Gaming as Curriculum:  Notes on "The Sheep Game"

I. Introduction "Don't Know Much about History"

	Students often lament about how history is boring and difficult, 
	consisting of the rote memorization of the names and dates of
	battles and kings.  While "War makes for rattling good history"
	(Hardy:  The Dynasts II.v) it is not merely because of the sudden
	multiplication of data to remember but because war demonstrates
	the seriousness with which two sides hold opposing views.  History
	is the process of inquiring into the past -- inquiry into the
	motives, rationale, and context which surround these names and
	dates, and then constructing a meaningful narrative about this
	data which brings explanation and understanding to current and
	future audiences.

	The difficulty which faces most teachers of history is how to get
	the students to understand the assumptions, feelings, and thoughts
	of the people they are studying, and why they did what they did. 
	This is particularly difficult with younger students.  Children
	(and many adults)  tend to learn best when they can use their
	senses, get actively involved, make guesses and assumptions and
	test them.

	There are many ways to incorporate interactive learning into a
	classroom setting, ranging from Socratic-method to 
	experimentation. Observation of children shows that "play" is
	itself a highly effective mode of learning.  Piaget calls play "a
	kind of free assimilation, without regard to spatial conditions or
	to the significance of objects" (Play, Dream, and Imitation
	1962:p.86)  It is precisely this sort of freedom to play with
	concepts which is most often lacking in history and related
	academic courses.

	History in the elementary and middle grades is usually taught as
	the study of heroes rather than events.  Describing the world
	purely as "the actions of great men" leads to the simplistic
	view that all conflict is personal, and that there are no complex
	structural tensions, just disagreements between leaders.

	This is unfortunate. "History is philosophy from examples." 
	(Dionysius of Halicarnassus -- Ars Rhetorica xi.2) 
	Children who do not learn to think about society in complex terms,
	expect that simple solutions will always be available.  The fact
	that they aren't can lead eventually to either disengagement and
	distrust or resentment and hatred.  Paradoxically, throughout
	history, adults have used a wide variety of methods to try to
	grasp the complexity of situations they find themselves in. Good
	examples of this are in drama and strategic modelling.  If play is
	an effective tool for adults, why do we not use it to help make
	history more accessible to children? This paper describes an
	attempt to do precisely this. 

II.	Background of the author

I graduated from UW-Madison in 1986 with a degree in Anthropology,
primarily doing research in Subcultural Development. My focus has
generally been on the relationship of cultural performances to ideology
and belief.  Personally, I've also been active in Historical Re-enactment,
and strategy and role-playing gaming for a number of years.  As such, I've
been very aware of the relationships and interrelationships between
and among game, culture, society, and history.

First, some definitions:  (All from American Heritage Dictionary).

Game:
	A set of rules completely specifying a competition, including the
	permissible actions of and information available to each
	participant, the probabilities with which chance events may occur,
	the criteria for termination of the competition, and the
	distribution of payoffs. 

Culture:
	The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts,
	beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and
	thought characteristic of a community or population.  

Society:
	A group of human beings broadly distinguished from other groups by
	mutual interests, participation in characteristic relationships,
	shared institutions, and a common culture. 

History:
	A narrative of events, a story, chronicle; A chronological record
	of events, as of the life or development of a people, country, or
	institution.  From Greek inquiry, or observation.

The common relationship can be expressed approximately as follows:
The society (people) have a set of beliefs (culture) which change over
time (history).  The beliefs and behaviors are patterned. A patterned set
of beliefs and behaviors can be discribed in game theory.  I'd used this
relationship in some of my resarch previously (Tucker, 1985: Street
Religion, and Tucker 1986: Role and Roll).

In the winter of 1991, the Saint Paul School District announced that it
was
organizing a summer enrichment program for inner-city students.  I decided
to see if I could put together a class on the middle ages, using a
curriculum based on techniques from living-history studies and game
theory, essentially using the analytical tools that I'd been working with
for a number of years, but in reverse -- could I engineer a performance
context in order to explain an ideology, and could I make it entertaining
and involving enough to communicate fairly complex ideas about medieval
relationships to a group of elementary-middle school students? 

III.	The Challenge "What I did on my Summer Vacation"

In spite of some design variances in my proposal from the primary intent
of the program, my proposal was accepted. (They wanted students to
participate in two different classes a day for one hour each, I quickly
realized that to make this work, it would be preferable to work with the
same group of students for two hours a day.)  I then sat down to develop a
model.  

