The greatest threat

Yesterday the closing talk at the Games for Change Festival was Sandra Day O’Connor. She was introduced by Bob Kerrey (now president of the New School, which hosted the festival), who quite eloquently said that ignorance of the populace is the single greatest threat to a democracy. He went on to point out that currently millions of U.S. citizens have firmly held beliefs in things that are just plain factually wrong, and they make decisions based on those mistaken ideas.

He also pointed out that the Judicial branch of government is the only one that allows individual citizens to successfully challenge laws that infringe on their rights. By appealing to the judiciary, a single citizen can successfully sue to strike down an unwisely framed law, even though that law has passed both houses of congress. He rightly pointed out that this balance of power in our government is remarkable. He talked about how brilliantly these principles were layed out by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison in The Federalist Papers, which he suggested everyone should read.

All of which was an excellent way to introduce former justice O’Connor. She walked up to the podium, a pleasant looking little white haired lady. And then she began to speak, and it was like a light went on in the room. You realized immediately you were in the presence of a remarkable and powerful intelligence. Everything she said was straighforward, down to earth, unadorned, but I was struck by the clarity of her thought and the intellectual force behind each sentence.

She began by noting the recent vitreolic attacks by some in the legislative and executive branch on what they called “activist judges”. Her response: “I always thought that an activist judge is one who got up in the morning and got to work.”

She went on to point out that the better educated are our citizens, the better equipped they will be to preserve the system of government we have. And she described a partnership she is starting with Arizona State University to create an on-line computer game or 7-9 grade kids to play, where they get to argue real legal issues against the computer and against each other.

Along the way, she pointed out that one unintended effect of the No Child Left Behind Act, which emphasizes math and science education,is that it has squeezed out civics education, because there is no longer any funding available for civics courses. And she cited some remarkable statistics, such as: Only one in ten U.S. citizens can name even one Supreme Court justice, whereas two out of three can name at least one judge on American Idol.

In answer to a question about the effectiveness of games as a vehicle for learning, she pointed out that people learn by doing. We remember concepts better through active engagement than when we just read a textook or hear a teacher in a classroom. She even outlined a series of experiments that neuroscientists might do to study how different parts of the brain are stimulated through active versus passive learning.

She summed up by saying: “I think things learned in this manner stick with us longer That’s what I think. What do you think? Do you agree?” The response in the room was wild applause.

While I was sitting there listening, I surfed on-line and downloaded a copy of The Federalist Papers. I’ve started reading them, and my eyes are popping from the specificity of Hamilton’s detailed and lucid descriptions, over two hundred years ago, of internal threats to a representative democracy posed by an overzealous executive branch, a cowed and coopted legislature, or attacks upon an independent judiciary. It feels like I am reading current events.

And so I wonder, should I just read The Federalist Papers, or should I make them into a computer game?

2 thoughts on “The greatest threat”

  1. Hi Ken,
    I’m a student of Cynthia Allen’s, I met you briefly at the ITP show a few weeks ago. Cynthia pointed me to your blog for this article. I didn’t know anything like Games For Change Festival existed. It’s a pretty fascinating thing. I’ve been thinking about a career in game design, and recently have been pondering the future of games in education and other serious fields. I’ll definitely keep checking out your blog.
    -Chris Wolf
    (cpw227@nyu.edu)

  2. Yes and Yes!
    Please read the papers and create a video game! It will probably be the only video game I will play.

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