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A teacher recalls when his students schooled the Pentagon

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

It is Friday, and that means it's time for StoryCorps. For nearly half a century, a group in Charlottesville, Virginia, has been organizing people to tackle the ultimate challenge, world peace, a fact made all the more remarkable since those people are kids.

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JULIANNE SWOPE: Sometimes World Peace Game feels like, you know, the weight of the world on your shoulders. This is exploding over here, this is firing over there, this is spilling oil. And I say to myself, oh, my gosh, I need to fix this.

MARTIN: The World Peace Game was invented in 1978 by a public school teacher named John Hunter. Students are divided into made-up countries and given a specific role, like prime minister or secretary of the United Nations. They tackle pressing world problems like war and climate change. Hunter retired in 2014. He sat down recently with one of his former students, Irene Newman, to remember an unexpected invitation he and his fourth graders received.

JOHN HUNTER: I get a phone call. Hello, Mr. Hunter? Pentagon. I'd like to know if you could bring your students to the Pentagon so we could ask them directly how they do what they did. And I thought, OK, this is going to be a nice photo op. We're going to have pizza with the general or something like that. No. They brought my (laughter) 24 students in this room, who got very dressed up, by the way - suits and ties for the little guys. One of my girls had her nice, poofy skirt with sparkles and rhinestones on it and sparkly shoes.

IRENE NEWMAN: (Laughter).

HUNTER: And they had their top-secret dossiers under their arms that said in big letters, top secret dossier. And they grilled my students for 3 hours. I remember General Santee, general in the Air Force, bending down to ask my secretary-general of the United Nations, in her poofy skirt, what do you do when you have a supply chain break down? And Sarah, she smoothed her skirt, said, well, I just had to deal with that last week, as a matter of fact.

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NEWMAN: (Laughter).

HUNTER: And let me tell you what I did. It was surreal. I'm a teacher of these children, 4 feet tall, peer to peer, nose to nose with some of the most powerful military people in the world, who are taking them seriously. But then before we leave, a door opens in the conference room, and a colonel steps out. He says, Mr. Tuner, we're ready for your delegation. We go in, and there is Leon Panetta, the secretary of defense. He says, I got 10 minutes. I got to go see the president. He says what's your toughest problem? He's serious. And in one voice they all say, well, climate change, of course, because it's affecting everything. He says, you know what, what did you do about it? And they talk for 25, 30 minutes.

He was late to go see the president. The most powerful military commander in the world shows respect to fourth graders who've lived through - sure, in a fictional way - what he's living through every day, and they came asking my students' advice. This is why I'm the most optimistic person you will ever meet, because I've seen children, for almost five decades, figure this out so much so that world leaders have come asking, can your children show us how they do this? Because we've not figured it out. I don't know if it made a difference, whether it changed any of their minds or thinking or not. I don't know. But the fact that it happened at all means an awful lot.

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MARTIN: John Hunter speaking with Irene Newman for StoryCorps. John has taught the World Peace Game to children and teachers all over the world. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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Jud Esty-Kendall
Esther Honig