John Hunter interview
Do you remember your grade school days? It's a certainty you had lackluster teachers, and for some of you, they were teachers you had little trouble forgetting. Yet it's also a certainty you had that one extraordinary teacher, someone who went out of his or her way to help you learn, and more importantly, inspire your love of learning. He or she reconciled for you the common disconnect between academics and their relevancy to the world ... your world. How can you forget this teacher and the lessons taught?
You can't. How can you forget considering those early years were the years you formed your initial beliefs, the first time you were able to intellectually stand on your own instead of merely following orders. You had audacity and lacked doubt.
And, frankly, you simply don't want to forget lest you sink into the mundaneness of adulthood where for many the only light at the end of the tunnel is retirement. We were not put on this earth to fulfill our pleasures and to leave it unchanged, since we would have wasted our existence and thus failed in our calling. We are here to take action and fulfill our destiny, and such fate demands and enables each of us to go our own way and make our unique mark.
But fulfilling your fate and destiny nonetheless require a guide, someone who opens your eyes so you can discover your calling. With this thought in mind, we now introduce you, dear reader, to John Hunter, an extraordinary elementary school teacher in many ways and in at least one significant way, which you will very soon see. Mr. Hunter is the personification of how important quality instruction really is -- not to mold a student who can pass unimaginative rote exams but a student who can think for him or herself facing scary new problems. After all, you can't solve the problems of the tomorrow if you merely copy the answers of yesterday. As Sun Tzu said:
"The army achieves victories yet they do not understand how. Everyone knows the formation by which you achieved victory, yet no one knows the formations by which you were able to create victory."
After we reviewed the transcript of our interview with John Hunter, we quickly realized that the telling of his personal and professional story as introduction is best told by the very person who has lived it. However, what we will tell you before we begin our interview is that Socrates lives on today and he teaches world peace -- "The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance" -- in Virginia.
Sonshi.com: By way of introduction, what is your background and how did you decide on becoming a teacher?
Hunter: I was born into a black, middle-class family in Richmond Virginia in the mid-1950s. My father was a mechanic with a genius for invention and spatial thinking. My mother was an elementary school teacher and I even found myself as her student in the 4th grade in our small, segregated, southern school system.
My younger brother Malcolm and I were the focus of a very close and active family life. As a family we were involved in scouting, motorcycles, boating, all sorts of interests. I became an Eagle Scout at the age of 12, rather young for the time, and a member of the quasi-mystical Order of the Arrow Brotherhood in scouting. These experiences out in nature, sleeping under the stars, engaging in "service" projects to the land, to elderly shut-ins, to animals, thoroughly imbued us with the ideas of our connection with nature, and of service to the world that would continue throughout our lives. And the idea propounded by my dad that things aren't always as they seem, made the world a bigger, wonderful and more exciting place, for my brother and I, despite the political and social unrest all around at the time.
Our range seemed limitless because of the naturalness and gentle ease of our parents. At that time in the American south, things were actually anything but limitless for little black boys. One day our small community reached a turning point. I was in my 7th grade classroom near the end of the term, late May 1967 I think it was, when I and several of my classmates were sent for by the Principal. In our school, in our culture at that time, children were most often seen and not heard. Being called upon by an adult official ("a trip to the principal's office.") was not something we would look forward to. Well this time, the principal took us from his office to a small room off the school's tiny library. It was a hot day and the room I remember, felt very stuffy, very tight. We thought that we must be in very serious trouble, though puzzlingly, the seven of us were always in the goody-two-shoes crowd. We sat in dread for a few moments until finally, unexpectedly, the superintendent over all the black schools, an imposing, majestic, immaculately groomed woman in white gloves and a string of pearls solemnly entered the room as the principal closed the door delicately behind her. Now, we knew we were in unimaginably terrible trouble!
The superintendent, a rarely seen, seemingly magical higher-up in our black community, a true aristocrat who only appeared at formal occasions would never simply arrive at a school without weeks of notice, or ceremonial arrangements and protocol having been readied. Here she was, unannounced, before the quivering seven of us. Something very serious was about to happen. She spoke at length about the impending end of segregation in Virginia and the coming effect upon our "colored" schools. Our community leaders, elders, our parents had made the decision, she told us, that a handful of children from our school, would be the first to "integrate" the nearby white schools. Those schools had better funding, better facilities, and clearly the opportunities we would have by attending would far outweigh the risks involved. These risks were not elaborated upon, nor was there a need to, in Richmond and the surrounding counties in 1967. We knew that if we went, (and it was certain we were going, this effort, this service must be rendered), some of us might not come back.
