Minds on Fire: How Role-Immersion Games Transform College

by Mark C. Carnes

Why are so many students intellectually disengaged? Faculty, administrators, and tuition-paying parents have been asking this question for nearly two centuries. And the answer is always more or less the students are so deeply absorbed in competitive social play (fraternities, sports, beer pong, World of Warcraft, social media) that they neglect academics. In Minds on Fire, Carnes shows how role-immersion games channel students’ competitive (and sometimes mischievous) impulses into transformative learning experiences. His discussion is based on interviews with scores of students and faculty who have used a pedagogy called Reacting to the Past, which features month-long games set during the French Revolution, Galileo’s trial, the partition of India, and dozens of other epochal moments in disciplines ranging from art history to the sciences. These games have spread to over three hundred campuses around the world, where many of their benefits defy expectations. Students think more critically by internalizing alternative selves, and they understand the past better by filtering it through their present. Fierce competition between opposing sides leads to strong community bonds among teammates and develops speaking, writing, leadership, and problem-solving skills. Minds on Fire is a provocative critique of educational reformers who deplored role-playing pedagogies, from Plato to Dewey to Erikson. Carnes also makes an impassioned appeal for pedagogical innovation. At a time when cost-cutting legislators and trustees are increasingly drawn to online learning, Carnes focuses on how bricks-and-mortar institutions of higher education can set young minds on fire .

Genres: Education, Teaching, Nonfiction, History

400 pages, Hardcover

First published September 15, 2014

About the author

Mark C. Carnes is Professor of History at Barnard College.

Reviews

[Patrik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Towards the end of the book Mark Carnes write that "The suggestion that role-immersion games can solve almost all the problems afflicting higher education is so sweeping that sensible readers will likely dismiss it out of hand." I agree; yet this is the argument that Professor Carnes is making in this book.

Problems that can be solved by allowing our students to play subversive games in our class are related to critical thinking skills, lack of engagement and silence, community, global citizenship, morality and ethics, writing, public speaking, as well as leadership and teamwork. Not to mention actually learning and understanding history, politics, science and many other fields better. THIS IS an impressive list, indeed.

These sweeping claims, backed by some research and a dozen of student interviews, do seem a bit too much - a hard sell by a convert and Reacting to the Past innovator.

But the more general idea is a sound one. These games do mesh well with lessons from social psychology and the science of learning. Reacting to the Past is an application, a good application, of the more general approach of gamification (in particular, game-based learning). Professor Carnes does note that these games are similar to video games (he also equates them to beer pong, fraternity initiations, and football games, all examples of subversive games) in terms of power to engage and motivate students.

Of course, the biggest difference between Reacting to the Past (RttP) and more established approaches, such as the Case Method (business schools) and, say, negotiation role-plays is in terms of depth and time spent on a single historical issue. This is also, I think, the biggest drawback to RttP. In most courses it is difficult to trade off such extreme depth for a significant reduction in breadth. This is, I imagine, why RttP have most often been adopted into First Year Seminar courses, where fewer content requirements exist and soft skills are emphasized.

In conclusion, I found the book to be both interesting and inspiring. Mark Carnes reinforced my own efforts to bring game elements into my courses. He also prompts me to think more carefully about the choice I make between breadth and depth in my courses. I encourage others to read the book and to incorporate, as far as possible, techniques that better engage and motivate our students.

[Heather Ness-Maddox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, I liked the point/story Carnes told about the power of role playing games in education. I do think there were times he extrapolated a lot from a little, generalized too broadly, and perhaps could have used a more culturally sensitive lens to describe college students. Also? He really has a thing about World of Warcraft. But am I thinking of how to use role playing in an intro psych class? Yes.

[Sally Sugarman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a remarkable book. Not only does it provide examples of Reacting classes where role immersion provides a unique experience for students, but it also is a review and critique of higher learning. In the reacting classes where the focus is on learning, not teaching, on the students and not on the teachers. I did not know about these type of classes but I have since checked out their website https://reacting.barnard.edu/ These courses are developed by faculty in different areas and are interdisciplinary. The students are given background materials and find themselves immersed in past worlds as they argue as Athenians or Puritans or French revolutionists. Carnes talks about the importance of subversive learning and the way in which much of the extra-curricular activities that faculty deplore like Beer Pong are a form of subversive learning. The statistics about college students are both revealing and depressing. Although colleges are continuously trying to revamp their methods and their curriculum to involve students in academic learning for the majority of students it seems rather pointless. The importance of learning from failing is dealt with as are questions of ethics and the way ethical considerations have eroded. Cheating is not considered anything unusual by most college students. The author discusses the impact that online learning is going to have on traditional bricks and mortar colleges. As someone who has never been a fan of Plato, Carnes diagnosis of Plato’s impact on education is perceptive. His description of the discipline of history is also enlightening. Although he doesn’t mention counter-factual history, it is implied when some of the outcomes of the role playing contradicts the historical record showing that history is not as inevitable as the narratives often suggest. Carnes interviewed a wide range of students who had taken reacting courses and finds out the impact that it had on them. They still remember their engagement with the material after many years and some of them tell how much it affected their subsequent work after college. This is a book with so many facets that there is much to think about after finishing it.

