While teaching the monumental and pivotal steps that led to the fall of the Soviet Union, I came across a thousand other things that needed to be taught. Like all teachers of every subject, I had to pick and streamline.
The Soviet Union's collision in Afghanistan was requisite to teach. Their invasion to bolster a communist coup began in 1979; it lasted ten years, and even students could identify that it was the Soviet's equivalent of America's Vietnam. We had reached that point where students could fill in the obvious history blanks.
Satisfying.
The year 1979 was pivotal in many other ways...it was the year the Tehran embassy was invaded. Fifty-two hostages spent 444 days in captivity. They were finally released hours after President Reagan's inauguration.
While learning as much as I could about the tragic incident, I had a thought: how cool it would be to reproduce a terrorist hostage incident. I searched the internet and teacher websites for a hostage simulation but wasn't successful. I might have to create this on my own.
And then...miraculously, I found a simulation. I called the New York company who'd once sold the box set, only to learn the dismal news that they no longer carried the re-enactment. But they referred me to a company in Connecticut that might by chance still have it.
I called. A woman told me, "No we no longer have the Hostage Crisis Simulation."
Disappointment. But wait..."There might be one out in the barn. I'll call you back."
She called me back to inform that indeed, she'd found one boxed Hostage Simulation Crisis! It was under a rafter; it had been rained on, but overall it was in good shape...and she was sending it for free. I only needed to return it when we finished.
I was ecstatic when the box and the book arrived. There were clumps of dirt amidst the instructions and the character booklets, but given that it was twenty years old and had been resting in a barn...I counted my fortunes.
In addition to the incredible find, the other find was that Moorhead Kennedy, one of the American embassy hostages had helped to create it. This was as authentic as a person could get.
The first time my class acted out the hostage crisis, it worked pretty well. Their only complaint was that the end results were pointed. The Iranians had to negotiate with the Americans and the hostages had to be freed. There was no wild card. No one died and everyone went home.
The second group of students ruined the simulation. They weren't in the mood to fight, they negotiated quickly and what had previously taken almost two hours, took one.
I shelved the Hostage Crisis simulation...but when I retold this year's class about it, and that they would make excellent negotiators because they liked to fight and engage, one girl wouldn't settle without a chance.
"But it has problems," I said. "It's ineffective. It needs to be reworked."
"I am the one!"
And so I let "the one," the spunky one, have a chance. She had until the next night to fix the problems.
What a challenge. I was hopeful but cautious.
In the meantime, on the New York Times Sunday edition, I saw a photo of Moorhead Kennedy riding in an open parade limo with New York mayor Edward Koch.
This man whom I admired, this man who played an important role in America's history---as a hostage, his precious life had come to an end.
Moorhead C. Kennedy Jr., 93, Dies; Hostage Who Chided Foreign Policy
A Foreign Service officer, he was one of 52 hostages seized in Iran and held for 444 days. He later challenged the U.S. government to reshape its diplomacy with the Islamic world. In the photo, he is the man on the right. The mayor of New York Edward Koch is on his left.
May 18, 2024Moorhead C. Kennedy Jr., wearing a dark suit and a green polka-dot tie, was working at his desk in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran on the morning of Nov. 4, 1979, when a Marine burst into the hallway outside his office.
It was a tense period in Iran: A revolution to overthrow the shah was escalating. Mr. Kennedy, a career Foreign Service officer, was filling in for the economics counselor, the embassy’s third-ranking diplomat, who was away on family leave.
“I was very interested in seeing a revolution in progress,” Mr. Kennedy later recalled. “It was a very fruitful time until, all of a sudden, I heard a shout from the Marines, ‘They’re coming over the wall!’ And then a whole new experience began.”
Supporters of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini took Mr. Kennedy and 51 others hostage. They were held for 444 days and subjected to psychological and physical abuse, including mock executions. The global crisis upended Jimmy Carter’s presidency and helped foment in the West an enduring distrust of the Islamic world.
Following the release of the hostages just after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as president in January 1981, Mr. Kennedy emerged as one of the most recognizable characters of the episode — in part because his wife, Louisa Livingston Kennedy, had been a spokeswoman for families of the hostages, but more so because he had quit the Foreign Service and become a fierce critic of U.S. foreign policy.
Mr. Kennedy died on May 3 in Bar Harbor, Maine. He was 93. The cause of his death, at an assisted living facility, was complications of dementia, his son Mark said.
I shelved the Hostage Crisis simulation...in addition to the aforementioned problems, the world in the past few years had changed. The Middle East was again embroiled in conflict and classroom dynamics had changed. I now had students from Egypt and Jordan. They were Muslim, and the simulation clearly pitted the players against Muslim extremism. If I were ever to use the simulation again, it would need a lot of work. It was my last year of teaching. I lacked motivation to take on a project of magnitude.
When I told the class about the simulation because we were studying the Iranian hostage crisis, when I told them they'd be excellent negotiators because they liked to fight civially and engage without blows, one girl wouldn't settle without a chance.
"But it has problems," I said. "It's ineffective. It needs to be reworked."
"I am the one!"
And so I let "the one," the spunky one, have a chance. She had until the next night to fix the problems.
What a challenge. I was hopeful but cautious.
Willow was so confident that she could redefine the simulation, that she asked for it to be the class final.
In stepping back, I allowed students to shine.
With her main role and a cadre of student support, the simulation was better than I could have imagined. The students shined in their roles. There was appropriate conflict and resolution.
But it was after all, their final.
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