Anne Frank House

Everyone knows the Anne Frank House. But did you know that the Anne Frank House, which manages the world-famous museum and opens it up to the public, also develops educational material on themes such as racism, prejudice and discrimination?

One of the Anne Frank House’s missions is to encourage young people between the ages of 11 and 16 to talk openly about racism in football. But what is the best way to engage this target group with such a serious topic?

Together we have developed the serious game ‘Kick-off. The ball’s in your court’. This game is based on a scenario-based learning strategy in which young people immediately experience the effect of their choices. It is an effective strategy that allows them to learn a lot in a short period of time. Learning by playing. 

Football is a team sport. But each player has their own position and role during the match and therefore comes up against different situations. And in those moments, you have to make decisions independent of your teammates. But what if you can’t or don’t want to make those decisions on your own and you need input from your team? How do you react to opponents who discriminate, for example? What do you do when spectators become aggressive or threaten your teammate?

A good team always acts together. The first step is to recognise these kinds of situations and agree on how to deal with them.

The game is based on a school football tournament. During, before and after the tournament, the team encounters various difficult situations, in which the players have to make choices under time pressure. Each choice is made together based on a particular scenario. For each scenario, the players are asked: ‘What would you do?’

They can vote using their smartphone or tablet. The results of the votes are presented to the team and the players decide together how to deal with the various difficult situations. They discover, in a fun and entertaining way, what they think about and how they react to topics such as respect, discrimination and prejudice.