[Stacey · Rating 3 out of 5]

A wonderful companion piece to attending my first Annual Institute, where I played my first games. It all seems to have the potential to liven up classes to create a more enriching educational experience for students and faculty alike. And yet the dismissal of the importance of historical content and the virtual shrug at the very real possibility - indeed the likelihood- that what students will actually walk away with is an inaccurate understanding of historical events makes me fear that the success of RTTP will lead to the end of history. If content does not matter, then who needs historians? We can all play make believe. Middle Ages or Middle Earth? No worries. It doesn't matter? (But what if I think it does matter?)

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liked it, and was paired well with research on student retention, learning, pedagogy, and the workings of higher ed, just didn't like at times how it read very much like a motivational or self-help book. It felt like a lot of heavy-handed persuasion even for someone who was already positive about considering Reacting games.

[Chad · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am just finishing up teaching my first year at Nevada State College. One thing I have really loved about my new institution is new ideas are encouraged. I not only feel free to try out new ideas in the classroom, my colleagues love their craft and share their own ideas. It is a hotbed of pedagogical innovation.

While scrounging the internet for a few sources on a presentation I was putting together for our Center for Teaching and Learning, I stumbled on Mark Carnes' Minds on Fire: How Role-Immersion Games Transform College. By the time I finished the first chapter, I knew I had hit something big. This is more than a "teaching hack" that one can slip into a lecture, with the general structure of the course unhindered. A Reacting classroom, as the program is called, envisions reenacting key historical events throughout history in order to make them more real to students. Imagine experiencing the events leading up to the assassination of Julius Caesar or the theological controversies at the Council of Nicaea. But make it Dungeons and Dragons style.

I was almost immediately sold. I try so hard to make the material feel relevant to my students, to try to pass on some of the enthusiasm I feel for the topic at hand with little success. As Carnes expresses,

Few regular instructors enter their traditional classrooms confident that their lectures and open-ended discussions will produce an intellectually vibrant experience... Too often, our regular classrooms resemble a movie in which excellent actors struggle to breathe life into a so-so script. It's a lot of work and not many find the performance all that satisfying.

One of the brilliant aspects of the Reacting classroom is that it is entirely student-driven. The instructor steps back to allow students to drive the action. I intend to try out my own Reacting classroom next semester. I was skeptical at first, as I teach statistics and math courses; are STEM fields an appropriate avenue for role-playing games, especially when we feel compelled to cover so much material in a given semester? I have yet to do my first trial run, but I found the Reacting Consortium has a range of games appropriate for STEM classrooms. I am preparing my first game to be taught in a statistics course, London 1854: Cesspits, Cholera, and Conflict Over the Broad Street Pump. This game centers around an outbreak of cholera in the mid-nineteenth century before we even knew disease was spread by germs. This story is well-known to biostatisticians and epidemiologists, as it is practically the founding moment of epidemiology: John Snow was able to narrow down the source of the outbreak to a single pump by mapping out cholera deaths. The use of data visualizations to solve a public health crisis is a powerful story, and one that is perfect for a Reacting classroom. The story situates you in a moment where the science is still up for debate. The anticontagionists, a faction of scientists who believed disease wasn't spread by invisible vectors, but rather bad air, had a powerful hold and represented the status quo. John Snow had to build a powerful argument to overturn the established opinions of the day. In this Reacting classroom, you come to realize that science changes, and that things we take for granted weren't always so undisputed. It seems particularly relevant in our post-pandemic 2022 world.

I have been poring myself into my first Reacting classroom. I'm still nervous. Will students take it well? Carnes paints a rosy picture, with students swearing by Reacting, praising it to the skies years later. I'm also nervous about the large amounts of preparation students have to put into it to do well. My students rarely crack open their textbook; will they do so in a Reacting classroom? The great thing is Reacting has a great community built around it, and I have already found a great support network.

