Most of the time our free trial requests are from teachers or district coordinators, and every once in a while we’ll get one from a student. The educator free trial requests are straightforward, but sometimes the student requests are really creative because we make it clear that only educators can have admin access to CM.

Of all the free trial requests we received in 2011, this one was the best:

From: Brendan
Organization: My house

Comments:  Hello, my name is Brendan. I live in Belleville Ontario, Canada. I am 14 and my friends and I are very interested in civic mirror. We love civics and I was wondering if there was any way I could enjoy this online activity with my friends and family without being apart of a school board or being a teacher. I would be much appreciative if you could send an email back as soon as you can. Thank you very much for your time.

Not only was this validating for everyone on the Civic Mirror team, but it validates that games in education get kids excited about learning!  Well, at least the Civic Mirror does for social studies units and courses!

Maybe we should build an entertainment version of Civic Mirror … (sigh) So many things to do.

Mr Corbett Ball started an interesting discussion with his 10^th Grade Future Forums class at Waterloo-Oxford Collegiate Institute in Baden, Ontario, who make up the nation of Bacon Falls, when he shared this statement:

A dude named John Locke said the following, and I paraphrase:
WE NEED GOVERNMENT IN ORDER TO PROTECT OURSELVES FROM

(drum roll please)

OURSELVES.

Do we need government to protect ourselves from ourselves? We know that everyone will have a different opinion, and that there is no right or wrong answer to this question. But the discussion is one that has kept philosophers thinking for many years, and has these 10^th Grade students thinking deeply about our government, our world and human nature.

Many students believe that the above statement is correct, as Garner states here:

I think all there is to say is, look at every nation without a strong government. Their counties crumble because war lords take over, and citizens are forced to live being afraid for their lives and living in poverty. Not saying life with a strong government is perfect, bad things still happen and people still have very poor living conditions, but as for the general public, life is good with the iron fist strength of government.

The ‘iron fist strength of government’. Interesting theory Garner, and I’m sure a lot of people agree with you. But I wonder, is there a point at which a government can become too strong for its people? Leah. F has some interesting things to say:

 The government itself is made up of humans not unlike everyone else. There are people in our government who are not there because they want to help people; they are there to get power and money and to make things go their way. This causes problems. Our government overcomes these problems by having many representatives in power. However, our government is still flawed and it will never be perfect…  If everyone was responsible, in control of their actions and had some general common sense I think that the role of the government would be a lot smaller. This however will never happen to everyone because NO ONE is perfect and no one ever will be.

No one is perfect, and we know this, yet so many people still expect perfection from our leaders. Why is this? Through the Civic Mirror, citizens of Bacon Falls are thinking on, and discussing, an idea central to the whole structure of our nation. How great is that!

8th Grade students from Ms. Jamie Samione’s social studies class at Maplewood Middle School in Lynwood, WA, who make up Snorlax Sity, have just completed a Civic Mirror simulated year, and have valuable advice to students just starting the game.

The reflections of this class really stood out to me, and impressed me a lot. The class has had some great insights about life and the real world from what’s happened within the game, which is really exciting to see. The students are willing to learn from their mistakes instead of hide from them, and I can see that this will make their next ‘year’ of CM even better, as well as being a skill they will take with them from the game.

Emily shares:

“In my opinion the most important civic responsibility for every American citizen is to manage your money. If you do that then that helps you create a shelter, provide food, healthcare, security, and education for your family.”

While Sydney Boland thinks that:

“the most important responsibility is to speak up if you think something is not going good. I think this is important because if you don’t speak up nothing is going to change. I learned this in Civic Mirror because there was something i didn’t like that was going on and i just thought that someone else was going to bring it up but no one did and nothing changed.”

This is so true Sydney! We often spend so much time complaining about all the things that we see going wrong, but rarely step up to work to change it. There are always going to be things that happen out of our control, but if you have an opportunity to create change, go for it! It might start in the classroom, but this is the very essence of active citizenship, and what a great place to start learning about it.

Clayton reasons that:

“I think the most important thing is to not focus too much on a single part of your life. You need to be aware of everything you need to get and the status of getting it. (Mostly units). Also, you need to really think about your hidden agenda.”

Josie also has some great advice:

“After playing Civic Mirror, I think that if you want to have a great and fun time playing this game, you need to be active with the game and contribute your ideas. When you play Civic Mirror, you have to make smart decisions, for instance, keeping your family alive by feeding them and giving them a place to live. Similar to real life, you need to keep your family alive and supply them with the right needs. In this game, you don’t always get what you want and you have to live with what you have.”

We certainly don’t always get what we want, but it can take some people a while to figure this out. Working with what you have, making smart decisions and providing for your family, sounds like a good plan.

Snorlax Sity residents have completed their first year, and now have an opportunity to stand up, make changes where they see a need, continue fighting for their family,  and rise up as a nation. Will they take this opportunity??