OLD TOWN — Before sixth-grader Jake Phillips played the World Peace Game, he was never interested in politics.
"I used to think politics was just people shouting at each other behind big podiums and they all had different ideas," he said.
After spending 10 weeks playing the interactive, political simulation with his classmates at Catherine Cook School, 226 W. Schiller St., Phillips' opinion changed dramatically.
"While there is shouting and conflicting ideas, politics change the world. [The game] made me more interested in what they're doing."
Phillips is among 40 sixth-graders at the Old Town school who learned how to solve problems, accept others and negotiate through playing the World Peace Game this fall.
Catherine Cook bills itself as the first school in the city to offer the game, which was developed by Virginia-based teacher and TED Talk "all-star" John Hunter, who has gone on to write a book and star in a documentary about the game, which is played in classrooms around the world.
In the game, there are four different countries, which are faced with many different challenges, or crises, which range from nuclear war to a broken satellite. The students are assigned roles like prime minister or banker, and they must negotiate with each other to solve the crises in order to achieve world peace.
The game is bigger than a game board, though there is a four-tiered board where all of the military figurines lie. Students have folders full of treaties and checks that they refer to as they passionately negotiate over everything from fines to wars.
"What captured us so much was the amount of letting go [we do] and how much work that the kids do. We didn't know what could happen," said Jessica Majors, one of the teachers who helped facilitate the game at Catherine Cook.
"We're making decisions about moving military troops and I'm like, 'Oh no. This could end in disaster.' But we can't swoop in and save them. We just ask them, 'Can you afford to do it? Can you handle the consequences?' It was amazing to see their growth in that decision making over time."
When DNAinfo Chicago visited the students on a recent afternoon, enthusiasm over the game was palpable, with all of them eagerly sharing what they learned.
"I listen to more stuff about religion now. I guess I understand it more," Surya Newa said. "I always listened to NPR and they always talk about what's happening with religion and what different people are saying about it. I used to not pay attention too much but now I do."
"What [one of my classmates] William did with the secret empire when he tried to make peace with them [in the game] ... I thought, 'That wouldn't work with ISIS,'" he said.
Another student, Lily Harris, loved the game so much that she'd arrange meetings with her classmates to talk strategy during lunch.
"We had a limited amount of time to talk to each other, so we'd [talk] in the hallways and during recess. We would talk about things so that when we go to the next period we'd solve it right away," Harris said. "That would be the discussion at the dinner table. That's all I would talk about."
Many students agreed, saying they'd consult their parents or friends on different strategies to implement during the game, which they played for about three to five hours every week.
Evan Sil recalled a time when there was a crisis over a sinking boat that had treasures aboard.
"I went home and talked to my parents about it. They suggested something, but I changed their idea to make it mine," he said.
As the head of the United Nations, Isabel Kaufman had to sign all of the treaties. At one point, one of the countries had to be fined for an error on a check.
"There was a bunch of conflict. We learned from that how conflicts happen because of budget issues," she said, adding that she ended up negotiating with her classmates to lower the fine.
Majors and Elizabeth Niketopoulos — the other teacher who facilitated the game at Catherine Cook — started seriously considering bringing the game to the Old Town school about 2½ years ago at a conference. The private school enrolls about 550 students from preschool through eighth grade.
At first, the school couldn't find the funds to send them to a weeklong training, but the teachers were "persistent," and it paid off, according to Cory Stutts, the head of the middle school department.
"It's a huge investment in teacher time for the setup and the training was not inexpensive," Stutts said.
But she said the game ended up "wildly exceeding" her expectations.
"You can feel the energy. I had other teachers that were in the classroom. We were like, 'My god, they are so into this.' They are learning so much. My mouth was hanging open on the last day," she said.
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