understand and overcome the prejudices of his own time, those modern prejudices inevitably will distort the history being related in the author's fiction.

      Or more concisely, as an English professor once put it to our class, all fiction, regardless of its setting, is about (the issues of) its own time.

      Let me make this more concrete with a thought experiment involving not history, but science fiction. You're probably not a vegan, and you probably don't consider meat-eaters to be morally flawed.

      Now imagine that, two hundred years from now, everyone is a vegan vegetarian -- and that they grew up the children and grandchildren of vegans, the result of a bloody war begun in 2161 to abolish meat eating. Imagine further that although the vegetarians did win that war, for decades after the war, the resentful losing meat-eaters did their best to surreptitiously continue meat eating, until the vegetarians responded by becoming strict vegans and changing the culture by teaching the moral wrongness of meat eating or any sort of animal exploitation in all the schools.

      So two hundred years from now, every school child is taught in elementary school the horrors of the farm and slaughterhouse, and about the valiant war that put an end to the holocausts that supplied the meat aisles of the grocery stores, and the bottom line, that meat eating was not a choice, not just an inefficient allocation of scarce resources, but a disgusting moral wrong.

      Now that school child, when he thinks about life in 2004, will find it puzzling, at best, how the vast majority of Americans of our time could go to McDonald's and casually enjoy the results of the abuse, murder, and consumption of an innocent animal. Only the thoughtful children will even get to "puzzled"; most will simply dismiss us as brutes and barbarians.

      And the historical novelist of two hundred years from now, who will himself be a confirmed vegan, will write books that, consciously or not, incorporate his moral belief that exploiting animals is wrong, and will tend to cast his sympathetic characters as vegans, or at least as holding vegan attributes, or anachronistically treating their pets as co-equal "animal companions", all out of proportion to the actual number of strict vegans in the real america of 2004.

      Just substitute "abolitionist" for "vegetarian" and "Civil Rights supporter" for vegan" in the above, and you'll have an understanding of how difficult it is to write honest historical novels about slavery and racism in America in 1804. In 1804, slavery was considered by some to be a moral wrong (just as some today are vegans), but the vast majority saw it as a political problem or even as a natural way of life endorsed by the Bible. Even of those who in 1804 were against slavery ("vegetarians"), only a very very few believed in racial equality ("vegans"); perhaps the closest they came were proposals to forcibly send ex-slaves back to Africa.

      Even those who were ardent supporters of slavery were not necessarily judged to be immoral men for it, unless they seemed to take unnecessary pleasure in being cruel to their slaves; and many slave owners were -- and are -- considered to be great mean -- among them George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

      But since the Civil War and the messy, inconclusive aftermath that was Reconstruction and the Jim Crow Era, Americans have made racism -- and by extension, slavery -- into a moral issue that transcends all others. Nowadays, nearly the worst thing you can accuse a public figure of is racism -- only sex crimes against children are more inflammatory.

      The result is that mo

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      Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
  6. Medieval Total War by kahei · · Score: 5, Insightful


    I learned a lot about European history from that game -- not just facts, but also the understanding that there used to be so much in the eastern half of Europe until the mongols and turks flattened it -- what we tend to think of as Europe now is really just the western 2/5 or so.

    Darn those turks, with their fiendishly juicy kebabs!

    --
    Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
  7. Civ by spellraiser · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... Civ-style simulation ...

    - So, Johnny, what did you learn in school today?

    - I learned that it is always good to back up your words with nuclear weapons, dad!

    --
    I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
  8. Cool! by JohnTheFisherman · · Score: 5, Funny

    -=D34tH_fruM_4B0v3=- just carved up FRANZ_FERDINAND with his green shaft....

    World History UT2004. :)

    --
    +5:offtopic,but anti-American
  9. Difficult to say... by lindsayt · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm torn on whether or not this is a good thing. As a professional historian, my immediate response is against this sort of thing - it essentializes history and is likely to remove much of the complexity from history for the students. Games also tend to be quite anachronistic, project contemporary (modern?) views, beliefs and stereotypes back across periods and events preceding these views and beliefs. Video games rarely teach people to think critically and analytically about history.

