Next thing to go was, an advanced functions test, math and I, just don't mix. So I won't go into much detail on that.During lunches I spent my time laying on the dirty floor of classrooms and hallways, holding a Nikon D70, risking carpal tunnel syndrome from tapping the shoot button continuously. A video that Melnyk(history teacher) had asked me to be apart of, the video is to be entered into a contest. I will go into more detail on the video and I'll post it here in my next writing.
There was more work involved this week but I'm choosing the most memorable parts.
Lastly we finished the shooting of the video on wednsday, I felt like running naked down my street, I was so ecstatic.
Thursday, my team in history presented our podcast and game to the class. It was awesome, this is right when this week started to light up. Our game was a simulation, where we put people into about 5 teams and each team had an envelope full of supplies. Supplies consisted of some construction paper, stickers, scissors, glue, tape, etc. Not everybody got all of these supplies unfortunately.. Some groups got different sets of supplies, some got more than others, some got very little. The game was to make as much money in about 45 minutes as possible. How do they make money? Well they had to make shoes out of the supplies they were given. At first every team was confused, some drew shoes on to paper and tried to sell them to myself and Maria (the buyers) but I felt there was absolutely nothing we could do with these blueprints, so they recieved zilch. Other teams had 3-D shoes on the go, others had designer brands, Armani, Nike, Globe, etc. The better the shoes were, the more fake money we handed out.
The grand prize was announced, pizza for the winning team. Shoe production rose tenfold. So many shoes were coming we had no place to put them. Now conflicts between teams were arising, theft was starting to uncover itself. So I decided to play the next podcast. Jist of it was this "Every team should be scrambling to make more shoes so they can gain more cash! Do WHATEVER it takes to get money and supplies. Even if you must take from other countries. Also every country is now priced at $100 and the value of each country can change depending on how much they own and how much cash they have."
This caused quite the stir, two guys were in headlocks at one corner of the room, another two guys were fighting it out at the other end of the room, fighting over theft and inequality. This was an amazing sight to see. Paper shoes and art supplies flying through the air, people screaming, pushing eachother and arguing with me and my team about the issues they were having.
The Blue team approached me during all this chaotic fun and asked to purchase all the countries with their extensive pile of cash. Of course in my mind I could see how this would end the game far too quickly, as everybody seemed to be having so much fun. Beating on each other and such. So I only allowed them to buy two countries, now those two countries continued to make shoes but all their profits went towards the Blue team.
Now there were only two teams who were individual still, but of course one of them asked to purchase the other, and an alliance was made between them. now there was twice as much chaos and really just two big teams against each other.
I watched and bought shoes for a while until the two top teams had nagged me constantly to have purchase power of the opposing countries. So I stopped the purchasing of any shoes and asked one representative of each team to come to the front with all of their cash. I counted each teams amount, and based on the huge difference between the two I allowed the Blue team to make the purchase. The Blue team had 2800 dollars and the opposing team had 400-500 dollars. Easy decision.
This meant the game was finished because that blue team owned any and all of the competition. I played the last podcast and this is basically the message that was given:
"I cannot see the future so I have no clue if anybody figured out the game, when I say that I mean, you all got punk’d, basically, the group who won was designated to win, we rigged the competition and you were all actual countries. The team who won is Britain, and I’m sure you all realize now the point of the game. Most of you if not all of you became colonies of this country and you were forced to play by their rules. This is a simulation of happened to all the lesser countries who were taken over. In the game Britain was actually given more supplies, more money per shoe, and a real advantage against all of you. This goes to show that if a country per say has more money and access to resources they can be more powerful and even use their power to take what poor countries were unfortunate not to receive in the first place."
I'd say the reactions the class had are probably very easy for you to imagine. The message came across strong though, and there was more to the game than just a history lesson. During the game everybody stole from each other, even the Blue team who had been given such an advantage, they were so benefited. It made me think, we have so much here in North America, we spend our money on absolutely stupid things, we waste so much every single day. I am not saying I am excluded from this because I waste as much as everybody else. It's realizing this and it's starting to make a difference even in your own life, especially in your own life. Just get involved with things that will have a positive impact on the rest of the world. Stop obsessing over your iphones and blackberrys and spend a dollar on keeping a child alive in a third world country. I'll even help you out, and post lots of easy things you can do or be apart of that are making a difference in this broken world.
Life is temporary, drop the mindset of Get Rich or Die Trying, and open yourself up to the realness of the world and the impact you can have on it every day.
This week has ended, and I loved it.
