Serious Games by Abt

(On Games and Simulations
Fore note: I assume a lot in this post, and use a lot of language that is Specific, but ambiguous in its meanings to various groups. Among those things that I assume is that my reader uses these words in a way similar to myself, which is doubtful. This is meant as a ramble in which there are ideas that may or may not be useful or even make sense but which I found interesting. I apologize now in case I lose you in the middle and you decide not to continue reading.)

Serious Games, by Clark C. Abt is the only book of its kind at the Santa Fe Public Library, and perhaps anywhere. Using roleplay for education is not a new idea. I remember several that were used in my various history lessons. Using simulation for education is not a unique idea either. Neither is using roleplay as a simulation, or even using roleplay as a simulation in the context of education and learning. The uniqueness of Serious Games cams in the assumptions Abt makes as he writes.
Role play is usually used in the classroom to illustrate; to provoke empathy. This is a particularly useful tool for history and social studies classes, where students have a hard time connecting emotionally (and therefore meaningfully, which I will argue is describing a Different book) to historic people and events.
Simulation, properly used, is clearly suited to the science classroom. It is used, over-simply put, to get students to Think. Curriculum that is tied to simulation generally focuses on observation, forming hypotheses and questions based on those observations, and using simulations to answer those questions and test those hypotheses. Clearly the "scientific method" (ignoring that observation usually first appears later in the "official" scientific method taught is schools), but infinitely better than describing again and again the step by step process of a "scientific" experiment, usually getting to apply it only after it has been drilled into the head so many times that it has lost all meaning. No, I'm not bitter at all.
Papert described what he called playing turtle in which a child would work through a problem of spacial relevance (geometry) using their own bodies as an agent. They would enact themselves what they wanted the turtle to do, which helped them break down the task into smaller steps that a computer could understand.
More recently, this same idea has been applied to multi-agent simulations in which groups of people are asked to act as agents performing simple actions according to simple rules. Most of these have corresponding computational simulations, and all of this type of activity are able to be programmed, even if impractical as such. In these exercises, a participant is essentially roleplaying as a turtle.
However, the general assumption is that the turtles are roleplaying as us. Us, or other sets of individuals such as animals, particles, etc.. The agents are roleplaying as us because the purpose of an agent is to simplify and to represent.
The reason we use simulations is because some events and possibilities are too costly in various types of resources (time, money, energy) to try out in reality; or because they are too difficult to understand when looking at everything all together. So we simplify the problem, trying to find the essential pieces by testing them out in an environment that reduces the noise of irrelevant or less relevant aspects of the whole situation.
The second reason is impractical to attempt through roleplay. The first though...
There is plenty of evidence across the animal kingdom of "The Power of Play" in learning. The young of many species gain skills through play that are necessary to their survival. If these animals had to gain those skills while using them, there would be very few of them who survived. Let's take the young of wildcats (kittens are so cute) as an example. I'm sure we've all seen a house cat chase a string dragged across the floor. In the wild, a cat must be able to both hunt and protect itself. Neither of these are situations I would consider a "safe" situation. If the cat doesn't hunt, it doesn't eat, and so doesn't survive. If the cat doesn't defend itself, the cat gets eaten and so doesn't survive. But playing with its parents or siblings, or even with a string or a piece of grass, is a safe environment in which to practice skills that will later be needed for survival. The potential costs of putting a kitten directly into a real situation are to high, and so a safe testing ground is provided where they can try out different scenarios. Some situations are too costly in resources to try out in reality, so we create a safe environment where we can try out different scenarios without great cost or the risk of great cost. This is why we simulate, and also why we play.
Perhaps not all play could be considered as a simulation, but roleplay certainly can be. Children (and adults too) could arguably be said to be engaging in a simulation of social nature. In this simulation they actively challenge their own assumptions of social cause and effect (action and reaction) and their assumptions of cultural ideals by making decisions in an imagined scenario. In this scenario, there are other people (agents) with whom one is interacting, and who are also interacting among themselves. In this way, one is simulating decision making.
This idea of roleplaying as a simulation rather than simulation as a roleplay is the unique assumption of Serious Games. Abt approaches the idea of games in education (and in other aspects of life and the world) with the assumption that games can be used, and effectively used, as illustrations, but that they are far more useful as simulations. Simulations can also be effectively used as illustrations, but like games, they're more useful as simulations.
The military, apparently, has already figured this out and has neglected to inform education or the general public. Or maybe it is education and the general public who have refused to be informed. Abt came to this line of thought through his military career, where he played war games, simulated various military related things, and made the ties between the two.

Perhaps unfortunately, I did not come to this book through citations and references. I was looking for books on roleplay as used in schools and education. I was well aware that books were the wrong medium to look for that information in, but I was looking for the roots of the issue. And so I was surprised I found a book so relevant at all, and especially in the Santa Fe public library.
Most of the papers and books that do cite Serious Games are books that I might discard as presumptuous, irrelevant or overall misguided at a glance. There were two that I did bother to look at as I found them, and only one of those I have any standing relationship with. That One is the SIMSOC manual. SIMSOC, which is painfully lacking in useful and easy to find information on the internet, stands for Simulated Society. It's essentially an attempt at harnessing what I've been describing as roleplay as a simulation. How effective it is at doing so, I'm unsure.
I observed a SIMSOC session that happened here in Santa Fe at Warehouse21. (And it occurs to me now that I never posted about the experience.) Under other circumstances, I would probably be able to give you an opinion of how effective the game is at harnessing roleplay to be used as a simulation. The stated objective of the game, inherent in the name as well, is to simulate a society, and to draw from that simulation conclusions, or at least ideas, about how societies form. That's a very ambitious goal. The session I attended took place here, in Santa Fe. That in itself confuses the issue, since Santa Feans live in a bubble, many of us are oblivious to what's already been covered and why the rest of the world is ignoring many of our "creative an innovative ideas". Santa Feans also have a tendency to not focus on the aspects of anything that I find most intriguing; and in this case that was outright. The purpose of the SIMSOC session that I attended was meant to focus on communication between adults and youth; and was meant to prepare the youth (who were all part of a group going to India) to talk and negotiate or some such with adults. The focus was Not on studying how societies are formed, which was the part that was interesting to me. The focus was appropriate for the goal and the group, and was as effective as any attempt at similar goals.
And so I can't tell you how effective SIMSOC is at meeting its ambitious goal. It is, however, a start at taking these ideas that Abt presented and applying them. It is the Only outward attempt I've found towards applying these ideas.