Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has created a website to help students learn about civics issues.
I’ve previously posted about the site, and its games. One of them — Cast Your Vote — is pretty good, and it’s on The Best Websites For Learning About Civic Participation & Citizenship. There are a lot of interactives there, but I think most of them are overly-complicated — even for native English speakers. “Cast Your Vote,” though, puts you in the role of a person at a political debate asking questions and evaluating the answers of the people running for office. It’s pretty good and useful.
However, they’ve just added one on immigration that I think is pretty weird and borderline insulting. Check out Immigration Nation and let me know if I’m being overly-sensitive. I’m open to hearing that that I might need to take a “chill pill.”
I think you can remove “borderline” and just call the game insulting. It IS insulting to imply that people making a life-changing decision, uprooting themselves and their families, are doing so for asinine reasons like cupcakes, boredom, violent TV, or french fries. Surely even young children can understand more legitimate and realistic reasons like needing to find a job, wanting to get your children a good education, or needing to get away from a violent place. The game perpetuates this silly idea that immigrants are just moochers, coming for no reason at all to steal our candy, which they don’t deserve. Come on Ms. O’Connor. We expect far better.
Agreed on the insulting part – Kate put it well.
I completely agree with Kate. I played for a minute and got a french-fry lover and a grammar-hater, among others. Of course, it would be pretty demoralizing to, say, deny someone asylum because they’re gay and their partner was already killed for that reason. http://jezebel.com/5727845/the-lesbian-sister-who-sparked-a-deportation-debate (Oops, soapbox moment.)
I found it slightly offensive. I see how this might foster noninclusive judgmental attitudes in children. It not only teaches the current law, it moves beyond to reinforce current public policy, and seems to be in service to what I consider to be a sad political agenda. With the clever use of humor and positive imagery to access the child attention it delivers a partisan viewpoint dressed as civic education. Now, lets talk about that “chill pill” and how we foster healthy attitudes of about medication and behavioral health… (grin)
I played the game for about three minutes and found it to be dangerous. First, its lame humorous tone is completely out of place. In real life, there is nothing funny about immigration decisions and their dire consequences. Second, this game seems to want to teach children how to view immigrants in a negative way. Third, it even makes fun of Americans born outside of US soil. What is the point of this game?
Hi Larry, all,
I agree, found the immigration game disturbingly offensive and akin to Sarah Palin’s posting of “crosshairs” superimposed on opponents’ faces (on her website).
Distasteful to the max!
Also agree that fueling the outrage may not be the healthiest approach.
Let’s all promote and model critical thinking.
Holly
I see the point of the game and obviously they were trying to make this accessible to young students but I think they need to try this one again. I’ve recommended most of their other games, but I’m not sure I’ll be listing this one.
You all have made good points. I think it can be difficult to present the nuances of law, especially immigration law, to an elementary audience. I think they didn’t need to make the “distractors” so flip, but just explain, some jobs get H1 visas, and some don’t. Then leave it to teachers as to whether they want a discussion about the politics behind those decisions. Also, they should have had folks who had a good reason for seeking refugee status (they live in a place where there are human rights abuses) but they are not under direct threat. Those folks are not eligible.
I would say the UI is really nice, and I think with the addition of audio, it would even would even work for my second graders when they do a unit on our country. It definitely needs a re-write on some of the back stories.
It uses stereotypes- did you notice how many of the H1B candidates were Asian, and how many of the ‘my parents are citizens’ were from Mexico? It’s far too simplistic. It’s a pass/fail decision, with no information about the regulations to guide the decision. And I could live without Lady Liberty doing semiphore in the harbor. It might be amusing for kids, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.
I appreciate all the responses. I have contacted the site with my concerns, encouraging them to look at this post and all the comments. I suggested they pull the game and retool it. I’ll keep everybody posted on if I receive a response.
Larry
I also think it really trivializes the concerns of immigrants, some of whom are trying to come here to escape things like crushing poverty, persecution based on gender expression or religion, constant war, famine, and so on. This website ultimately reinforces the idea that people immigrate illegally to the US when they “probably have a home country to go to” (possibly inadvertently, to keep it light for kids). In reality, for a lot of people it’s because they feel they have no choice–and it was a reluctant, gut-wrenching, family-shattering decision, Regardless of whether you feel it was an appropriate choice, no one should equate it with moving for boredom or french fries!
(P. S. I know that most immigrants are here legally, but I do believe that there is an illegal immigration subtext lurking on the site with the would-be immigrants who are rejected. Even if it wasn’t intended, I think that’s what would be taken away.)
Hi, Everybody,
I contacted the site and encouraged them to look at this post and your comments. They have agreed to make changes to the game:
http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2011/01/21/sandra-day-oconnors-site-to-change-immigration-game-because-of-your-comments/
Larry