Sunday, February 22, 2015

Business Storytellers: John Hunter and the World Peace Game

John Hunter’s TED Talk on the World Peace Game is essentially a blueprint for the next evolutionary step in grade school education. The concept of the game is simple, for it is how the world works. However, Mr. Hunter has designed the curriculum in such a way, that the children he teaches essentially teach themselves how to arrive at diplomatic and mutually beneficial decisions for everyone.
I noticed a few things during this talk. First, I realized that the point of view through which a majority of the decision-makers in the world see is unnecessarily complex. John Hunter is a grade school teacher in Virginia and he has essentially turned his classroom (OF 4TH GRADERS) into a project incubator for how to fix the world! If we as adults can claim to have higher brain function than a 4th grader, what’s the explanation for group of nine-year-olds being able to formulate a solution to global warming in a week?
It was as I asked that question that the answer was revealed. 4th graders possess the closest thing to an unmolested mind attainable. They haven’t been exposed to the corruption of politics, racially motivated agendas or socio-economics. They just don’t care. All they care about is coming up with a solution that will make them and their friends happy.
This TED Talk also spurred me to reconsider the definition of maturity. As we grow up, we’re taught as children that as we get older, we are to mature mentally and emotionally just as we do physically. However, for as many examples of mature, upstanding, respectable members of society that have been heralded throughout history, there are twice as many people who have shown a sickening lack of maturity that has led to the disparagement, disenfranchisement, and/or death of billions of people around the world.
I believe that one of the biggest pieces of the puzzle as pertains to the state of affairs in the world, is to really investigate the impact that social norms have on how we live. If we threw as much money behind think tanks that probe at this kind of information, as we did at bogus medical trials and unnecessary construction, I think citizens would become more savvy as to the games being played during election campaigns. This would also take power away from media outlets that would seek to use fear mongering to further political agendas.