Richmond would not long after, become the last stand nationally in the "massive resistance" backlash against integration and busing to integrate formally all-white schools. We would be the vanguard. The Superintendent talked eloquently and metaphorically about how our journey, actually just a few miles down the road from where we sat, was like the huge effort by America at that time, to send men to the moon. An astounding and audacious technical challenge presented the same stark fact to the white astronauts that we now faced: we might not ever return. I had a surreal sense of being an astronaut myself, about to voyage into the unknown. Yet our superintendent urged us on with a very sober cadence, to not only be bold in the attempt, but to represent "us all" well, and go as far as we could into the (white) world. Perhaps someday we would return and be able to share what we had gained, share with those we had left behind.
Twelve years later I was admitted into a thoroughly integrated college, and almost immediately dropped out. I was academically well prepared but it was 1975, not long after Dr. Richard Alpert a.k.a. Baba Ram Dass had written the seminal work, "Be Here Now" about his mystical experiences in India. I had started out as a psychology major and quickly became disillusioned. "Dropping out and tuning in" seemed the more exciting thing to do at the time. I determined I would live a life abroad in exotic climes pursuing meditation and esoteric studies. After I returned from one of my own sojourns to India, my mother sat me down and simply asked me to think about actually getting a degree, about finishing a degree in "something"! It did not really matter so much what I chose, but I should definitely seek a degree. She understood much more clearly than I, that a young black man in America would "need" a college degree as a hedge against trouble and disappointment in life. Though we both knew, that even college success may not make any difference at all. for a black male.
Mom's plea at first fell on my deaf ears. But finally to please her, I reluctantly went back to the school, totally uninterested and uninspired. Just beside the re-admissions door, hung a bulletin board for notices about class and program offerings. One tattered piece of paper fluttered as I looked up. It read, "Join the Experimental Program in." the rest of the notice was torn off. I had no idea what the program was but the notice had the word "experimental" in it, so I thought that must be meant for me. I went in to inquire. The program, a fabulous one it turned out, was a radical model for teacher training that placed would-be teachers in the classroom almost immediately upon qualifying for study. Training was by and large experiential, with the close guidance and support of our professors. I began teaching a course on Asian philosophy that I designed, at a very successful "open", experimental high school. My class was called Cosmology in the Classroom. And it went over surprisingly well, becoming a vehicle for some very advanced teenagers to investigate, along with me, the mysteries of existence. I suppose that if that bulletin board notice had pointed to a program in experimental dentistry, I would surely have become a dentist!
Sonshi.com: You created the World Peace Game about 30 years ago. What prompted you to create it?
Hunter: The World Peace Game situations are crafted so as to elicit, even provoke a range of reactions to tension and interlocking crisis. The game becomes a practice arena to test behaviors and to experience the continuum of consequences for these behaviors. Children can learn to "see" and practice seeing, the results of particular actions, and by reviewing and analyzing a chain of events back to its source, hopefully come to some understanding of the causes and effects of some of our deepest problems.
Students are divided into teams or national cabinets with prime ministers, defense ministers, financial officers, etc. and given charge of various nations with varying levels of wealth, energy resources, assets and raw materials. They are all given military forces and in some cases air and space weapons capability. Their mission after accepting a 4-page crisis document is to solve all crises and increase the asset value of all nations.without combat if possible. There is no map or method to peace. Students have to figure out how to deal with close to 50 interlocking problems manifesting on four levels, (space, air, ground and sea and undersea) and multiple conflicts with each other country.
Global warming, endangered species, oil spills, toxic nuclear accidents, natural disasters, rogue satellites, water rights disputes, border disagreements, insurgencies, religious and ethnic tensions, and break away republics are a few of the situations going on simultaneously. I've tried to model the real world, and students are often keen on keeping up with real world news to see if they can "handle it better" than adults.
The game developed when I found myself in my first contract teaching job at a newly established gifted high school with a 9th grade social studies course to teach. African studies was coming up, and as a new teacher eager to make my mark, do something unique, I wanted to derive some way of engaging these kids on a deeper level than conventional lessons and a textbook might have allowed.
I myself am a tactile, spatial thinker and learner, and being mindful that children are more often "doers" I thought to create something they could "do" with social studies. I decided to make a gigantic map of the African continent on a 4' x 4' plywood board. I attempted to replicate the political, social and military situations on the ground as events unfolded in the real word. I went to toy stores and crafts shops near the school, buying small "game board pieces" that could be used as markers. Students were directed to get into teams similar to a national government, and seek to solve and eliminate these continental crises. Taping off regions and countries on the map proved futile as the students made boundary changes almost daily in efforts to re-shape their nation's options. It was all very open-ended and exciting; because we didn't know what would happen or even if we could achieve a broad peace.
