A game from the past – a game of the 19th century Europe
Reference: Bruce, E. and Klarenbeek, E. (2020) Playing on the Map: An Educational Game from the Age of Revolutions. The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth,13 (1), 9-17
Introduction
In this article we take a lot at an article which examines an early 19th century educational board game. From the mists of history we think about what this board game and this article can teach us about using games in the modern classroom.
The context
This article reports on a late 18th or early 19th century game that was designed to help children with their geography learning. The article itself takes the reader through an explanation of the game as well as examining the rise of board games for children, the social context of the game, and the shift in pedagogical approaches at the time of the game.
The game
The game that this article reports on his called ‘The Journey from Prague to Vienna’ which is what the authors describe as a ‘racing game’ in which players choose a character – a doctor, cartwright, customs inspector or postilion1 – and travel around, what is now, Austria and Germany visiting major cities on the way. The players roll a dice to move along the map and if they land on a city, they have to answer a geographical question about that region (including details of major produce, industry and architecture). Each player has a certain amount of marks2 which they contribute to a ‘pot’ and, if a player loses all their marks, they have to return to Prague ( the beginning) and start again. The player that reaches Vienna first with an exact dice roll (think Snakes and Ladders) and answers a correct question is winner!
The article gives a history of this 18th or 19th century game that is fascinating in the way it details how these games were marketed and how people accessed the rules and kept their own versions (how many board gamers today have monogrammed slip cases for their games!). This is based on very scant evidence, in fact the article reports that there appears to be only one known version of the game left which is currently held in a museum.
History of the game and a shifting pedagogy
The article places the game in the context of learning geography which, at the time of publication, was mainly focused on ‘rigid, memorisation-driven instruction’. However, the authors describe that at the turn of the 19th century there was beginning to be a shift in these instruction approaches which were driven by a ‘growing concern for child readers amusement, an association of learning about the world with the family and the home, [and] the orientation of children as explorers and armchair travellers’. This seems to have been accompanied, or resulting from, ‘an increased emphasis on map reading and the use of atlases in schools’. However, one other influence on geographical learning at this time which the article focuses on is both fascinating and relevant in many areas of the world today. That is the influence of the contemporary political thinking and climate which the authors describe as ‘the influence of nationalism and colonial ambitions’. We shall return to this, briefly, below.
The article also briefly summarises a slight shift in the audience of board games as this game, along with others, were designed for children rather than adults as had previously been the case. Although this game may be old, it seemed to represent a change on two fronts, that of the learning approaches and that of the board game target audience. Much like the games that are used in the classroom today, the designers of The Journey from Prague to Vienna wanted to make learning geography more fun for children so they turned to use of games. Perhaps then in this game we see an early example of the belief that is held by many teachers: games can make learning that is perceived as ‘boring’, more fun!
Memorisation games
This leads us nicely on to the next point. The authors argue that this game ‘seems to encourage the idea that education should be amusing’ because it delivers learning in the form of a game that is more interesting and engaging than endlessly flipping through textbooks. However, the article also notes that, though the game does attempt to present the information in a new, ‘amusing’ way, it still requires the payer to recite information and facts which follow ‘an older, catechetical approach to learning’. It would be nice then to see this game as the link between the older rote learning styles to the newer approaches to learning which focus on engagement and application. If we were to feel particularly airy, we could use the analogy of finding the fossils of some ancient man that provides the link between two ancestors of humans. Here is the link between the old pedagogies of recitation and the new world of learning games that are engaging and provide opportunities for learning beyond learning facts. It would be nice to say that, wouldn’t? The sad fact is that classroom games haven’t progressed that far. Some teachers today may turn their noses up at the rote learning found in The Journey from Prague to Vienna as a thing of the past. However, really we consider many ‘games’ in the modern classroom they still follow the same template that requires children to learn and recite facts, have narrow choices, and are used is dress up ‘boring learning’ as fun. The Journey from Prague to Vienna may be over two hundred years old yet I would venture it would not look out of place amongst the games used in some modern classrooms (obviously the old-style map would be replaced with some gaudy, overly-cartoony, cheap-looking map).
A copy of the map from the game, The Journey from Prague to Vienna (4)
Politics and games
This last point is more a winding path of thoughts than a coherent argument. The authors describe the political context in which the game was made and how, within this culture, the game appears to translate some of the main issues present in early 19th century Europe. For example, the game makes choices about which cities are included on the map, focusing on those of the newly emerging German states, furthermore the maker of the game places ‘financial literacy’ as a prominent role. In making these choices, the authors’ of the game have reinforced and prompted certain ideals, points of view, and political stances. This may sound overly dramatic, but it does raise the question: what do the games that we play in classroom tell our pupils about the world around us? In thinking on this issue, we might consider, for example, the winning conditions of the game and the way players get points. Do players get points for eliminating other players? Do they win by having the most money? If so, is this the lesson that we are trying to teach pupils? If that is the object of the lesson, perhaps one that focuses on hyper capitalism, then these would be appropriate mechanics in the game. However, in other games that are focusing on different learning objectives, it may be more appropriate for points to be awarded for what is relevant to each concept. I am not advocating here for zero-competition in schools (a contentious issue) but rather that the competition present in a game perhaps should be tailored to the target learning objective and not necessarily based on the amount of money that a player has accrued or the ruthless elimination of other players (not least because an elimination mechanic in a game is a brilliant way to disengage students). I do not have an answer for this, more of a thought. If The Journey from Prague to Vienna reflected the desires of the ruling class in middle Europe in the early 19th century, then do our games today reflect modern political or economic schools of thought which may be damaging (or positive).
I am reminded of a Philip K. Dick3 that I read years ago, which I believe is called War Game and is set in the a future in which Earth and Ganymede are hostile rivals. If you haven’t read it and want to, I shall place a spoiler warning here before I proceed! A synopsis of the story can be found here. In the story, after testing a trio of toys from the hostile planet of Ganymede, the Earth inspector rejects two of the toys as dangerous and only allows the third, a monopoly-style board game, to enter of the Terran market place. As it turns out though, it is this economic game which may be most damaging to the children of Earth, not the war game. This may have a ring of truth about it to those people who have experienced the ill-feeling created in an actual game of Monopoly.
A modern The Journey from Prague?
For those looking for a similar game two hundred years on from The Journey from Prague to Vienna, the modern board game Takaido has a very similar feel with players travelling through Japan collecting experiences and souvenirs. It is game that is fun to play with beautiful artwork. Also, a game that could be adapted to different countries and times that may be a fun way for pupils to become familiar with historical landscapes they are about study… watch this space!
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- Postilion – had to look this word up. Apparently it is somebody that leads a coach and guides the horses. So in this context I assume that it means some sort of messenger or, well, postal worker.
- Currency once used in Germany.
- A Science-fiction author of Total recall, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Minority Report fame.
- Bruce and Klarenbeek, 2020, p. 10
Primary Rules 