Instructions for the facilitator

Decide on a topic to discuss.


e.g.:
Should Japan's monogamy system be maintained or relaxed?
If you could only eat either bread or rice for the rest of your life, which would it be?
Should romantic relationships between university faculty and students be allowed or not?
Introduction (about 8 minutes)

Wear a laurel wreath and takes the role of "Kleisthenes," the ruler of an ancient Greek polis.




"Greetings, everyone. My name is Kleisthenes.
I come from 2500 years ago. I have something that I need you all to think about!"

*The purpose is to captivate the audience, so if it's too much trouble to prepare props, skip this step.
Use PowerPoint slides if necessary

Announce the topic.

「皆さんに考えていただくテーマは○○です!」

Development (about 35 minutes)

Divide the participants into four teams, each represented by a suit: ♠♣♥♦.

Discussion
Recite the following lines:

“Please discuss with your group members and devise a speech for presenting your opinion to the rest of the community.
Put aside your actual opinion for now and speak as a person who has the opinion of your assigned suit”
Give the groups 10 minutes to prepare. They may use the internet and other sources for research.

Let each team make a speech to present their opinions.
•The speech should be no more than 2 minutes
•All members must speak at least once
•The speech must start with the line, "To the wise members of this community”

Round table
After each team has made their speech, form groups of four to eight people consisting of members from every team, mixed in as evenly as possible.



Let participants have a free discussion based on the content of each team's speech.
Make sure everyone discloses their team affiliation before the discussion begins.

Voting
Based on the discussion thus far, let the participants votes based on their actual opinion.
Make sure every vote is secure.

How to vote with playing cards:
•Distribute one black and one red playing card to each participant
•Instruct to place a black card in the ballot box for “maintain” and a red card for “relax”. Collect leftover cards from each participant.

Count the votes and announce the result (The Declaration)
Make the final “declaration” using the following format:“As a result of the tally, there are XX people voted “maintain” and XX people voted ”relax”. Hence, I declare (the system shall be maintained/ the system shall be relaxed/ the decision shall be postponed)! A round of applause for this decision!
Thank you very much! I’m feeling much better! I'll head back to Ancient Greece.”

Conclusion (about 2 minutes)
Explain the intentions of the organizer (“Today’s event was meant for all of you to experience what is known as ‘direct democracy’…”), and make any appropriate closing remarks.