The game has evolved dramatically over the decades, now with four, 4' x 4' plexiglass layers suspended over one another and hundreds of game pieces on each level. Things like the inclusion of a confusion agent, a World Bank entity, and a United Nations body, arms dealers, considerations such as using as little military force as necessary, are evolutions that have occurred over the last 30 years. I've had secondary student game players research Sun Tzu and Carl Von Clausewitz, the Prussian soldier, military strategist, military historian and military theorist where they came to understand the view of war being the last, and most costly tool in their "diplomatic tool kit". I've also asked the game's political and military leaders to write letters to the parents of their nation's troops killed in any combat operations. This turned out to be a tremendous and often moving exercise, which heightened the level of seriousness of one's actions as a leader. Even now after 30 years, I still never know what is going to happen. It's a complete mystery and blank slate with each group of students who play.
Sonshi.com: At the start of every game, you quote Sun Tzu's Art of War to your students. Why is The Art of War book relevant in a game with Peace in its title?
Hunter: When I came upon the Tao Te Ching, The I Ching, and The Art of War, I was about 19 or 20, and simultaneously began traveling to Asia. I dropped out of college, several times in fact, just to go and see what I was reading about. To try and understand where such beautiful and elegant wisdom had come from. I was in India, China and Japan beginning in the mid-70's, sitting at the feet of gurus, yogis, and sadhus in the foothills of the Himalayas in India, and studying with Buddhist teachers in Kyoto and western Japan. The Art of War seemed a perfect complement to what I had learned in India. Gandhi's contrarian approach to violence, for example, of not reacting to it, but channeling the energy that naturally comes up at such times, into non-violent responses. These approaches from ancient cultures were counter-intuitive to my western mind, and yet once I returned home and visited black churches to renew old ties, I was struck by the same counter-intuitive approach to living under racial discrimination, Martin Luther King's approach of civil disobedience for example. Yet I could also appreciate Malcolm X and his active, more confrontational method for the same problem. Each technique yielding significant results in sometimes opposite ways. Was one "right", and the other "wrong"?
A few years ago, in contemplating the efforts my parents made during the struggle for civil rights, I realized that I grew up seeing two systems or methods of addressing the seemingly intractable problems of racism. On one hand there was the "spot-light school", if you will. Black leaders, activists and even ordinary black folks who took it upon themselves to personally register resistance and contempt for the systemized racism they lived under. They "took the heat" for the rest of us who were not able to, or who were afraid to take a visible, often costly and dangerous stand. My own parents I realize now, were living Sun Tzu's methods in that they were proponents of what I call the "shadow school". My parents tirelessly and quietly worked behind the scenes in the most subtle and personal of ways, changing the very fabric of our town. I remember our family leaving the black Baptist church and taking the radical and universalistic action of becoming Catholics. Our first attendance at mass saw our family, the only black family, even in this more liberal setting, like an island adrift in a sea of empty pews while white parishioners sat as far away as possible. Despite this reception, my parents stayed with this church for over 40-years, and visiting once in recent years (I was so disgusted with our reception, as a young firebrand, I had denounced the church and refused to attend further) I was absolutely astounded to find my parents involved in many church ministries, leaders of a number of lay groups, now an integral part of this interracial community, and so tenderly and lovingly received with tearful hugs and warm hand shakes. Not a hint of fear or hate remained. Total love and acceptance and respect. Total belonging. They had wrought this difficult change with a gentle, and quiet persistence over many decades. My parents stood next to a mighty institution, which was against them, and when it tumbled down, they acted as if they had nothing at all to do with it. That's the shadow school. And I think Sun Tzu was a master of using both the spotlight and the shadow, the light and dark and the gray areas in between because he seems to me, to have firstly, accepted reality. That is one of the big obstacles in the World Peace Game. Getting students to accept the actual reality of the game's situations first, rather than imposing or superimposing ideals and philosophies on the fluid nature of playing the game.
Sonshi.com: What has been your experience with reading and applying Sun Tzu's principles to your own life?
Hunter: I find this approach almost a natural way of living and working now. It has taught me, and I have realized through personal experience, that things are constantly changing on every level, in every way. I try therefore to avoid getting attached to, or stuck on certain ideas or beliefs, preferring instead to try to expand and deepen my awareness so that I might actually come to see what is, and what needs be done, then respond to the living moment.
The Art of War has helped me realize my own arrogance, thinking that I can with certainty claim to truly, and clearly understand anything, really. My motto for my gifted elementary school classes is "learning to live and work comfortably, naturally, in the unknown ". I try to help them become comfortable with the very real ambiguity of life by arranging subtle demonstrations or experiences so that they might come to "see" for themselves that strict adherence to any one set of rules may actually hinder their learning and discovery, their success. That "things aren't always as they seem", to quote my father. Sun Tzu might approve, I think. Of course we acknowledge a sort of universal set of guidelines that are helpful, but I'm continuously reminded by reading Sun Tzu, that we must remain ever alive to the changing moment. I get this reinforcement every time we read a bit of The Art of War at the start of every World Peace Game session.
Sonshi.com: What are the common attributes of effective teams in the World Peace Game and those of ineffective teams?