    On the other hand, I have to admit that Civilization (the original DOS game) had a lot to do with getting me fired up about history in high school. I now know (and was vaguely aware then) that the game was (and continues to be) *HORRIBLE* in terms of historical accuracy or methodology, but it *did* get me fired up about history and caused me to sign up for the advanced history classes, which led to me choosing history as a major in college. Had I not gotten so fired up about history when I was 16, perhaps I would not have pursued a PhD in it.

    So I suppose I'm on the fence - games such as Civ and Age of Empires mislead people into some horribly skewed views of history, but since they do get people interested in becoming history students, we (professional historians) get a chance to "unlearn" the errors when they take our classes. With any luck, we can keep some of the excitement while doing so. Since college intro history spends much of its time undoing the damage of the (highly political) K-12 school-board-driven history classes anyway, it's not likely to hurt.

    --
    I did not design this game/I did not name the stakes/I just happen to like apples/And I am not afraid of snakes-AniD
    1. Re:Difficult to say... by Strange+Ranger · · Score: 4, Interesting

      > Video games rarely teach people to think critically and analytically about history.

      I want to make concise valid points here w/o being trollish.. please bear with me...

      It can be argued just as successfully (maybe more so) that history classes do not teach you to think critically and analytically about history.

      A few examples: My history classes taught me that Johnny Appleseed was a hero who spread food to the pioneers. In actuality he was their only provider of alcohol. He died in rags but he was filthy rich due to all the real estate claims he owned. He didn't care a bit about wealth and his apples were 99.9% inedible as food. He cared about exploring and getting people drunk. We never learned that.
      We also never learned that founding fathers slept with their slaves and grew pot and would scoff at the idea of women voting.

      My history classes did me a disservice. Pilgrims did not eat Butterball turkeys. The Civil War wasn't really about slavery. On and on and on. I learned a horribly skewed version of history simply through ommision and candy coating. No computer required.

      Oh but we did memorize a litany of dates. Because that's what history is in school, memorizing dates. "Columbus sailed the Ocean blue in 1492 because he had nothin better to do" Actually he sailed the ocean blue because the king of Spain wanted to get him away from the Queen!

      If educational games can do anything to help kids understand what it was like to actually live in the past then I think that's wonderful. If it gets them to ask questions instead of memorize dates then it's a blazing success.

      This comes from the anecdotal evidence of a former B student in high school history though so take it with a modicum of salt.

      --

      Operator, give me the number for 911!
    2. Re:Difficult to say... by lindsayt · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I agree with you, which you probably noticed from my final comment about school boards controlling K-12 history curricula and about college intro history having to essentially "unteach" what's been done before they get there.

      There are exceptions of course, but grade school and high school history in America often have little to do with teaching students to think critically about history and to ask difficult questions. History for kids is one of the most politicized subjects, if not the very most. School districts and parents argue that their kids should learn the nice, happy stories they were taught, which have nice morals to them and make us better people.

      Of course, much of what you're reciting above is the same thing - essentialized stories, this time designed to refute the old stories. Any time history is about neat little stories, whether positive or negative, it's not getting anywhere. History as a field explores questions and is meant to be argumentative, not narrative. There are no neat, tidy answers that don't essentialize the problem to such an extent as to lose meaning.

      Let me give a quick (shabby) example: most grade schools teach that the Civil War was about southern slaveholders who wanted to have slaves. The North protested, and the Northerners fought a holy war to free the slaves. Separately, the traditional southern story of the War Between the States teaches that Southerners were upset that a Federal government was telling them what to do. The war was about states' rights, not slavery. The northerners forced unfair government on the South.

