Civic Mirror Advice

This past year in school, my class ran through a simulation called Civic Mirror. It was one of my favorite school experiences and I got pretty involved.

Each student is randomly assigned a Hidden Agenda. In the US they are Liberal, Conservative, Fascist, Capitalist, Socialist, and Environmentalist. The Hidden Agendas represent motives/mindsets of real world people with a set of goals that you try to reach. For example I was Liberal. My goals were to keep income and property taxes above 0%, make sure the government owned from 20-40% of the hexes that produced units/ living places, make sure the government owned all the hexes that produced units people would die without (or that everyone in the country got the units they needed to stay alive), and that an election had occurred in the last year. So as a liberal I was protecting taxes, maintaining a healthy balance in government vs private owned businesses, making sure everyone fulfilled their essential needs, and ensured democracy was protected.

I am a bit of a geek, nerd, dork, so it wasn't hard for me to get involved in CM. I would wake up looking forward to it. Honest. Being so enthusiastic helped me succeed, I think. I participated and spent time outside of class with it. If you aren't enthusiastic, here's some advice:

1. Participate- the easiest way is by being elected or appointed to a public position, but you can also start a charity, bank, or news service, etc.
      I was elected to the government and it kept me busy. I put a lot of time into the position and that in turn gave me a lot of power. If you do become part of the government and you know you'll be able to do more than two- four years you should start small. Rising from House Rep, to Senate, to Pres. is more impressive than Pres. to private citizen/ a less dominant position in the government (obviously all branches should be equal, but President can be more prestigious than Justice or Senate President, especially in a middle school- high school classroom).  The government positions should be paid, so just voting on legislation will 1) earn money, 2) score you HA points, and 3) earn you participation points for your actual grade.
2. Read your manual and Constitution. Knowing what's up and what you can and can't do on your own, without waiting for the teacher or other students to reprimand you, gives you a headstart.
      Because I read the simplified version of the US Constitution, I also learned a lot about the rights in the US and the powers of each branch. For example, (I didn't end up using it in the game) but if laws regarding taxes were brought up in the Senate and you don't like the law, you can try to overturn it in Court because it was passed unconstitutionally- only the House can initiate bills regarding revenue. I had a lot of fun overturning/ repealing laws in my first year because they weren't Constitutionally passed. When I started as Senate President the next year I was more prepared and able to pass some great bills (for me and my HA, but also to improve the overall well being of my society/ country in the game).

If you are enthusiastic:
I crunched the numbers and came up with some cold statistics to present in my debates. It helps to know how many units are available in each type, total, so you can calculate how to help the most people. For example, our class needed x Education units, y Health, and z Food. Because you start with <x Edu., >y Heath, and =z Food, the least fortunate (in connections or money) would not be able to get Education units. I brought this to my classmates attention and passed a law limiting the amount of money you pay for a unit and making distribution more equal. Another issue is the environment. If you develop too many Wilderness Hexes (look like trees) people will start to die. But if our class didn't develop an Education hex eventually, people would suffer from not being able to get units. So I crunched some more numbers, and found that our community could spare a few houses, so we developed the houses into other hexes.