Hunter: Teams that are able to be and remain open to change, to letting go most often do well. Creative planning and innovative execution of plans are great, and wonderful to see unfolding from the minds of the children. But I see such beautiful moments also, when a child learns how to "wait" non-judgmentally, to allow a situation to completely unfold with sharpened awareness. Teams with pre-set agendas, fixed personal attitudes, and a lack of thoughtful consideration before reacting, these teams suffer greatly at first. Over time and after many losses, defeats, and frustrations teams like this finally arrive at "seeing" how harmony may be achieved.
Sonshi.com: Please share with us a brilliant maneuver or strategy employed by an effective team in the World Peace Game.
Hunter: I found myself greatly challenged by the students in one game session in particular. My role is to ask probing, provocative, or clarifying questions at critical points and to continually refer the students back to their own insights and wisdom rather than answering questions or even giving advice.
On this occasion, one of our 9 year-old girls, a military leader used her tank corp to initiate a small war!! She also called in tactical air strikes with her small but aggressive air force. Everyone around the game space was stunned! "This is supposed to be a peace game! We're trying to get peace here! What are you doing??!" We were all upset, and in my darkest hour then, I could only think that I was failing as a teacher. This game is not working and this child clearly does not "get it", I despairingly thought. Well, we all found out later that this girl had understood before anyone else, that she simply had to start this small conflict.to avert a much larger war later, a war that all nations would have been dragged into. Her strategy worked and we stopped play with this revelation discussing whether her actions were "right or wrong", good or not good, or something else entirely. I remember the term "conditional good" being used! This was a wonderful moment, seeing precepts of the Art of War thoroughly grappled with by the students.
On another occasion, one very aggressive boy, as prime minister of his country and against the advice of his cabinet, conquered or forced all but one nation into an alliance with him, and now was threatening total world domination. (Just another one of those times where, in my shortsighted response to his behavior, I was frightened into forgetting.forgetting to trust in the wisdom of peace).
Well, one of the members of his now-swollen cabinet consisting of ex-officials of conquered nations rose to attempt a coup d' tat, a takeover of the government from the hands of the fellow acting as a tyrant. When a coup is called in the World Peace Game, all play stops until the coup is put down or succeeds. The outcome is decided by a series of coin tosses. The coup failed, much to the relief of the prime minister who was causing so much havoc, and to the consternation of the rest of the players. But before play could resume, a second cabinet member stood and called out a second coup attempt. This too was put down, but what we were all amazed to discover was that, this team of mostly girls had secretly arranged, to basically have successive coup attempts, one immediately following after the other, until the tyrant was finally taken down. It took five rapid and tense tries but they succeeded, Even at the personal expense of being side-lined if the coup failed, they all showed the will and dedication to continue, no matter how many times they were defeated--a very powerful lesson.
But perhaps the most beautiful moments in the game are when I return to the empty classroom from a break or change of classes, and find that individual students have crept in and are standing or sitting quietly lost in contemplation.simply looking deeply into the gamespace. I move past them to continue some paperwork, and watch them continue for many minutes, silently engaged in walking slowly around the board, taking in different angles, stooping here or there for a better view. It is as if they are allowing their minds to enter into the infinite complexities to attempt to "grasp" the entire equation of the game at once.
Sonshi.com: Based on what you saw from your young students over the years, are you encouraged by the next generation of leaders?
Hunter: Most encouraged! Over many generations of children I have seen amazing inventiveness and innovative thinking, creative thinking and problem solving that I could not even have begun to imagine myself. They continually show the will to do good, and commitment to the tireless work of negotiating and re-negotiating until everyone wins. The game is only won when all conflicts have been resolved and every nation's asset values have significantly increased. In one instance, with the session near its end, one country was still so miserably poor, it seemed we would never be able to "win" and finish the game. Suddenly there was frantic conversation and chaotic negotiations swept the room. The other nations spontaneously organized and executed, all in a matter of seconds, a massive gift, not a loan, but a gift of their pooled funds, and gave a group donation of enough capital to raise the asset value of the poorest country equaling the standard for all. The game was won in a matter of seconds! I was moved to tears by the children's deep, spontaneous compassion and their creative thinking to "make it so".
Sonshi.com: Do you think current world leaders can learn from the World Peace Game? In other words, what lessons can they take away from the game?
Hunter: I would, perhaps naively, like to think so. I see everyday, how my own understanding and knowledge is dwarfed by the collective and collaborative problem solving of young minds that aren't fixed on ideologies, philosophies, perspectives and perceptions about life. We could all learn so much of great value from simply listening to children, and replicating their ability to live in their awareness in our own lives. To quote Willis, one of our former players, in a recent article about the game in the Christian Science Monitor: (http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0210/p18s01-hfks.html)
"You've got to take everything as it comes, prioritize everything, and get the stuff that you need done," says Willis Bocock, an eighth-grader who learned a lot about strategy from playing the World Peace Game. You have to "keep going down the list. It's pretty impossible to do everything at one time."
