Mesopotamia

On the show 2 1/2 Men, the early seasons involved Alan Harper trying to convince his son to study. 
Alan: Now, what year did Magellan circumnavigate the globe?
Jake: It's not gonna be on the test.
Alan: Maybe not, but it wouldn't hurt for you to know it anyway.
Jake: Why would I want to know something I don't have to?
Alan: Because maybe you'll need to know it in the future.
Jake: Well, then that's when I'll learn it!
Alan: Why can't you just learn it now?
Jake: 'Cause there's only so much space in my brain that if you put Magellan in there, I might forget my locker combination
http://www.tvfanatic.com/quotes/characters/alan-harper/page-54.html

How do you convince a 12 year-old that they ned to learn ancient history?  Obviously Alan's arguments above failed to have an impact.

The solution is to create what Salen calls a "need-to-know", or "just-in-time learning". 

I was asked to give a demo lesson on Mesopotamia.  I loosely based my activity on http://www.instituteofplay.org/work/projects/quest-curriculum/mission-pack-i-spy-greece/

The resulting task: Alexander the Great wants to make Mesopotamia part of the Greek Empire.  You are his advisers and you need to find answers to his 2 questions:
1. What elements of Mesopotamian culture should we assimilate?
2. What elements of Mesopotamian culture should we eliminate and how can we do so without inciting the people to riot?

It turned out surprisingly that women's rights, which under the early Mesopotamian Empire included owning property and businesses were to be curtailed, while the practice of slavery was to be kept and expanded.  So how did we get from there to where we are today?