I'll report back next semester to let you all know how it goes!

[KP · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book while looking for ways to incorporate educational-but-fun roleplaying games into my library's programming efforts. I thought it was offered a number of intriguing possibilities, and I was pleased to discover that my library owns a few of the modules, as they have been used on campus before. I'm hoping to potentially tweak some of the general information from this book and apply it to my work. (Although this book CAN get exhausting, as the author REALLY HATES World of Warcraft and brings it up literally every chapter; I would have liked to have him draw on some other examples of things that are vying for student's attention, rather than returning constantly to frats, social media, and World of Warcraft repeatedly. It begins to feel very, "rar, in MY day" at some point, even though he does point out that student's social lives have always competed with their academic ones.)

[Liz Davidson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was fascinating and it gave me a lot of ideas about things I would like to do as a teacher. I love the idea of role-playing as a way to let students guide their own learning, and I was fascinated by his descriptions of the special communities that formed within classes that incorporated Reacting to the Past. Many of his perspectives on the role of a teacher and on student engagement really spoke to me and my own experiences. That said, there were also times when I think Carnes oversold his argument (not every class can be an RTTP), and he also failed to provide one thing: A compelling solution to dealing with so-called "slackers" in these classes. He admits that sometimes students are not engaged and it can damage the class, but he then just kind of moves on. I'd like to have seen more acknowledgement of that, with better proposed fixes.

Overall, this gave me a lot of food for thought.

[Joy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having attended two Reacting to the Past workshops in 2006 and teaching the games for a few years, it was delightful to read Mark Carnes' well researched retrospective. While reading his interviews with Reacting alumni, I found myself nodding along; yes, that happened in my class, too; yes, students learned powerfully in ways I couldn't have imagined. I feel a renewed desire to take up this pedagogy again and lead my students to better learning through "acts of subversive play."

The book was published in 2014, and reading it today I was particularly amused at Carnes' foresight in titling a subheading "Why Donald Trump is Wrong." As Reacting (and current events) show, leadership comes from sensitivity to group dynamics, not from one person taking charge. I hope educators and students continue to play and learn after being inspired by this book.

[Tripp]

Carnes's thesis is that role-playing immersion games manage to harness the power of subversive play that students love so well, a history that stretches from the debating societies of the early 19th century through fraternities and binge drinking and massively multiplayer online video games, without the harmful effects of those activities. What results, amazingly, is students who are intrinsically motivated to work hard and learn, which is the goal of all education. In clear, enjoyable prose, he maps the current lack of engagement among college students, marshals convincing evidence showing that lecture-based instruction is woefully inadequate (and always has been!), and demonstrates the remarkable track record for student engagement boasted by the Barnard-born Reacting to the Past role immersion games.

[Barbara Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an engaging read. The author clearly explains the history of pedagogy and convincingly argues that Reacting is an improvement upon the lecture and discussion approach. He weaves lively anecdotal examples and student feedback into evidence from research about educational methods and psychology. After reading this book, I feel more confident about employing Reacting to the Past methods in class and about being able to defend it from skeptics and detractors.

[Chandra Powers Wersch · Rating 2 out of 5]

4-6 weeks for just one lesson in a semester? Psh yeah sure! Very pushy for a mixed reviewed pedagogical technique. There are more ways than just Reacting lessons to successfully educate others. It's a good technique, but not the only good technique. I'd be more interested when they can get it down to 2 class periods so I can have time to teach the other topics and course objectives we need to cover.

[Bella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inspired! Invigorated! Ready to go write a new game! If you like teaching and learning or you want to know more about it, this is the book for you. If you like Reacting, this is DEFINITELY the book for you. I sometimes find academic texts to be dry, but of course, Mark Carnes’ book was not dry in the least. Every page was a delight.

[Claudia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Minds on fire offers a great introduction to Reacting to the Past pedagogy in higher ed. It gets you excited about immersion games for educational purposes and is well written and easy to follow. I was hoping to see more research to back up the excitement, though.

[Jonathan Cassie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author's case for this particular brand of gamified instruction is irrefutable. This book is readable, scholarly, thoughtful, clear and utterly damning of traditional methods of instruction.