There were several factors that went into the development:  

1)  Because of the age range involved, the model had to keep very simple 
the mathematical calculations which students needed to do themselves .
Elaborate mathematical calculations would mean that 4th graders would be
at a severe disadvantage to 6th graders.

2) It was strongly preferable that there be some concrete "manipulative" 
tokens to represent the important concepts. 

3) It seemed to me that the best way to present the main "narrative" was
to use a timeline approach, coupled with a series of thematic units
touching on various aspects of medieval life.  I therefore wanted a
scenario which would help provide continuity with the rest of the
curricular design.

The key ingredients in a game design are focus, scale, transactions and
transparency.

I decided that I would focus primarily on English history of the period.
Because this was an enrichment class, students would be somewhat
self-selecting for interest, hopefully, a number of the students would
be at least vaguely familiar with either the King Arthur and/or Robin Hood
tales.

I wanted the game to cover a fairly large swath of history, but I wanted
to have the students representing individuals. I wanted the game to be
complex enough that the results would vary over time to reflect historical
changes. Given an 8 week period and 2 hours/day I decided that defining
turns as generations (25 years per hour) would allow each student to
represent a clan/family/ lineage, portraying the leader of that group in
each generation. This also allowed for the game to represent both
interpersonal and political/economic issues. 

The core of any game are the transactions.  As noted above, classic
game theory describes a game as consisting of one or more transactions
and the rules by which the transactions occur.  An example of a simple
game is the bet.  The rules for bet are:

	Two people and an external event, and something to be given or
	recieved.  The something may be material or simply the honor or
	status of "winnning the bet" by forcasting the event correctly.

A simulation game, of course, inevitably requires several distinct sets
of transaction rules relating to different activities in the game.

Given the focus and scale factor, the transactions would center around 
the feudal and manorial relationship from the perspective of the competing
lineages. represented by the players 

There would need to be economic transactions, military transactions,
and interpersonal transactions (which might be related to, influenced by,
or derived from economic and military transactions).  There were also a
number of independent "games within the game" which might or might not
have
a direct effect on the outcome of the larger game. 


1) Economic transactions:

The economy of England throughout the medieval and renaissance periods was
dependent on agricultural goods, especially wool from sheep, but also
wheat and other foodstuffs.  The primary responsibility of any noble and
the chief source of income was therefore derived from surplus agricultural
revenue.  Agricultural production is drastically affected by war, 
especially for the losing side if fighting at home.  Later in period, an
increased amount of industrial production (making of cloth, crafts,  
international trade, and increased reliance on cash transactions and rent 
payments) led to development of a commercial class.

2) Military transactions:

The threat of the use of force is q.e.d. the only way of forcing a society
to
stay in line.  In our modern society, we have police, the national guard,
and the army who can be called on to restore order or develop authority in
case of insurrection, riot, or natural disaster.  That the military in
this country answers to a civilian authority is a function of cultural
inculcation only -- it is literally unthinkable, but not impossible that
the armed forces might stage a coup and take over.  In the middle ages,
there was no strong central government, and stability was a function of
the amount of force that could be brought to bear in a specific locale.
The technology of the middle ages made it very expensive to produce fully
equipped soldiers, so soldiers were dispersed across the countryside and
given enough resources to maintain themselves in return for a promise to
help defend the land, and to administer justice within their area.  Given
that the majority of their income came from agricultural surplus, it was
in their interest to make sure that war did not come to their desmene.

A fortification provides safety to people and (for a short time at least)
to a certain amount of livestock.  Grain does not fare as well, but is not
necessarily harmed in totality by war (battle and burning can cause total
distruction, but this may be only to some fields.

3) Interpersonal transactions:

The game would provide for students to make choices about governance (who
would get to be king, etc.), and to decide cases where the rules were
silent about various activities, or where the rules allowed them to modify
the rules.   There were a small number of absolute rules, and a somewhat
larger number of default rules which could be changed if the class wished
to do so.

4) Independent transactions:

In the context of learning about the middle ages, students would also be
given the opportunity to play actual medieval games, which might or might
not have any bearing on the general game. (students could wager on the
outcome of games, and occasionally games would be played for which the
winner would be paid in "coin of the realm.")

The process of defining the specific transactions in a simulation is a
combination of developing formula, charting, numeric fitting, developing
additional factors to bring the results into line with expectations, and
of course, a little luck and perserverence.

