Minecraft Class, Part 2

So here we are, about a month later. 

This year's Minecraft classes are progressing about as usual. I have two classes, a middle school, and a high school class. I've given them a decent amount of time now to develop survival skills and get their crops growing so they don't starve to death.

I've assigned, and finished grading, the Critical Thinking: Survival assignment. 

It took 2 hours to go through all those assignments, since I like to give individual feedback to each student. I spent 5 hours straight overall grading assignments for all my classes that day, none of which I got paid for, because I used my 3 hours of prep time that week preparing for that week's class activities. But I digress...

I had some interesting assignment answers. One student in particular stood out, saying he was going to build a 3-dimensional wheat farm with a circulatory system of water columns for irrigation. I'm really quite interested to see how that develops, because I have never heard of someone making a farm like that before.

Of course, I do get some students in these classes who start off not taking it seriously.

They'll say stupid one-word things for their answers, clearly not trying. These are the students who learn that it's possible to fail in Minecraft class. For the first time in a long time I had to give a student an incomplete on his assignment and, in our monthly pass/fail system, he failed our second month of class. But there are also students who clearly know the answers, and are just goofing off and not trying. I'll give them feedback that speaks to their meme culture, and then tell them that, seriously, if you don't take this seriously, you shall not pass. Here is a picture of one such student's work. The additional comments was my feedback to him:

On another note, I've introduced blacksmithing.

I demonstrated how to do it by making a couple of powerful tools - a pickaxe and a broadsword - and giving them away at random to people who raised their hand when I asked who wanted them. Both classes have already built smelters to melt and cast metals, but it's looking like the high school class is making better tools from those facilities, and at a faster pace.

When I asked if they had developed a sustainable food source yet, a little over half the middle school class raised their hands. But in the high school class, all but one of the students raised their hands. So I decided to introduce the government options to the high school class a couple weeks earlier than the middle school class.

Upon introducing the government options, I had a second student bring a new option to the table.

He suggested a Feudal Monarchy, where the King would give land to nobles, and the nobles would essentially rule over different provinces. So that was added to the list. It got a surprising number of bites.

The next class after the government option lecture, we assigned groups.

I had students put their names under the options they chose. I'm sad to say that the Theocracy option only got one student, and therefore did not have enough people to become a group. However, the student who chose theocracy moved his name over to the Feudal Monarchy. This student is likely going to act as a priest who preaches the word of the prophets, while still attending to his duties as a citizen within the group, serving the king. 

I'm thinking I will set up a few divine signs in the world, regardless of the theocracy option becoming a group.

It should be interesting to see what happens. For my first "divine sign" I'm thinking I will create a subtle path of tiny metals, mixed into gravel, near the residence of the priest. If the priest notices the tiny metal shavings in the gravel and follows the path to the correct location, he will find a white tree with blue sparkling leaves, unlike any other tree in the world.

If he destroys the tree, I will create a thunderstorm shortly after it is destroyed. The next night the moon will glow red and poisonous spiders will show up in the kingdom's mine shafts. Then everything will be back to normal come daybreak and the signs will stop for a couple weeks.

If he creates a shrine around the tree, or otherwise protects it or nourishes it, I will secretly plant flowers that emit light in a bluish-white glow. Then, depending on how he reacts to the flowers, I'll go from there. If he places a chest in the shrine, I might sneak in and place something in it as a sign that the gods are happy. 

The next signs after that for a while will target unsuspecting people from different civilizations, and I wholly expect it will go over their heads. But we won't know until we try it.

I let the students come up with their own names for their civilizations.

Here is a list of the groups we have so far in the high school class:

Revenant - Anarchy (no leader, no laws)

It's looking like this group is going to be the rebels of the class. We'll see how long they manage to remain an anarchy. One of the inhabitants of this group was citizen of Highrock, a Constitutional Monarchy group from last year. You'll hear about that group in my next Minecraft Memories post.

(still deciding on a name) - Democracy

This group is currently determining whether they are a representative democracy or not. They seem a bit disorganized, so I'm hoping they elect a representative to help them get organized, otherwise they may fall into anarchy. One of the group members is the former president of the Bone Archer Republic, but it's looking like he's not opting for the role of a ruler this time around.

Rapid Fire Goat Birth - Republic

Sometime within the next couple of weeks they will be holding an election to determine the president. But before then, they're working on a consensus for what should be contained within their constitution. 

This group contains the nomad who threatened nuclear war in my first Minecraft Memories post, another citizen from Highrock, and a citizen from The Brotherhood of Anarchy, a non-representative socialist democracy group from the 2016 school year. Having this many students from previous classes and different backgrounds should be interesting to watch.

Dead Bush Empire - Feudal Monarchy - Imperator: Milo

This group contains a citizen from Lakeside, a Communism society from last year in the same class as Highrock. This is also the group with the priest who tried to start a theocracy.

To my surprise, this group already has a leader. How the leader was chosen isn't exactly clear to me, but everybody follows him somehow. He has chosen the title Imperator, which is actually a word I did not know until now. From Roman history, apparently Imperator was a title bestowed upon an emperor. The title is supposed to refer to an absolute or supreme ruler.

This group is surprising me with their coordination and productivity. Imperator Milo seems to know what needs to be done, and with him at the helm, who knows what we'll see next.

So there you have it.

I introduce you to the Friday class of this 2018 school year. We'll be assigning groups in the Thursday class soon, so you'll be learning about them once that's settled.