      Well, I could say that both of these stories are false, and I would be fairly accurate. However, it's not useful simply to say they are false. The point is, both stories have some elements of truth to them, but the problem is far more complex. Was slavery a central issue? Sure. Was States' rights a central issue? Yes. It also had a bit to do with how people interpreted the founding documents of the United States, and how they viewed the struggle that had been the American Revolution. It was tied up in the fact that the United States were expanding rapidly, and the new states had no stake in the original compromises that had brought about the Constitution. It had a lot to do with the death of an old political party (the Whigs) and the birth of a new one (the Republicans). The reality is, the war came about thanks to a whole lot of factors, and every individual involved had a different way of interpreting what it was about.

      One of the interesting questions that emerges from this is, what caused individuals to view the Civil War the way they viewed it? How could two brothers, living in the same city with the same upbringing, come to opposite conclusions about the war and fight on opposite sides? What was at stake for these people, and why did they view the struggle as something worth dying for? How were these many and varied views and opinions united into armies, and how did those in power (journalists, politicians, etc) appeal to people about the war? What does this tell us about Modernity and the emergence of print culture in the middle of the 19th Century?

      These are the types of questions that professional historians ask (though I'm a European historian, so I may be ten years out of date on what questions are hot right now on the American Civil War). These questions cannot be addressed by a video game, and they're rarely addressed by grade schools, high schools, or popular history in general.

      --
      I did not design this game/I did not name the stakes/I just happen to like apples/And I am not afraid of snakes-AniD
  10. Re:Civ would've made school more interesting by Kenja · · Score: 4, Funny

    Then your teacher could explain how that huy with the spear took out a stealth bomber. You know, just like what heppened in history.

    --

    "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
  11. I'm a bit skeptical by hal2814 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It looks to me like the game is merely setting up a historical event like "you're the British prime minister in 1938. Diplomats in Munich have reached a deal: Germany will be allowed to annex the Sudetenland if it promises that its expansion will go no further." and then you're off to do whatever you want in that context. That's not really teaching history. What if simulated Chamberlain has some balls and doesn't sign the peace treaty with Germany or simulated Hitler keeps his treaty with Russia or soembody playing Roosevelt doesn't get involved in WWII? That's not what happened. That's really no different than C&C: Red Alert.

    I just think that the amount of actual history picked up through this will be minimal to the time spent on it. Also, it might actually confuse students learning history because they might not differentiate the historical verion of what happened and the simulated version of what happened. Of course, that's just what I pick up from the article. The actual software might have already addressed these issues.

    1. Re:I'm a bit skeptical by srleffler · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You seem to be viewing history as just a collection of facts--what happened and when. Unfortunately, high school curricula tend to encourage this kind of thinking. What makes history interesting and useful however is the analysis of why things happened. Encouraging students to explore alternate possible sequences of events may help them to begin to think about history on this deeper level. Of course this depends on the software being well written, with some academic insight going into the alternate possibilities and some guidance provided to make sure the student does learn what really happened.

  12. History is... by PsiPsiStar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "History is a selective interpretation of events intended to justify those currently in power.
    Memory is the same thing on an individual scale. "

    One of my favorite quotes.

    What I'd like to see is better history simulation. Get a program that can take certain factors and use it to predict the outcome. After all, knowing math means we can predict the answers to math problems. Shouldn't knowing history mean the same thing? And isn't any school of thought's actual value as a study linked to the predictive value it creates? Or we could just be cynics and say that history is only useful for indoctrination and persuasion....

    --

    ___
    It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
    1. Re:History is... by mojotooth · · Score: 5, Funny

      Get a program that can take certain factors and use it to predict the outcome. After all, knowing math means we can predict the answers to math problems. Shouldn't knowing history mean the same thing?

      Been reading any Isaac Asimov books lately?

      --
      -- Mojo Tooth : exploring our world as only an idiot can.
  13. Re:That reminds me by Talking+Toaster · · Score: 4, Informative

    I really miss playing Oregon Trail on the apple II we had in our classroom.

    So get an emulator, that's what I did.
    It is amazing playing all the neat games I played as a kid, only now I get 16 colors instead of just 3.