The luck, for me, came from an old college friend, Kim Caufield, who now
raises sheep for a living, and who had also been involved in some of my
earlier gaming projects (and role-playing campaigns I had run).  She was
able to help me develop and refine my formula for the rate of sheep
reproduction. Once that worked properly, a number of other parts came into
line (or nearly so) and it all came together.  The perserverence came from
sitting at the computer running series regressions on the rate of capital
formation and distribution so that I could make sure that the game would
produce the right environment at the right historical points.

 IV.	The Scenario "Play's the thing wherein to catch the conscience of
a King"

Finally the time came for the class to begin.  In a small attempt at
social engineering, I had arranged the desks in a horseshoe, in clusters
of three or four desks, around a large central area where a project table
was placed.  I let the students chose their own seats, and then began with
a timeline exercise (what big historical events can you name? who are some
famous people from the Middle ages?  --Robin Hood, Richard Lionheart,
Arthur, Charlemagne, the Vikings, Shakespeare, were some of the
ones they mentioned). 

Next, I gave them each six cottonballs, representing sheep, And told each
of them to make a "sheepfold" out of construction paper to attach to the
top of their desks, and to keep their sheep in.  While they were making
these, I explained that sheep were heavy, so you couldn't carry more than
one at a time, and that they were valuable so you had to keep an eye on
them.  There were bad people in the kingdom who might come and try to
remove a sheep from the sheepfold, and take it back to their own farm. If
they saw anyone doing this, they should cry out "thief" and the thief
would have to return the sheep and pay a one sheep fine.  If however, they
successfully got the sheep back to their sheepfold and then returned to 
tell the owner, "I have stolen one of your sheep", then they got off scot
free and the sheep was henceforth theirs.  I waited for everyone to finish
their sheepfold, and called them all to come up to the front of the room
to hear a story, and turned to go back to my desk to get the book...

And there was slamming of desks, cries of "thief" --"I have stolen one of
your sheep" ...  and I turned around and said to the students

"That was how Rome fell  -- many people with a little wealth, and no law
or anyone to enforce it."   I had chosen 400 as the starting point for the
game, because 407-410 was the time period in which Rome withdrew its
troops from England.
In the year 406 the Rhine River froze solid and the barbarians (Franks)
who had been living 
on the East side of the river crossed over and settled on the west side,
invading the Roman empire, and causing the Romans, in terror, to withdraw
their troops from Britain to help defend and hopefully repel the invasion
of Gaul.  This left Britain literally defenseless, 
and the barbarians (Picts, Celts, Saxons) promptly took advantage of this.

The students listened to the story, and then I had them all gather to
learn some medieval board games, and while that was going on one or two of
the students proceded to acquire a few more cottonballs, to the
consternation of the other students.

One group of desks wound up inventing a primitive form of frankpledge --
one person watches all the sheep at their 3 desks, if none are stolen the
person is paid a sheep by the other two, if any sheep are missing the
person makes up the difference from their own herd.  This quickly caught
on, and theft became somewhat less common.

In subsequent days the game slowly elaborated, introducing warfare (buy
swordsmen, who will serve until killed, but who must be paid for every
turn); merchants (who increase the value or decrease the cost of trading
materials with the game moderator).  The students elected a king in 750,
fought off an invasion in 1050, rose in rebellion against the king in 1400
(because of a plague he had brought on in 1350 -- the king at the time
thought to sneak in counterfeit cottonballs to increase his wealth, but he
chose synthetic ones instead of cotton, and was detected when in an effort
to rid the country of anthrax-infested sheep, his sheepfold was found to
contain the highest number of these sheep in the whole land.

The rebellion led to a prolonged period of conflict over who would be
king, and in the sustained effort to take over, the nobles spent a large
amount
of their wealth (which in turn enriched the merchants).  The final several
battles involved competing nobles in alliance with competing merchants,
with
the merchants bankrolling the conflict, until two of the merchants decided
to back the same faction, and the person who led it became king, though
wound
up relying on the merchants for taxes, instead of the nobility, and thus 
generally ruled in their interest instead of the nobles.  This was about
1500-1550
in the simulation.


