Ethics game results

In a previous post I mentioned how I have students pass around the Slash doll when they hear each other speaking Spanish. 
Then I thought about that: students policing each other...it sounded a bit Nazi-ish to me.  I wondered if the students would have a problem ratting each other out.

I had invented a few new games to help my students review grammar (also detailed in another post), but they all require cards with the names of the grammar points and the example sentences.  Since my philosohphy is to have the students do as much of the preparation work as possible (they have to learn English, I don't), I had them prepare the cards.  The problem was, I knew it would take a while and I knew it might be kind of boring.

So I added these instructions:

TRY TO FIND OUT INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR CLASSMATES AND INCLUDE THIS INFORMATION IN YOUR SENTENCES.  FOR EACH SENTENCE ABOUT A CLASSMATE, YOU GET 2 EXTRA POINTS, BUT IF A SPY CATCHES YOU, YOU LOSE ALL OF THE SENTENCES YOU HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT YOUR CLASSMATES UP UNTIL THAT POINT.

YOU ARE ALSO A SPY.  IF SOMEONE TALKS DIRECTLY TO YOU, YOU CANNOT RAT THEM OUT BUT YOU CAN RAT OUT OTHER PEOPLE IF YOU SEE THEM COMMUNICATING.  FOR EVERY PERSON YOU RAT OUT TO ME, YOU GET 5 EXTRA POINTS.

I was curious to see if and how the students would try to communicate, and if and how they would "rat each other out". 

As it happened, two girls immediately began ratting out their classmates.  But then everybody got smart: instead of asking each other for information, they simply started writing information they already knew, like "X is taller than Y". 

Then one guy took it a step further with sentences like: "Everyone in this class is shorter than me."  I saw where this was going, and sure enough he did not disappoint.  He eventually came up with a sentence beginning with "Everyone at this university..."

I thought the students had brilliant responses to the ethical conundrum I had set.

Unfortunately, it wasn't exactly the game I had envisioned.  What I wanted to do was my game "Factory Line" (see my blog for June 7, 2014) the aim of which was to have my students try to get to know each other better.  Because of the parameters I had set and the sneaky way they got around it to be more ethical, that didn't happen.

Lesson: Never underestimate how ethical my sudents really are.