After the game, he further states, "You're prepared for everything that comes at you when you go out," says Willis. "Not just in the world, but if you have a personal conflict with just one or two other people, it helps with that, too."
[End of interview]
You can't. How can you forget considering those early years were the years you formed your initial beliefs, the first time you were able to intellectually stand on your own instead of merely following orders. You had audacity and lacked doubt.
And, frankly, you simply don't want to forget lest you sink into the mundaneness of adulthood where for many the only light at the end of the tunnel is retirement. We were not put on this earth to fulfill our pleasures and to leave it unchanged, since we would have wasted our existence and thus failed in our calling. We are here to take action and fulfill our destiny, and such fate demands and enables each of us to go our own way and make our unique mark.
But fulfilling your fate and destiny nonetheless require a guide, someone who opens your eyes so you can discover your calling. With this thought in mind, we now introduce you, dear reader, to John Hunter, an extraordinary elementary school teacher in many ways and in at least one significant way, which you will very soon see. Mr. Hunter is the personification of how important quality instruction really is -- not to mold a student who can pass unimaginative rote exams but a student who can think for him or herself facing scary new problems. After all, you can't solve the problems of the tomorrow if you merely copy the answers of yesterday. As Sun Tzu said:
"The army achieves victories yet they do not understand how. Everyone knows the formation by which you achieved victory, yet no one knows the formations by which you were able to create victory."
After we reviewed the transcript of our interview with John Hunter, we quickly realized that the telling of his personal and professional story as introduction is best told by the very person who has lived it. However, what we will tell you before we begin our interview is that Socrates lives on today and he teaches world peace -- "The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance" -- in Virginia.
Sonshi.com: By way of introduction, what is your background and how did you decide on becoming a teacher?
Hunter: I was born into a black, middle-class family in Richmond Virginia in the mid-1950s. My father was a mechanic with a genius for invention and spatial thinking. My mother was an elementary school teacher and I even found myself as her student in the 4th grade in our small, segregated, southern school system.
My younger brother Malcolm and I were the focus of a very close and active family life. As a family we were involved in scouting, motorcycles, boating, all sorts of interests. I became an Eagle Scout at the age of 12, rather young for the time, and a member of the quasi-mystical Order of the Arrow Brotherhood in scouting. These experiences out in nature, sleeping under the stars, engaging in "service" projects to the land, to elderly shut-ins, to animals, thoroughly imbued us with the ideas of our connection with nature, and of service to the world that would continue throughout our lives. And the idea propounded by my dad that things aren't always as they seem, made the world a bigger, wonderful and more exciting place, for my brother and I, despite the political and social unrest all around at the time.
Our range seemed limitless because of the naturalness and gentle ease of our parents. At that time in the American south, things were actually anything but limitless for little black boys. One day our small community reached a turning point. I was in my 7th grade classroom near the end of the term, late May 1967 I think it was, when I and several of my classmates were sent for by the Principal. In our school, in our culture at that time, children were most often seen and not heard. Being called upon by an adult official ("a trip to the principal's office.") was not something we would look forward to. Well this time, the principal took us from his office to a small room off the school's tiny library. It was a hot day and the room I remember, felt very stuffy, very tight. We thought that we must be in very serious trouble, though puzzlingly, the seven of us were always in the goody-two-shoes crowd. We sat in dread for a few moments until finally, unexpectedly, the superintendent over all the black schools, an imposing, majestic, immaculately groomed woman in white gloves and a string of pearls solemnly entered the room as the principal closed the door delicately behind her. Now, we knew we were in unimaginably terrible trouble!
The superintendent, a rarely seen, seemingly magical higher-up in our black community, a true aristocrat who only appeared at formal occasions would never simply arrive at a school without weeks of notice, or ceremonial arrangements and protocol having been readied. Here she was, unannounced, before the quivering seven of us. Something very serious was about to happen. She spoke at length about the impending end of segregation in Virginia and the coming effect upon our "colored" schools. Our community leaders, elders, our parents had made the decision, she told us, that a handful of children from our school, would be the first to "integrate" the nearby white schools. Those schools had better funding, better facilities, and clearly the opportunities we would have by attending would far outweigh the risks involved. These risks were not elaborated upon, nor was there a need to, in Richmond and the surrounding counties in 1967. We knew that if we went, (and it was certain we were going, this effort, this service must be rendered), some of us might not come back.
Richmond would not long after, become the last stand nationally in the "massive resistance" backlash against integration and busing to integrate formally all-white schools. We would be the vanguard. The Superintendent talked eloquently and metaphorically about how our journey, actually just a few miles down the road from where we sat, was like the huge effort by America at that time, to send men to the moon. An astounding and audacious technical challenge presented the same stark fact to the white astronauts that we now faced: we might not ever return. I had a surreal sense of being an astronaut myself, about to voyage into the unknown. Yet our superintendent urged us on with a very sober cadence, to not only be bold in the attempt, but to represent "us all" well, and go as far as we could into the (white) world. Perhaps someday we would return and be able to share what we had gained, share with those we had left behind.
