bryn athyn college
charter day banquet program:
Innovation in Learning About
Democracy at the College
Level and the Importance of
New Church Content
Note: This is a summary of a joint talk moderated by Rev. Dr. Thane Glenn and presented by
Dr. D. Gregory Rose and Dr. Wendy Closterman, all faculty members of Bryn Athyn College.
This talk was the featured part of the Charter Day Banquet Program, October 10, 2015.
T
hanks to generous support from the Cole Foundation, Bryn Athyn College
has been conducting an innovative course on democracy.
This course has students playing roles, which is not that unusual since
simulations and mock trials have been used in classrooms for decades. What
is unusual is that in this class the role-playing goes on for the whole term.
Students participate in elaborate, complex role-immersion games based on
hundreds of pages of manuals, role descriptions and readings. Students run
most of the class sessions. In fact, if you look into the classroom you would see
either Dr. Wendy Closterman or Dr. Greg Rose sitting in the back watching.
The course is part of the “Reacting to the Past”
movement that has been developing over the past 20 years.
In a Reacting course, students are given individual roles
and placed in a crisis moment in history in which some
kind of group decision must be made. This term we have
been running two games: Athens in 403 BC and the United
States Constitutional Convention of 1787.
The movement’s manifesto was published last year:
Minds on Fire by Mark Carnes of Barnard College. If you
Rev. Thane Glenn
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