Evolution of EduCaution!
Safe Schools Simulation (Safety Game)
From panel discussion to multi-purpose hands-on training tool.
In April 1999, a shooting at Columbine High School that killed 15 and injured 23, made clear the need to handle violence in schools. The tragedy in Colorado was not the first school shooting (it was the 13th since February 1996), nor the last (at least 22 more have occurred through October 7, 2002 when a 13 year-old was shot by a sniper in Bowie, MD.
In the weeks following Columbine, people across the nation began a round of anti-violence workshops, rallies, vigils and other ways to meet the crisis.
By the end of June, the Business & Education Alliance pulled together a panel presentation, Safe Schools: Safe Students, for its 1999 Summer Institute. Panelists included a security professional, a child psychologist, a representative of school principals, a county prosecutor, and county superintendent of schools.
The panel discussion was well-received; we took it a step further. At the 2000 Summer Institute, an abbreviated panel discussion was used to introduce a small group activity wherein teachers were given scenarios based on real events and asked to solve them.
That summer was spent planning a series of professional development workshops for teachers. Coming off the success of the safe schools activity, safety was chosen as the topic of the first workshop. And so it was that in July 2000, we began work on a board game format using the scenario/solution format. The board, a schematic drawing of a school, made it possible for players to “go to the scene” of the scenario. As before, the board game allowed for a group to work together to solve the scenario.
The number of scenarios went from 6 to 50. Next came a mechanism for moving players around (Rolling a die) and limiting the time needed for one turn (a 2-minute timer). Hall Pass cards were added to advance or slow down a player’s progress toward the goal. This game, with few changes, has become EduCaution!
The parts of EduCaution! and how they work.
The Game Board is a schematic drawing of a generic school. It helps visual learners consider scenarios where they take place. It is also more interesting than an all-talk question and answer approach to safety.
Scenarios were written based on realistic (and often real) situations. The solutions consisted of the “best” solutions we found in our research. Scenarios are a mechanism to move players around the board and present them with problems associated with the place they are sent. This mechanism is created to make players jump from place to place. A player has no control over where he/she is sent. This reflects the randomness of crises. They happen anywhere, any time, and can delay, alter or derail progress toward a particular goal.
Hall Pass Cards add additional randomness, without asking the player to solve a scenario. Hall Pass cards are “luck”. Luck can work in your favor or against you, to speed or delay progress toward a goal.
The game ends when each player in a group has completed 6 scenarios, after which the player must make his/her way to the faculty parking lot by rolling the die and moving along hallways without regard to scenarios or hall pass squares.
The objective of the game is to raise awareness of safety issues and encourages teachers, administrators, education support professionals, school crisis teams and others to think and work together to keep our schools safe havens for children.
EduCaution! can be used by teachers to raise awareness of safety and what to do in an emergency.
EduCaution! can be used for teambuilding and assessment of school crisis teams.
EduCaution! can be used to build cooperation among community groups that bring together people with different experience and points of view; teachers, school nurses, police officers, school administrators, school security personnel, professional security people, parents, and so on.
Downloads
Educaution! Rules
Educaution! Score Cards
EduCaution Pricing
Game Questionnaire
Evolution of EduCaution!