A Look Back: Holiday Pass Workshop – A Week of Minecraft
Intro
In my activities as a social educator, I often come across children with a specific interest in Minecraft – whether at youth centers or schools. These are children who frequently have trouble fitting into the community of a class and have different interests to most. You could also say that they had a tendency to be “nerdy” at an early age. An idea therefore began to grow of organizing workshops that would be a meeting place for such kids (and others). It would be a place that facilitated the developing of a sense for what a good and healthy community feels like. It also dawned on me that Minecraft could not only be a paradise for nerds, but also a site for experimentation: for building democracy, for promoting media literacy, and addressing urban issues. An open-ended future lab.
Exploration
14 children from all across the Basel region came together at HEK to play Minecraft as a group for a week. The starting point was an empty world, a blank slate. The genre is clearly an open world game, to be explored and constructed without any specific objective or a predetermined game narrative. Players are able to seek out their own tasks and projects. The first task was to discover a suitable location for a town hall. After we had found the “Cherry Blossom Forest,” everyone rapidly agreed that this was where we wanted to settle. We quickly divided up the tasks relating to building the town hall and the creation of a small wheat field that would be needed to bake bread and attract animals. And indeed, by the end of the first day, there was a real, even if still somewhat rudimentary town hall and we had already enticed some cows, sheep, and chickens. Supplies were also being collected, the town hall’s basement was soon piling up with boxes full of food, coal, wood, and so on. The store was not for individual use, but for everyone. A first political decision had already been made, almost in passing.
Building Democracy
On the second day, we defined responsibilities: who was to take care of the wood, who the wheat and the animals, and who had ideas for further construction projects? Since no one had provided us with any rules, we had to invent them ourselves, resulting in ongoing discussions to find consensus. It became rapidly apparent that if a sense community wasn’t maintained or individual responsibilities became neglected there would be a lack of materials and the various projects would suddenly come to a standstill. It was in such a way that the children learned that they didn’t always have to ask the teacher if they, for example, didn’t know where the wood needed to go, but rather their peers, that is, the ones responsible for construction or the wood store.
While some worked for the community, others were busy mining diamonds and other valuable things. But suddenly there was a stall – one child wanted to start selling their treasures. The day was almost over but I knew that before capitalism suddenly entered our world, it would have to be discussed – first thing the next day.
Minecraft Ferienpass 2024, HEK, Screenshot
Exploring and Connecting
And so the question was put to the group: did we require a market economy or should we, according to principles of generosity, proceed with a communal economy? The veto was unanimous and the stall was dismantled. In the meantime, most of the children had gradually constructed a house or joined someone else in extending theirs. We had also accumulated enough resources. But it was never quiet or boring – there were always small incidents, someone would dismantle something that someone else still needed, meaning we had to discuss things once again and revise the responsibilities and tasks that had been useful on the first day. A harbor was built next to the town hall, and a tower was added to the town hall. I found myself repeatedly discovering new details that made life in this block world easier or more beautiful. We were already deep in the Minecraft tunnel, time was racing past, but already the next morning, we were obliged to have another big discussion. Many rules were being ignored again and suddenly things were going missing from where we had just agreed we needed them. One question became urgent: did we need law enforcement officers; did we need a police force?
Setting Out and Consensus
We had planned to defeat the Ender Dragon on the morning of the last day. A number of preparations were necessary for such an undertaking: collecting experience points, putting spells on armor, and carving pumpkin masks. A spirit of optimism spread, everyone helped each other and tried to organize the best possible armor for the less skilled players. The nervousness also led to a certain amount of chaos; some left their materials lying around, others quickly helped themselves to things and we had to repeatedly clarify what could be used and what not. Some children had to learn to seek help instead of simply helping themselves without asking. Not all participants had the same skills; there were Minecraft beginners as well as real experts. But a willingness to help was always there and when asked whether we needed a police force to bring a little more order, everyone quickly agreed that problems could probably be solved faster by discussion and consensus-building.
Like a Camp
Poor planning ultimately proved fatal. We had only planned for 30 minutes to defeat the Ender Dragon and wanted to do that last. Unfortunately, it took us more than half an hour to even get to the portal that would lead to the Ender Dragon. At least the children learned how to use coordinates and how to orient themselves in a (digital) terrain. When finally all 14 children were on their way to the portal, navigating with the coordinates, marking the path, and so on, I couldn’t help being reminded of the Scouts. And as is the case in open terrain, not everyone was able to make it to the destination, that is the Ender Dragon, in time and the last day threatened to end in a somewhat forlorn mood. But things quickly brightened up again when the parents arrived and we were able to show them our world. Everyone was allowed to proudly take turns with a laptop connected to a projector and show the house they had built. The stories started to tumble out – how we had built the town hall, how we had built the harbor. I was amazed at the number of children who had banded together with others, all without me noticing. For example, I thought the two girls hadn’t interacted very much with the boys, but I was wrong. Two boys had actually moved in with one of the girls and took care of extending and improving the interior. The houses had saunas, pools with baby pools, living rooms, kitchens, storage rooms, chickens, dogs, and cats. Everyone had made themselves comfortable and although the children had hardly known each other before, the atmosphere was like being at camp. One child found it difficult to let go: “Everything we’ve built – what’s going to happen to it now?” I told him that this wasn’t the last world he would create.
Outro
As a social educator working with such a game and group feels like normal work. We practiced working together, building a community with rules and values. I clarified misunderstandings and structured the tasks, and I provided direction when needed. It was clearly a type of project-based teaching in terms of method. But it went far beyond that; we experimented with unusual forms of community and thought about them, continually comparing our little utopia with the actual world we live in. This small digital world was a protected, experimental, and open-ended space in which building democracy and building the future could not only be learned, but experienced as a group. Such game simulations enable people to develop a sense of the complexity of democratic processes as well as problems of sustainability – but also of the fact that solutions can still be found. The game environment promotes the ability to act and to look to the future. This is all the more important as the tasks facing us as a society can easily make us fatalistic and seemingly powerless. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for the quiet (and possibly more capable) children to get left behind in school because the loud ones get more attention. I have frequently seen that the suffering of such children can be considerable; in the worst case, they are bullied and receive only a little help (and sometimes far too late). The great thing about such a digital space is that it simplifies many things and, above all, functions as a refuge in which to test roles and experience community. Many gaming bios describe exactly that: within the game, I can be the leader of a group of 40 people and demonstrate my excellent management skills, which may otherwise have gone unnoticed.
A week after the camp, I logged into our little world one last time. It was quiet, there were no children running around the town hall, no more animals in the enclosure. I put a sign in front of the town hall with information about an open meeting place that I’m organizing – every Wednesday afternoon we meet to start a new world. The rules? We still have to find them.
Minecraft Ferienpass 2024, HEK, Screenshot.
A guest article by Mario Robles, social educator, and Roland Fischer, science journalist and curator. Mario Robles organizes an open Minecraft meeting. Further info at https://openworlds.community/
The workshop took place as part of the project «Let’s play – designing diverse and collaborative digital worlds» with the support of Migros Kulturprozent and Binding Foundation.