This article has little or no English education value. It seems to have more to do with political views than with anything actually educational.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 210.237.151.1 (talk) 03:23, 15 December 2006
- You're right that the emphasis of this exercise is not on English, although you can incorporate some in the activity. As JETs we're here not just to teach English, but to teach about the world outside Japan as well. This exercise is excellent for that. And I wouldn't say it was political - it just describes the true inequality that actually exists. If a political viewpoint emerges from that, then that's a result of the inequality, not the exercise. Bobo12345 07:52, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
- But the "inequality" is not causeless. It arises due to certain poltical and cultural conditions. Discussing the conditions under which people tend to flourish vs. when they tend to suffer is what's helpful, rather than implying that "wealth" is a finite thing to be "distributed" --- when in reality wealth is an infinite potential to be produced.
- What kind of attitude does teaching a 'distributive mentality' foster in children? That instead of relying on oneself to produce and find one's way in life, one should seek out some means to get one's hands on what already exists? And what kind of attitude about the world does teaching a productive mentality foster? That one understands that responsibility ends where choice ends, so no matter how "unfair" "distribution" of wealth and goods seem to be, your life is ultimately no one's responsibility but your own? One attitude plants the seeds of inaction: jealousy, mistaken injustice and helplessness (or guilt for those who manage to suceed), the other plants the seeds of action: a desire for a better life, love of endless possibilities and a feeling of pride for one's earned sucesses.
- The bottom line is that this "global inequality exercise" is indoctrination, due to evading the causes of "inequality".
Feedback[]
Here is some feedback from a friend who tried this out recently:
- I did your global inequality game today at Kofuji Sho, one of those tiny primary schools with only 24 kids. A couple of teachers joined in as well, so we had a global population of 30. I put in little interviews after each step, asking some of the kids and teachers about how they felt with Asia suddenly becoming so crowded or North America's population being halved, or why they had alotted their continents that number of chairs, and how it felt to have all the chairs taken away from them or to have their number of chairs doubled.
- I don't think that every kid understood completely what was going on, but i think they got the general idea, or as one of the 3nensei put it, "Being one of 3 Europeans spreading out on 10 chairs, that didn't feel good." And most the teachers seemed to love it too.
- It's a great game, because it makes a very difficult matter really easy to understand. Some of the teachers said that they were thinking of bringing up the global inequality issue again in their lessons, which would be really cool I think.
Bobo12345 12:56, 18 June 2007 (UTC)