    Personally I recommend AppleWin for those using evil err Windows OS. I'm sure there are emulators out there for Linux, but I've been too lazy thus far to find and install them.

    After you have an emulator all you need is a ROM for Oregon Trail and then have lots of fun contributing to the total extermination of the Buffalo, Deer, and small rodents across our great nation.

    --
    Howdy Doodly Doo!
    Anybody want some Toast?
  14. It takes a man named "Mr. McCool" by germinatoras · · Score: 4, Funny

    ..to put games in schools. Now if only their marketing guy ("Mr. McPopular") can convince the principal to buy it.

  15. Re:The Bible thumping children... by Patrik_AKA_RedX · · Score: 4, Funny
    I think they had to gather all of the animals for Noah's Ark or some shit.
    Now we know where they got their inspiration for Pokemon...
  16. "Learn the presidents" game by nizo · · Score: 4, Funny

    How about a "learn the presidents" doom-like game? As you run along happily blasting George, Lincoln, and all the other lesser-known presidents, you can learn their names as well as when they were president: "You just killed James Garfield, who was our 20th president, who served for only one year in 1881 before he was (ironically) shot to death". Bonus points for getting them in order!

    --
    I Am My Own Worst Enemy
  17. Obligatory Simpsons quote... by mopslik · · Score: 5, Funny

    Imagine playing as Alexander the Great, Julius Cesar, Attilla the Hun, or any other historical figure trying to build an empire.

    "Hello Lisa, I'm Genghis Kahn! You'll go where I go, defile what I defile, eat who I eat!"

  18. Re:That reminds me by NoData · · Score: 4, Funny

    That brings back memories for me as well...memories of giggling with glee that I found a loophole to escape to the library to play video games under the guise of "education."

    (This guy in TFA seems to get that. They don't call him Mr. McCool for nothing)

    I loved the game, but honestly, I learned nothing about the Oregon trail from except that shooting bears is easier than shoot rabbits. And little sisters get sick and die a lot.

  19. Try Europa Universalis II or Victoria by Kinniken · · Score: 4, Informative

    Both of those games are made by Paradox and are by far the most evolved historical games I've ever seen. Way beyond Civilization.
    The EU2 "Grand Campaign", which covers world history from 1419 to 1820, has something like 200 nations in it and tens of thousands of historical events firing.
    Sure, the game can quickly become anachronistic especially if you are a good player focusing on extending your empire, but it still strikes an excellent balance between simulating history and playability. I particularly like the way wars of religions are handled, and the crucial concept of national stability and of the necessity for a Casus Belly to declare war if you do not want to suffer from a drop in stability.
    Those two games are the only one I would consider for teaching historical facts (and not simply getting students interested).

    --
    What do you know about World Politic? Find out in this quiz
  20. Worked for me by fsck! · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Thanks to Medal of Honor: Frontline, I can't watch a WWII documentary without getting chills. I vividly remember storming the beach on D-Day, and fighting house to house during Operation Market Garden. These events happend over 60 years ago, but to me the were just last year. I'm presently about the same age as those that were there. I know it's lame in a way, but thanks to MoH I now have an even grater level of respect for the veterans I know. Realistic and honest depictions of war may actually prove to be educational and valuable.

  21. The interest in history must come first by q2k · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From what I've seen homeschooling our kids, an interest or curiosity about history needs to come first if a kid (or anybody) is going to learn. The rote memorization of facts many of us suffered through doesn't work. In our case, my son was hooked on "The Magic Treehouse" books, in which a couple of kids transport through time in a treehouse and end up in the middle of important historical events. That, plus video games got him very interested in history, which made the teaching / learning bit very very easy.

    It's no different than contuining education for adults. It's got to be relevant for somebody to be interested. "Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it" is not interesting to kids. Leaning more about westward expansion and what really happened with (Oregon) settlers is interesting to a kid if they have been enjoying the game (or books) already anyway.