V.	Lessons learned

It is often said that the best laid plans never survive contact with the
enemy.
It is equally true that the best designed curriculum lasts only until the 
students enter the room.  Things that I had not forseen included some
students 
who were older and younger than I had originally anticipated.  The class
wound 
up being grades 3-7. instead of 4-6.  Some of the students wound up in my
class
not because they wanted to be there but because their parents enrolled
them
(and my class was the least distasteful to them).  I also had three
brothers enroll
who fought with each other all the time. Two students left having only
signed up
for the first half, one student joined halfway through.  I hadn't really
figured out what to do if students didn't attend regularly.  Additionally,
of 
course, some of the non-game activities didn't run as well or take as much
or took
more time than I had anticipated.

Flexibility is of course the key.  Since I unveiled the rules slowly, it
was
possible to rethink things before deploying each new complexity, and
because
of the historical swath of the game it was occasionally necessary to
simply
declare "We're in the thirteenth century, things are different now"

I taught the class two more times, the summers of 1992 and 1993, and was
able
to refine the process substantially.  The second year, I added a
geographical
componenent (control of shires, some additional revenue was derived from
each shire controlled, wheat  --representing agriculture, and individual
shires
could be attacked, conquered, etc).  This part worked well, though there
was
some gender differentiation in terms of interest in the geographic vs.
inter-
personal aspects of the game -- the boys were more interested in
controlling 
shires the girls were more interested in governance -- as a result the
king 
was always actually the queen (chief consensus builder, able to motivate
the 
boys to support her -- though this did mirror some of the Fin Amor
idealist position).

This past summer, a friend of mine in St. Louis taught a class
substantially
similar (though with slightly older students) and used large parts of my 
curriculum and the game rules.  She reported difficulty in keeping some 
adolescent students interested in the game, and conversely that others got 
way too involved in it and had emotional episodes relative to intermediate
outcomes (raids, losing battles, not being in the ascendant coalition).
We had to modify
the game slightly to make it more interesting for the students.  As a
consequence, the
St. Louis game  put somewhat less emphasis on military transactions and
somewhat 
more on  interpersonal and independent transactions.

The lesson to be learned from these experiences is that curricular games
need to be tightly designed to respond to the developmental needs and
abilities 
of the specific age  range of the participants. Cognative development is a
large 
part of ability to abstract and generalize, and it is critical  to a
simulation like this 
to make sure that the rules are neither too complex nor to simple for the
participants.

Much of the underlying complexity of this game was masked by the active
presence 
of a game moderator.  The students didn't have to calculate very many
things (each merchant received a chart of what to do for their piece, in
the 
second and subsequent years, I printed out "what to do" sheets for each
role
in the game.

Conclusions:

The underlying model appeared to on the whole work quite well.  The
students
developed and enacted various medieval social relationships in the class
and 
interacted on the basis of these relationships.  At various times,
students
discussed what they should do, and were able to explain their actions in
ways that related to the medieval models (sometimes I used these as
"teachable
moments" to explain to the students that what they had just done was very
much
like what had happened in the middle ages -- a number of these things even
happened at about the right "time" relative to the original historical
model.)

The students were able to explain to others (on the playground, in the
lunchroom,
and to their parents, what it was that they were doing and why and how it
was
like the middle ages).

At the end of the class we put on a medieval festival for the rest of the
school,
and the students used the medieval hierarchy from the class to assign
tasks
and develop plans for this festival.

I had one student who attended all three years, who was enrolled at my
school
during the regular school year.  I heard from other staff that he used the
class 
experience to provide explanations of various social studies related
topics (and even 
once in a math context) to other students and his teachers, so it appears
that what he
learned from the class stuck with him.  The three brothers also attended
my school.  Their mother related the following spring that they had become
much more interested in "middle ages history" since the class, and had
read several books on it from the library.

The feedback from the students at the end of the class (the three times I
taught it and also
from the St. Louis class) was that they felt they better understood why
things in the middle ages happened the way they did.

"I never really understood why they kept rebelling against the king
before" said one fifth grader. 

"Being king is good," said another student, "but  it's not always 'fun'." 

"I wish they'd quit fighting over who gets to be king and just let us
raise our sheep in peace." 

To which another student responded, "But without the king and his knights,
who'd protect us?"

Subsequent to running the game, I've also played with the regression model
to see how easy 
it is to generate economic profiles for other countries in Europe than
England.  It appears to
work fairly well as long as the initial conditions are set correctly, and
in some cases, (notably Spain and Scandanavia) the geographical component
has to be present.