It's the third week of school. My 6th grade world cultures class has just learned the continents and the concepts of latitude and longitude. We are about to move on to our first set of vocabulary words—politics, geography, economics, and resources—which cannot be easily defined. Teaching words at the beginning of the year and then having students understand the words as they are repeatedly exposed to the concepts all year long has never sat well with me. I don't like saying, "You don't really understand this definition now, and I can't possibly begin to explain it to you, but you'll get it later." On my drive to work, I puzzle over how to possibly explain politics to children who don't yet understand government or any of its accompanying issues. As I think about the physical space of my classroom, a plan emerges.
I have long laminate tables in my room that seat four students per table. As students enter my classroom, I use a dry-erase marker to divide the table space: three quarters of the table goes to one student, and the remaining quarter of table space is split among three students. Next, I ask students to scoot their chairs and belongings into their new space. The student with the majority of the table is overjoyed, while the others are incredulous. I explain that the table is a continent and the allotted space represents their individual countries. "Aw, man, this isn't fair!," I hear a student say.
I remind students that, although life isn't fair, they should also consider what their tiny piece of land might contain. I then give students 10 minutes to try to persuade the majority country to adjust its borders to give the other countries more land. I tell students this activity has only three rules:
- You must follow school rules.
- You cannot quit.
- Each person must have a place on the continent.
Outside of these rules, anything they can think of is fair game. I urge them to get creative with their thinking and strategy. Students get their own dry-erase markers and erasers, and the activity begins.
Initially, students appeal to the most basic form of negotiating, saying things like "Give it to me!" and "Come on, please!" But, as time passes, the students become more sophisticated. Jacey draws rows all over her small piece of land. "I'm growing crops," she explains. "I agreed to feed Hector's army if he would give me a little more land and have his army protect me." Monica's small country is dotted with black blobs. She erases her border to merge with John's larger country. "What are the black blobs?" I ask. "Oil," she replies, matter-of-factly. "I gave John my oil so we could become part of the same large country."
Behind us, another table erupts with activity. Bombs explode across borders and lines are drawn, erased, and redrawn as students argue boisterously. My internal schoolmarm wants to stop them. "We don't bomb people at school!" she says. But then I remember—conflict is a political reality, and it is often how borders change. If students are going to learn about the real world in my social studies classes, then I must let the bombing and arguing continue.
Next, Miguel runs up to me and asks for a blue marker. I follow him back to his table to see what he is up to. "Water!" he whispers. He draws a big blue lake covering his small piece of land and then hides the blue marker. He doesn't explain his actions to his tablemates and simply sits quietly, waiting for them to discover the motive behind his madness. As I scan the classroom, I see tables covered in symbols and animated students talking, arguing, laughing, and gesturing wildly at their spaces. To me, this approach is so much better than teaching vocabulary words and assuring students that they'll understand them later.
To close the lesson, I bring students' attention back to me and ask them to report their findings to the class. Each group details the amazingly creative ideas they employed. Students discuss how they established trading partners, mounted wars, wrote treatises, bartered supplies, and became allies. It takes me all year to teach these concepts!, I think. As students explain the political contexts that shaped their continent, I point out the real-world name for the concepts they discovered. We learn that our vocabulary terms—politics, geography, economics, and resources—organically emerged as they went through border negotiations. Students are shocked that what they did was actually a "thing" in the real world. Then, I call on Miguel's table to report out. As his peers answer, Miguel is silent. I ask the table if any of them had water for their people to drink? At that moment, students' eyes widen as they all turn to Miguel, who is smiling ear to ear. I close by emphasizing that they had all engaged in politics; everything they role-played really does happen in the real world.
There is no better way to help students understand a concept than to have them actually experience it, and teachers can accomplish this in every subject area. The key is to find a real-world analogy that uses the same thought process as what you are trying to teach. How you re-create this scenario is limited only by the confinements of your classroom. Children understand this type of play because it simulates the type of learning they have been doing for most of their lives. The kindergarten teachers have it right when they tell students to go to the imaginative play center. Why should we stop an effective method just because students are older? For students to turn their minds on to new things, they must experience new concepts through exploratory learning.