Twelve years later I was admitted into a thoroughly integrated college, and almost immediately dropped out. I was academically well prepared but it was 1975, not long after Dr. Richard Alpert a.k.a. Baba Ram Dass had written the seminal work, "Be Here Now" about his mystical experiences in India. I had started out as a psychology major and quickly became disillusioned. "Dropping out and tuning in" seemed the more exciting thing to do at the time. I determined I would live a life abroad in exotic climes pursuing meditation and esoteric studies. After I returned from one of my own sojourns to India, my mother sat me down and simply asked me to think about actually getting a degree, about finishing a degree in "something"! It did not really matter so much what I chose, but I should definitely seek a degree. She understood much more clearly than I, that a young black man in America would "need" a college degree as a hedge against trouble and disappointment in life. Though we both knew, that even college success may not make any difference at all. for a black male.
Mom's plea at first fell on my deaf ears. But finally to please her, I reluctantly went back to the school, totally uninterested and uninspired. Just beside the re-admissions door, hung a bulletin board for notices about class and program offerings. One tattered piece of paper fluttered as I looked up. It read, "Join the Experimental Program in." the rest of the notice was torn off. I had no idea what the program was but the notice had the word "experimental" in it, so I thought that must be meant for me. I went in to inquire. The program, a fabulous one it turned out, was a radical model for teacher training that placed would-be teachers in the classroom almost immediately upon qualifying for study. Training was by and large experiential, with the close guidance and support of our professors. I began teaching a course on Asian philosophy that I designed, at a very successful "open", experimental high school. My class was called Cosmology in the Classroom. And it went over surprisingly well, becoming a vehicle for some very advanced teenagers to investigate, along with me, the mysteries of existence. I suppose that if that bulletin board notice had pointed to a program in experimental dentistry, I would surely have become a dentist!
Sonshi.com: You created the World Peace Game about 30 years ago. What prompted you to create it?
Hunter: The World Peace Game situations are crafted so as to elicit, even provoke a range of reactions to tension and interlocking crisis. The game becomes a practice arena to test behaviors and to experience the continuum of consequences for these behaviors. Children can learn to "see" and practice seeing, the results of particular actions, and by reviewing and analyzing a chain of events back to its source, hopefully come to some understanding of the causes and effects of some of our deepest problems.
Students are divided into teams or national cabinets with prime ministers, defense ministers, financial officers, etc. and given charge of various nations with varying levels of wealth, energy resources, assets and raw materials. They are all given military forces and in some cases air and space weapons capability. Their mission after accepting a 4-page crisis document is to solve all crises and increase the asset value of all nations.without combat if possible. There is no map or method to peace. Students have to figure out how to deal with close to 50 interlocking problems manifesting on four levels, (space, air, ground and sea and undersea) and multiple conflicts with each other country.
Global warming, endangered species, oil spills, toxic nuclear accidents, natural disasters, rogue satellites, water rights disputes, border disagreements, insurgencies, religious and ethnic tensions, and break away republics are a few of the situations going on simultaneously. I've tried to model the real world, and students are often keen on keeping up with real world news to see if they can "handle it better" than adults.
The game developed when I found myself in my first contract teaching job at a newly established gifted high school with a 9th grade social studies course to teach. African studies was coming up, and as a new teacher eager to make my mark, do something unique, I wanted to derive some way of engaging these kids on a deeper level than conventional lessons and a textbook might have allowed.
I myself am a tactile, spatial thinker and learner, and being mindful that children are more often "doers" I thought to create something they could "do" with social studies. I decided to make a gigantic map of the African continent on a 4' x 4' plywood board. I attempted to replicate the political, social and military situations on the ground as events unfolded in the real word. I went to toy stores and crafts shops near the school, buying small "game board pieces" that could be used as markers. Students were directed to get into teams similar to a national government, and seek to solve and eliminate these continental crises. Taping off regions and countries on the map proved futile as the students made boundary changes almost daily in efforts to re-shape their nation's options. It was all very open-ended and exciting; because we didn't know what would happen or even if we could achieve a broad peace.
The game has evolved dramatically over the decades, now with four, 4' x 4' plexiglass layers suspended over one another and hundreds of game pieces on each level. Things like the inclusion of a confusion agent, a World Bank entity, and a United Nations body, arms dealers, considerations such as using as little military force as necessary, are evolutions that have occurred over the last 30 years. I've had secondary student game players research Sun Tzu and Carl Von Clausewitz, the Prussian soldier, military strategist, military historian and military theorist where they came to understand the view of war being the last, and most costly tool in their "diplomatic tool kit". I've also asked the game's political and military leaders to write letters to the parents of their nation's troops killed in any combat operations. This turned out to be a tremendous and often moving exercise, which heightened the level of seriousness of one's actions as a leader. Even now after 30 years, I still never know what is going to happen. It's a complete mystery and blank slate with each group of students who play.
