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Professor Mark Daly is using an interesting approach in his Core II class. He is using a role-playing game, “Reacting to the Past” created by W.W. Norton & Company, in his classroom to keep his students engaged. Daly is currently using “The Threshold of Democracy: Athens in 403 B.C.” with his class.

Professor Daly may very well have found a way to make education a bit less boring for a generation that is increasingly searching for ways to be entertained.

“This is better than sitting through a dumb lecture,” said Arnaldo Rivera (So.). “It makes me focus a bit more, and my character (Lysias) is the richest one here, so what’s not to like about this game?”

Daly is a strong believer in the skills and lessons that students will learn from this game.

“One of the big lessons for this is that they are learning about how to work in teams effectively,” Daly said. “It’s not the typical team exercise where you get together with a bunch of people and do a lame project. This is something where everyone has a stake in it and nobody can hide. If somebody isn’t pulling his or her weight, everybody knows. They practice teamwork, writing skills, oral communication skills because it’s important that they develop these important life skills.”

On the first day of the game, the class divided into several factions and began plotting how to best achieve their goals, which are extremely different depending on the character or which faction they hail from. Each faction or player gets points depending on how successful they are at completing certain tasks.

For example, if Socrates is put on trial, convicted and then executed, the radical Democrats receive points while every other faction will likely lose points. This is because certain players and factions will benefit from Socrates’ survival,

In order to make sure that each faction or individual meets their objectives, players have to make so many deals with rival factions and individuals and will inevitably become compromised in some way. Watching this all unfold on the first day was quite interesting, to say the least.

“At first, I didn’t know what was going on,” said Alfredo Batista (So.), “but once the game started, I started to like it. You really have to learn what your character is like and where they’re coming from or you’ll have no idea what’s going and you’ll lose the game. My bigger motivation is to get a good grade and pass, but this makes it more interesting.”

Batista isn’t the only one who shares these thoughts.

“It’s only the first day,” said Itedra Clopton (So.). “But this game seems like it’s gonna be a blast. It’s forcing me to pay attention, that’s for sure.”

Daly hopes that the lessons that his students learn from playing “Reacting to the Past” go beyond just success in a classroom.

“A lot of younger people today feel like they don’t have the ability to induce change, and that’s a shame,” Daly said. “I hope that this game shows these students that you can absolutely make a difference in the world. By “role-playing” as certain characters, maybe it will help them see that these people were able to do it, so they can actually make a difference and be heard too.”