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I DREAMED I SAW JOE HILL LAST NIGHT--PAST SIMULATIONS
[THE LEAGUE OF THE LAST RESORT, SPRING 2012]
ESSENTIALS
WISE WORDS
"Wanna fly, you got to give up the s**t that weighs you down."
--Toni Morrison
READINGS
CURRENT WORK
PAST
SIMULATIONS
THE LEAGUE OF THE
LAST RESORT
Spring 2012
The League of the Last Resort may have been the simulation that most opened my eyes to the possibilities of this type of experiential learning--which might seem a strange thing to say, given that this simulation was the seventh in the series. However, in the world of experiential learning, awareness and insight can come quickly or slowly, but come it will.
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The chief lesson I learned from The League (a motley crew comprising the chief protagonists--Saavedro, Mer'Gab'Shall, Auriane St. Cyr, Ricardo Vengador, Sonny Liston, and Stasja Shevchenko--from the previous six simulations [see portrait, above]) was how, with a talented yet highly mismatched group of students, interpersonal conflict is inevitable; its resolution absolutely necessary; and the need to handle it in creative ways that don't disrupt the socioemotional dimension of the group always present. So divergent were the viewpoints of the participants (both League and non-League) that I held the constant fear the group was going to fragment, leaving us with nothing.
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Then again, maybe that level of conflict has always gone on, it is just that in the other simulations I was not there to witness it. My absence from these (perhaps) conflictual situations was of course deliberate. Often the presence of the teacher causes students to be more concerned with satisfying the teacher, instead of looking to their own resources to solve their pressing problems, both "in" the presentation and among each other, "in real time." In experiential learning, instructor control is mostly a no-no. In The League of the Last Resort, and at the insistence of the class members, I was there for it all, and it was all I could do to keep from interjecting my opinion.
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I am glad I didn't. The way the class handled their conflicts (some pretty severe, such as the one involving replacing a key player in the final simulation with another actor, due to the first actor's irresponsibility in attending class sessions and rehearsals) were models of what the textbooks tell us about how conflict should be handled. The conflicting actors were brutally forthcoming, never shy about stating their positions honestly, and best of all remarkably adept at repairing interpersonal relations after the resolution of their conflict. They were truly a revelation, and indeed the chief reason I wanted to continue the simulation series. Originally, I'd intended The League of the Last Resort to be the final simulation, a fitting conclusion bringing together the principal players from all of the previous simulations. The League and the others, however, gave me a reason to try this at least once more, this time with an historical situation involving severe conflict with worldwide historical ramifications, thus giving us the next simulation, Waltzing Matilda.
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Students can be given no greater compliment than to be told that they have taught so much to their teacher.
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Fun Facts and Trivia
-- Two characters came up with perhaps the most amusing names in all of the simulations: Philip Cichy and Phillip Lee, both of whom are known by the nickname "Phil," played two shadowy Federal agents connected with the M.I.S.T. program (the secret government program controlling the access and extraction of entities from the multiverses). The "Phils" adopted code names, each called "Paramilitary Hyperoperational Intelligence and Logistical Support" (P.H.I.L.S.), so that one was "P.H.I.L. 1" and the other was "P.H.I.L. 2.” Priceless!
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-- Working with another student on a separate independent research assignment, one of the undergraduate participants, James Huizenga (who played renegade Nazi scientist Abel Keller) wrote a brilliant treatise, "Linking/Extraction: Theory and Practice," a manual for the M.I.S.T. (Multiverse Integrative Simultaneity Taskforce) agency's program of targeting and extracting entities from one time and space to another, with the view of eventually assembling super-teams of crisis managers, such as the League of the Last Resort, and sending them to deal with historical crises like the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. For a copy of this work, click the icon below.
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