The Island of Found Souls
Ding-Ding! Everyone eats a Smartie and waits to see who dies.
Teaching literature to teenagers demands an enticing invitation - what songwriters call a “hook.” Over the years of my teaching, I developed a lesson activity called “The Island,” based on William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies and the Dungeons & Dragons gameplay structure. Its premise was to imagine that school funding was no longer an issue (some suspension of disbelief required; work with me here, kids), and we’ve taken the entire class on an ocean cruise. A sudden storm destroys the ship, and all the adults and authorities go missing.
Students find themselves washed up on the shores of a remote island with no outside communication, on their own with no one to count on but each other. Five groups, randomly assembled, wash up at various places and with different materials salvaged from the shipwreck. Three of the groups have varying supplies or a lack thereof: food (represented by Smarties candy tablets), shelter and building materials (popsicle sticks), water (a bowlful possessed by one group), and medical supplies (Band-Aids). Quantities of each are limited, and each group finds itself with more or less of any supply than the others. Of the remaining two groups, one receives a bounty - the majority of all the stocks.
One group finds themselves with...nothing.
The grade for the activity is determined by survival - who has food, water, and shelter when and if help ever arrives. The entire class surviving means 100 points and an A for everyone! If people in other groups perish but a group as a whole survives, 95 pts go to that group, whose members will still get an A.
But once there are losses, it becomes possible to do even better than 100 points and still get an A+ because each supply then receives its own potential point value. Any food, shelter, and especially valuable medical supplies an individual possesses make it possible to do better than any group score.
There was a signal fire, represented by a single candle, that had to be kept lit, or no rescue would find the survivors, and the class would all die, which is a failing grade, of course. Only one person, selected at random, had the skills to maintain the fire, so that specifically skilled person had to be protected. Another randomly chosen student had a secret water supply, and two had hidden resource stashes.
As the silent divine overseer of The Island, I did not take any role in the game or answer any questions once it began, except for the following:
When you hear the bell ring, you must stop and listen because something has happened with which everyone will have to deal. Every five minutes, the bell will ring, and you will have to eat a Smartie. The food will not last forever, and anyone who does not eat within a minute of the bell dies. There is a designated graveyard/haunting area where the “dead” will continue to watch the game, but they can take no further active role. Circumstances on The Island will change, unexpected events will occur, and you will have to decide how to handle them as individuals, as groups, and/or as a whole. The results of actions you may choose to try are determined by dice rolls, based on my judgment of their chances for success.
If there is further divine interference in the form of an actual fire drill in the outside world or there is danger of real and imminent bloodshed in the classroom as a result of the game’s challenges, I will reassert control of the mundane world. Other than this, you will be left to your own on The Island from the first bell ring.
By this time, some students would already have complained that The Island was unfair. It was. Some began with fewer of the things they’d need, while some had more than they could ever use. Some started with nothing and were almost certain to fail from the start through no fault of their own, just as others received a bounty of riches through no greater effort or individual virtue.
No amount of pretending it was otherwise, no matter what else you want to believe, would change that reality. The class had to decide on its own how to make it fair for everyone if they thought that was important, as well as who would most likely survive and how. Whatever system they developed to make those things happen would be affected by individual and group priorities. Time and supplies were both limited resources, though, so I wished them the best of luck figuring it all out before either rescue arrived or everyone died.
Ding-Ding!
I first used The Island to introduce students to the philosophical and political concepts behind the Enlightenment period of European history, particularly their relevance to the founding of America. I later used it to teach George Orwell’s Animal Farm. These can both be pretty boring subjects for adolescents since they mostly concern wars of ideas rather than battles with swords or bullets, and interesting stuff blowing up. At least at first. But each deals with the critical issues over which those battles are fought:
How should we govern ourselves and others?
To whom do the resources of the Island belong?
What is our responsibility to others on the Island, versus that to our group, or to ourselves?
The outcomes of The Island were telling, and the activity remains among the most impactful and enduring memories for many of my former students. Some immediately grasped that the key to survival was organizing. But how?
Should all The Island’s resources be put into one supply from which each member can draw at need, or should they be left to access through trading and individual initiative, even though some Islanders have nothing to barter, and others have wealth that guarantees their success and even greater wealth?
What about those who band together against the majority opinion, or who refuse either way, or who simply take what they want because they’re bigger or more aggressive? Will some individuals enforce the will of the majority by risking themselves in the inevitable conflicts, while others defend the minority decisions of their specific group? How should those conflicts be mediated? How should individuals be compensated for taking risks on behalf of others and the systems that support them?
Some Islanders see advantages in alliances with other groups or in negotiating, hoarding, raiding, enslaving, trading, or thieving to secure their individual success. From the start, there is no objectively correct approach to the problems The Island presents because what is right is the first thing that the Islanders have to establish and agree upon.
A few industrious and creative students began by rolling the dice to try to build tools for hunting or trapping, or implements for gardening and farming, to increase the food supply. But individual initiatives entail risks outside those of group actions, with some of the most daring Islanders being injured or even killed while doing so. But if successful in taking those risks and producing more wealth for themselves, should they be required to share that self-generated wealth with others who have little or nothing with which to take such risks for themselves, even if they wanted to? If so, who should take that wealth, and who should receive it? How much can be taken from the producers before the risks they take no longer justify the rewards they receive, and they stop producing altogether? And who gets to decide and enforce all this?
A few groups decided to focus on the survival of their members before anyone else’s, identifying themselves with a collective name and using their supplies to make weapons to protect themselves, then taking what they needed. With a strong enough leader, I’ve seen that approach succeed for a time, until the other groups rise together in opposition, using up their supplies and efforts in defense. Sometimes, the aggressors wiped out their opposition before inevitably turning on themselves, arguing internally over the distribution of their plundered supplies.