Sonshi.com: At the start of every game, you quote Sun Tzu's Art of War to your students. Why is The Art of War book relevant in a game with Peace in its title?
Hunter: When I came upon the Tao Te Ching, The I Ching, and The Art of War, I was about 19 or 20, and simultaneously began traveling to Asia. I dropped out of college, several times in fact, just to go and see what I was reading about. To try and understand where such beautiful and elegant wisdom had come from. I was in India, China and Japan beginning in the mid-70's, sitting at the feet of gurus, yogis, and sadhus in the foothills of the Himalayas in India, and studying with Buddhist teachers in Kyoto and western Japan. The Art of War seemed a perfect complement to what I had learned in India. Gandhi's contrarian approach to violence, for example, of not reacting to it, but channeling the energy that naturally comes up at such times, into non-violent responses. These approaches from ancient cultures were counter-intuitive to my western mind, and yet once I returned home and visited black churches to renew old ties, I was struck by the same counter-intuitive approach to living under racial discrimination, Martin Luther King's approach of civil disobedience for example. Yet I could also appreciate Malcolm X and his active, more confrontational method for the same problem. Each technique yielding significant results in sometimes opposite ways. Was one "right", and the other "wrong"?
A few years ago, in contemplating the efforts my parents made during the struggle for civil rights, I realized that I grew up seeing two systems or methods of addressing the seemingly intractable problems of racism. On one hand there was the "spot-light school", if you will. Black leaders, activists and even ordinary black folks who took it upon themselves to personally register resistance and contempt for the systemized racism they lived under. They "took the heat" for the rest of us who were not able to, or who were afraid to take a visible, often costly and dangerous stand. My own parents I realize now, were living Sun Tzu's methods in that they were proponents of what I call the "shadow school". My parents tirelessly and quietly worked behind the scenes in the most subtle and personal of ways, changing the very fabric of our town. I remember our family leaving the black Baptist church and taking the radical and universalistic action of becoming Catholics. Our first attendance at mass saw our family, the only black family, even in this more liberal setting, like an island adrift in a sea of empty pews while white parishioners sat as far away as possible. Despite this reception, my parents stayed with this church for over 40-years, and visiting once in recent years (I was so disgusted with our reception, as a young firebrand, I had denounced the church and refused to attend further) I was absolutely astounded to find my parents involved in many church ministries, leaders of a number of lay groups, now an integral part of this interracial community, and so tenderly and lovingly received with tearful hugs and warm hand shakes. Not a hint of fear or hate remained. Total love and acceptance and respect. Total belonging. They had wrought this difficult change with a gentle, and quiet persistence over many decades. My parents stood next to a mighty institution, which was against them, and when it tumbled down, they acted as if they had nothing at all to do with it. That's the shadow school. And I think Sun Tzu was a master of using both the spotlight and the shadow, the light and dark and the gray areas in between because he seems to me, to have firstly, accepted reality. That is one of the big obstacles in the World Peace Game. Getting students to accept the actual reality of the game's situations first, rather than imposing or superimposing ideals and philosophies on the fluid nature of playing the game.
Sonshi.com: What has been your experience with reading and applying Sun Tzu's principles to your own life?
Hunter: I find this approach almost a natural way of living and working now. It has taught me, and I have realized through personal experience, that things are constantly changing on every level, in every way. I try therefore to avoid getting attached to, or stuck on certain ideas or beliefs, preferring instead to try to expand and deepen my awareness so that I might actually come to see what is, and what needs be done, then respond to the living moment.
The Art of War has helped me realize my own arrogance, thinking that I can with certainty claim to truly, and clearly understand anything, really. My motto for my gifted elementary school classes is "learning to live and work comfortably, naturally, in the unknown ". I try to help them become comfortable with the very real ambiguity of life by arranging subtle demonstrations or experiences so that they might come to "see" for themselves that strict adherence to any one set of rules may actually hinder their learning and discovery, their success. That "things aren't always as they seem", to quote my father. Sun Tzu might approve, I think. Of course we acknowledge a sort of universal set of guidelines that are helpful, but I'm continuously reminded by reading Sun Tzu, that we must remain ever alive to the changing moment. I get this reinforcement every time we read a bit of The Art of War at the start of every World Peace Game session.
Sonshi.com: What are the common attributes of effective teams in the World Peace Game and those of ineffective teams?
Hunter: Teams that are able to be and remain open to change, to letting go most often do well. Creative planning and innovative execution of plans are great, and wonderful to see unfolding from the minds of the children. But I see such beautiful moments also, when a child learns how to "wait" non-judgmentally, to allow a situation to completely unfold with sharpened awareness. Teams with pre-set agendas, fixed personal attitudes, and a lack of thoughtful consideration before reacting, these teams suffer greatly at first. Over time and after many losses, defeats, and frustrations teams like this finally arrive at "seeing" how harmony may be achieved.
