Exercise to Encourage Students to Embrace Politics
Teaching the American Presidential election of 1960 using the commercial simulation “1960: Making of the President” (Z-Man Games: 2007). This is a relatively sophisticated simulation that uses familiar board-game concepts (turns, cards, mapboard, marker cubes, etc.) to examine the classic — and close — Kennedy vs. Nixon electoral contest of 1960. Politicians themselves often think like game-players — this exercise encourages students to embrace that aspect of politics. (Its worth noting that Nixon — who later “played the China card” to famous effect — was a very strong poker player who bankrolled his first political campaign with winnings from his time in the Navy during WWII.)
Issues this Best Practice Addresses:
Challenging students to better understand the complicated “horse race” of modern American presidential politics: the careful positioning to attract certain constituencies (without repelling others); the importance of advertising and newspaper endorsements (at least in the mid-20th c.); the drama and risk of television debates, etc.
Major Challenges to Implementation:
The simulation “1960” was originally designed as a two-player game. Re-purposing for classroom use meant introducing new decision-making roles besides the two presidential candidates: vice-presidential candidates, campaign managers, debate coaches, etc. Each of these additional “players” can “win” the game even if their associated presidential candidate does not (for example, the Democratic media manager might “win” as long as there are more newspaper endorsements of Kennedy than Nixon, even if Nixon wins the overall election.)
Benefits Derived from Implementing this Best Practice:
Students who are not already interested in the cut-and-thrust of campaign politics are often drawn into the simulation exercise, and gain a sense of how modern competitive elections are fought, state-by-state, issue-by-issue, with the majority winner of the electoral college getting to the White House.
Evidence Illustrating Success:
Strongly supportive student feedback and a renewed focus in the classroom.
Submitted by: Tracy Shafer, Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics and Humanities