Often, a rogue element appeared - individuals or packs with no interest other than creating chaos. With no organized authority to stop them, they delighted in simply sowing division, wrecking plans, poisoning the water, and reveling in destruction for its own sake just to watch it all burn. They were nearly always captured and detained or eliminated. But those efforts cost their organizers time and resources. So, should the entire class, or maybe the wealthiest group, somehow compensate the enforcers?
Ding-Ding
All the while, the consumption of everyone’s resources continued. Some production happened here and there, but the resulting materials were always unevenly distributed as various threats and challenges arose.
Storms forced the sharing of shelter or the loss of critical members, accidents happened, the signal fire went out for lack of fuel or through neglect, the water supply dried up or was poisoned…and drums were heard from the far side of The Island, suggesting either potential friends who could be trading partners or perhaps enemies presenting a threat to everyone on The Island.
Meanwhile, the have-nots who had survived for a time on the charity of other groups or individuals began to eye alternate ways to get what they needed before they all died from the lack. Usually, but not always, the majority targeted the wealthiest group first. Once the die-off began, however, the survival of the entire class for the top score was no longer an option. Then, groups became more tribal, sometimes forming alliances, others not, and survivors grew fewer, even if a rescue arrived while the signal fire still burned.
Ding-Ding
Over the years, no entire class survived the first lesson day. But afterward, they were given something they weren’t expecting - a second chance to try it all over again. On that second day, new groups were randomly assigned, the activity was outlined once again, and the bell rang.
And then, remarkable things happened.
With some variation but generally following a similar pattern, the groups came together to establish rules and an organizational structure, working toward common goals. The wealthiest often bought themselves time and became more benevolent early leaders by giving the first round of food and shelter to those without. The have-nots usually responded by starting gardens, building tools, and capturing animals for livestock so they could rely on themselves before the next bell rang. Those first to die on day one became the most determined members of their new groups, seeking to ensure that fate didn’t happen to anyone again.
Though this remained purely transactional for the most cynical and selfish, for most, whether or not they intended it or recognized it, both groups discovered something about love’s nature: that sharing what you have or receiving what you need doesn’t diminish you. This becomes especially apparent once you’ve been on both sides of the equation. It makes the world, and the groups and members who inhabit it, both bigger and closer, and everyone grows and connects within it.
Often, groups reformed themselves, not at random, but by specialization - constructing shelter, providing defense and security, caring for the sick and injured, exploring The Island for resources, and so on. There were always arguments over who should control the water, compensation for those whose efforts served the common good but did not provide for the individuals themselves, how much to ask from the wealthiest, when and if to stop giving to those who wouldn’t contribute, and so on. But while those arguments often became fierce in the second round, they seldom had fatal outcomes.
The key was always in the communication. Having died or seeing friends do so previously proved to be an astoundingly motivating force in learning to listen to one another’s ideas when offered a second chance at life.
What changed between the first day and the second was partly a pragmatic strategy, but I witnessed it emerge from something much deeper. The students who had watched others perish, who had felt the weight of isolation and scarcity, came back with a willingness to see one another differently. That willingness is love doing what love does: expanding who and what we’re willing to hold within our care.
Many individual Islanders did well, and even most groups survived the second day, though only three entire classes did so over a couple of dozen years of the game. Even when we work together, The Island remains a pretty rough place.
I see The Island that is today’s world following the same patterns as that first day. Our tribes aren’t communicating, threatening far more than just a poor grade and some hurt feelings. And no benevolent divine force is likely to offer us a surprise second day to think about what we’ve done and try it all again.
I like to believe that there is a lesson activity The Teacher has in mind for us beyond all this, but we can only be sure of today on this Big Island, and our chance to figure it all out is at hand. We will pass or fail together, facing all the challenges of The Island, both known and unforeseen.
Today, tramping through the jungle and over the beaches, most folks are just finding what they can and sharing as they will, grateful, but hoping for better. Some forge ahead and prosper on their own, some work toward change for all, and others simply abandon hope. Rogue elements ignite blazes just to warm themselves on the flames.
Meanwhile, some of our fellow Islanders have a little more nothing every day, while others hoard what they’ll never need and smugly consider it the way of things. Groups elevate leaders willing to sacrifice anything and anyone to secure their dominance, justifying conquest as survival. All the while, supplies dwindle, storms and drums threaten, tensions between groups force each inward for solace and protection, isolating them from the only force that can save us all. Trust, community, communication, compassion:
Love.
Not the word we use for preferences and passions, but the thing that actually changed between the first day and the second in my classroom. The force that made students who had watched others suffer and perish decide that it could not happen again. The force that turned strangers into allies and scarcity into shared purpose. The same force that every culture, faith, and wisdom tradition on earth has recognized as the one thing we cannot survive without, even as we argue endlessly over how to define it.
There will be no second day for our Big Island if we don’t create one ourselves by recognizing how much we need one another, how connected we are, and that we can’t afford to fail. Cynicism over that possibility isn’t wisdom. It’s cowardice.
But if we can move beyond our current divisions and find the places where our lives and love meet, where our fates are inextricably linked to one another on The Island, we can see and change where we’re headed together.
Even though they’re often dismissed as incapable, unknowing, and immature, it’s something our kids and teenagers can do. I’ve seen it happen. So, class time may be ticking away. But I have great hope that there is still a chance for all of us to save this Island and everyone on it.
Ding-Ding
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