Sonshi.com: Please share with us a brilliant maneuver or strategy employed by an effective team in the World Peace Game.
Hunter: I found myself greatly challenged by the students in one game session in particular. My role is to ask probing, provocative, or clarifying questions at critical points and to continually refer the students back to their own insights and wisdom rather than answering questions or even giving advice.
On this occasion, one of our 9 year-old girls, a military leader used her tank corp to initiate a small war!! She also called in tactical air strikes with her small but aggressive air force. Everyone around the game space was stunned! "This is supposed to be a peace game! We're trying to get peace here! What are you doing??!" We were all upset, and in my darkest hour then, I could only think that I was failing as a teacher. This game is not working and this child clearly does not "get it", I despairingly thought. Well, we all found out later that this girl had understood before anyone else, that she simply had to start this small conflict.to avert a much larger war later, a war that all nations would have been dragged into. Her strategy worked and we stopped play with this revelation discussing whether her actions were "right or wrong", good or not good, or something else entirely. I remember the term "conditional good" being used! This was a wonderful moment, seeing precepts of the Art of War thoroughly grappled with by the students.
On another occasion, one very aggressive boy, as prime minister of his country and against the advice of his cabinet, conquered or forced all but one nation into an alliance with him, and now was threatening total world domination. (Just another one of those times where, in my shortsighted response to his behavior, I was frightened into forgetting.forgetting to trust in the wisdom of peace).
Well, one of the members of his now-swollen cabinet consisting of ex-officials of conquered nations rose to attempt a coup d' tat, a takeover of the government from the hands of the fellow acting as a tyrant. When a coup is called in the World Peace Game, all play stops until the coup is put down or succeeds. The outcome is decided by a series of coin tosses. The coup failed, much to the relief of the prime minister who was causing so much havoc, and to the consternation of the rest of the players. But before play could resume, a second cabinet member stood and called out a second coup attempt. This too was put down, but what we were all amazed to discover was that, this team of mostly girls had secretly arranged, to basically have successive coup attempts, one immediately following after the other, until the tyrant was finally taken down. It took five rapid and tense tries but they succeeded, Even at the personal expense of being side-lined if the coup failed, they all showed the will and dedication to continue, no matter how many times they were defeated--a very powerful lesson.
But perhaps the most beautiful moments in the game are when I return to the empty classroom from a break or change of classes, and find that individual students have crept in and are standing or sitting quietly lost in contemplation.simply looking deeply into the gamespace. I move past them to continue some paperwork, and watch them continue for many minutes, silently engaged in walking slowly around the board, taking in different angles, stooping here or there for a better view. It is as if they are allowing their minds to enter into the infinite complexities to attempt to "grasp" the entire equation of the game at once.
Sonshi.com: Based on what you saw from your young students over the years, are you encouraged by the next generation of leaders?
Hunter: Most encouraged! Over many generations of children I have seen amazing inventiveness and innovative thinking, creative thinking and problem solving that I could not even have begun to imagine myself. They continually show the will to do good, and commitment to the tireless work of negotiating and re-negotiating until everyone wins. The game is only won when all conflicts have been resolved and every nation's asset values have significantly increased. In one instance, with the session near its end, one country was still so miserably poor, it seemed we would never be able to "win" and finish the game. Suddenly there was frantic conversation and chaotic negotiations swept the room. The other nations spontaneously organized and executed, all in a matter of seconds, a massive gift, not a loan, but a gift of their pooled funds, and gave a group donation of enough capital to raise the asset value of the poorest country equaling the standard for all. The game was won in a matter of seconds! I was moved to tears by the children's deep, spontaneous compassion and their creative thinking to "make it so".
Sonshi.com: Do you think current world leaders can learn from the World Peace Game? In other words, what lessons can they take away from the game?
Hunter: I would, perhaps naively, like to think so. I see everyday, how my own understanding and knowledge is dwarfed by the collective and collaborative problem solving of young minds that aren't fixed on ideologies, philosophies, perspectives and perceptions about life. We could all learn so much of great value from simply listening to children, and replicating their ability to live in their awareness in our own lives. To quote Willis, one of our former players, in a recent article about the game in the Christian Science Monitor: (http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0210/p18s01-hfks.html)
"You've got to take everything as it comes, prioritize everything, and get the stuff that you need done," says Willis Bocock, an eighth-grader who learned a lot about strategy from playing the World Peace Game. You have to "keep going down the list. It's pretty impossible to do everything at one time."
After the game, he further states, "You're prepared for everything that comes at you when you go out," says Willis. "Not just in the world, but if you have a personal conflict with just one or two other people, it helps with that, too."
[End of interview]