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Last September, I set a goal for myself: to find a game for every standard I teach. In other words, to gamify the entire school year.

While 6th graders can’t vote—and they often feel that participating in civic life is something only their parents can do—games put them in the driver’s seat. They help kids become personally invested in civic engagement through role play, practice, and active skill-building. Games can be experienced individually or in groups and integrated into homework checks. They’re a natural tool for virtual learning. Simply put: games are amazing!

The games I’ve discovered on iCivics have been go-tos in my class. They often come with supporting slides or PDFs which make the experience even more accessible; for example, students with slow internet speeds can turn to a worksheet. For my students struggling with reading or speaking English, I’m always impressed by how the games pull them in: it’s like a magic trick that captures their interest. After each game, I use prompts to encourage the students to reflect on what they’ve learned—and they write their hearts out every time.

Recently, as part of the Civic Star Challenge, my students played People’s Pie. The challenge: create and balance the budget for the entire country. From managing tax rates to setting the retirement age, the students had to weigh a variety of competing needs. I was so impressed as I watched them puzzle through really complex decisions. They were deeply invested. They grappled with the reality that some citizens were unhappy with the choices they made. Several students ran out of money and had to weigh the cost-benefit of taking on debt. Many kids came to the similar conclusion: if you want to do what’s best for the country, you’ll have to reckon with some difficult tradeoffs.

Oftentimes, the outcome of these games is not winning. And the students are OK with that. They understand that compromise is a vital part of a functioning democracy. In that way, the soft skill of accepting discomfort may be one of the most valuable byproducts of gameplay: it gets students ready to join the world and continue tackling challenges there.

A few years ago, one of my colleagues invited Mary Beth Tinker to speak at our school—she was the student plaintiff in the landmark case Tinker v. Des Moines. It was an incredible experience to hear her calmly describe what it was like to participate in the case, recounting each choice she made without really knowing how important her actions would become for the whole nation.

She spoke to the students about the First Amendment in a way that was undeniably personal. But she described her legacy like this:

“My message is that when you find issues that you care about and that you want to change, then it’s a great way of life to use your First Amendment rights to speak up about those issues and to take action. You’re not going to win all the time, but it’s still a good way of life.”

My goal as an educator is to help my social studies students make this same connection between the text of the Constitution and their daily lives, their communities, and the real world. The Civic Star Challenge helped me create that bridge.

For example, it’s one thing to read the amendments; it’s another to use them to defend the rights of others. When students play the iCivics video game Do I Have a Right?, they take on the role of lawyers. Clients show up to their office with complaints; then the lawyers have to decide whether that grievance is covered by the Constitution and, if so, by which amendment. And the clients demand answers quickly! I love listening in as students check in with each other, discussing their tactics and understandings of the text. (“Oh no, I thought it was in the Fifth Amendment, but it was the Sixth!”) The game encourages critical thinking, creates community, and leaves students with a much richer understanding of their own rights. Plus, it serves as an informal assessment, with data coming at me in real time.

My class is often the first time students dive into content that asks them to reflect on human nature, current events, and who they are becoming. I emphasize that those who founded the country did not come up with these ideals and ideas themselves. Many of the founders were not much older than the students, and—like good students—when they looked for inspiration for a new government, they drew on their favorite thinkers, including Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau. The proof is right in the Declaration of Independence.

Mary Beth Tinker stressed the importance of knowing your rights and speaking up for yourself, no matter what age you are. Guided by her example, I tell my students that we are not studying history or civics, but rather that we’re living it. We study the past to navigate our present and to better understand what it means to have rights—not just for ourselves, but for everyone.