[Michael Burnam-Fink · Rating 4 out of 5]

College is broken, and anyone with an ounce of insight knows it. I know it, as someone who attended two rather elite institutions, and who's attended and taught at a much more mundane one that nevertheless brags about its 'innovation'. Students are disengaged in their classes, with attitudes ranging from bored to outright rebellion. Despite decades of work on student support and learning, the state of higher education remains dismal. I doubt students remember much of anything from beyond the end of the semester. This status quo would be, well, accepted as much as we've accepted everything else in higher education, except that these days college is ruinously expensive, online courses are lurking to demolish the already precarious structure of academic labor, and as a society we're counting on college graduates to solve so many looming social and technological problems.

Carnes thinks he has discovered the solution, in his Reacting to the Past series of games. Reacting to the Past replaces several weeks of traditional curriculum activities (lectures, papers, etc), with an interactive simulation where students take on the roles of key figures around major historical events (The Trial of Socrates, The French Revolution, and many more), break into factions, and try and persuade the other students to favor their cause, with a little help from the dice as arbiters of uncertainty. In character speeches, debates, and papers drive the class, with students driven to research above and beyond their packets by the desire to impress their class.

When it works, it works astoundingly well. Anecdotes from students describe an almost obsessive level of engagement with the class, life-changing experiences that taught them about empathy, leadership, and resilience, and improvements in critical thinking, teamwork and subject expertise. Carnes also has a strong synthesis of the history and psychology of the failure of college, dating back the 1880s Ivy League, and the way in which his theory of "subversive play" describes why students drop out.

However, there's markedly little systemic research on the Reacting to the Past curriculum (just Stroesser et al 2009), and this book sometimes takes on overly defensive, hard-sell attitude. Fair, since it's wildly different than what colleges have been doing, but this may turn off some people.

My more substantial criticism comes from the serious direction of tabletop roleplaying game theory. While I haven't had a chance to delve deeply into a Reacting to the Past unit, from what I understand, it's a cross between a GURPS source-book and a history course reader. I'm a strong proponent that System Matters in tabletop games, and there have been a lot of impressive work done since the mid-90s on system design, particularly lighter systems for narrative play. The second, related criticism, is that I play a lot of RPGs, I consider myself pretty good as a GM, and I've seen a lot of games utterly fall apart. With the much bigger and messier historical simulations of Reacting to the Past, I'm sure there's a lot more places for things to get derailed, and I hope Carnes is engaged with the messy details of the simulation in his guidebooks for teachers.

That aside, this is a serious criticism of college as practiced today, a strong theory as how to improve it, and an extremely impressive collection of anecdotes. In a worst case scenario of just 1% of Reacting to the Past students having the kinds of experiences that Carnes describes, implementing this curriculum is the only ethically sound choice for educators.

[Liz De Coster · Rating 3 out of 5]

Carnes has a good argument for the efficacy and success of this model of college education based on role-playing. The stories he relays indicate students are largely engaged with the coursework and are motivated by the approach. Four stars for concept.

Do you have a know-it-all uncle who likes to hold forth on the problem(s) with "kids these days" whenever topics like grades and social media are brought up? If so, reading this book can be like being stuck next to him on a boat. You know there's nothing you can do until the end and yet you consider throwing yourself overboard. Two stars for tone and approach.

It's not until Chapter 6 that Carnes moves beyond descriptive language and into providing non-anecdotal evidence of the success of the games/program(s). I would have liked to hear more about the games in non-history courses, for example, the math professor and revolution-era Paris - a topic that wasn't really re-addressed until the final chapter. I'm persuaded that most of the outcomes and outputs are positive but I'm not sure that I'd want to oversee a course that frustrated students to the point of tears, so I wouldn't say I'm completely sold. I'm certainly interested to see Reacting in action.

[Mackenzie Brooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somehow I had never heard of Reacting to the Past until a couple weeks ago. We are getting more faculty interested in "the gamification of learning" etc. on campus and I think this model intersects well with the DH pedagogy we're already thinking about. Carnes includes a lot about the state of higher ed, which was useful to me but I could see how it would be overkill for more experienced folks. The "subversive play" concept helped me understand greek life in a new way.

[Rhonda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book that leads to much thought and action (hopefully). Although Carnes at times comes off like a politician where he puts down concepts in order to build his up, this book is highly motivational and provides useful ideas on how to engage and motivate students in the classroom.

[Mills College Library]

371.337 C2897 2014

[David Runyon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book will change my pedagogy. It's likely to be a factor in changing my institution, as well.

[Martha]

Good theoretical and practical discussion of the benefits of role-playing games in pedagogy. I will be trying this in future classes.