The Trade Game

After the introductory session last month, it was time for the first department to step up to the plate and hit the kids for a metaphorical home run, and - thanks to the expertise of the Humanities Department, namely Mr Matt Eames and Mr Lawrence Hill (featured right) - expectations were more than achieved during The Trade Game.

The session was fairly simple:
- Divide into groups of 3, 4 or 5
- Have a look at the multitude or scarcity of resources (paper, rulers, protractors, rulers, scissors) on your table
- Learn that the bank will buy only professional products: perfectly cut, industry standard 'squares', 'semi-circles' or 'triangles'.
- Start trading.  

Start

Ready, steady... trade. 

Here's the catch... In order to mimic global inequality, not all the groups start with equal resources. Some start with a veritable mountain of paper, scissors and everything else they need to start trading immediately. Others start with almost nothing - a couple of sheets of paper, or one pair of scissors. 

This, as you would imagine, throws up a number of issues, as illustrated here:

And within about 5 minutes, pretty much everyone has taken to their new reality - the 'haves' and 'have nots': 

And after an hour, as you would imagine, we sat back and watched the students' experience what it feels like to be resource rich, resource poor, and for those fortunes to change. We saw how they adapted to new elements, how they formed 'trade agreements', were tempted into crime as there was 'no other way to get into the game'... and a whole lot more.     

The first 'trade agreement' is born.
Problem: we only have paper, you only have scissors.
Solution: a trade agreement.
Problem: what percentage does each party get? 

Variables

And, around half way through, a couple of rogue elements were added. A new element found its way on to the stock exchange. Hidden beneath some of the tables were blue sheets. No other information was provided, but it didn't take long for word to spread about... 'blue'. 

The first group that brought some blue to the bank were paid 5 times its value. Chaos! Whole countries binned whatever they were doing to trade only blue. It all broke kinda bad: suddenly all anyone wanted was blue, and they would pay well over the odds to get it.  

Then, the bank was told that they had enough blue, and to stop buying. More chaos. Countries who had gambled everything on blue were suddenly plunged into debt - countries who never had blue in the first place were suddenly wealthier.   

Close of trading

At the end of the hour, students were asked to reflect on their experiences, expertly facilitated by Eames and Hill, proving once and for all that Geography teachers really do do more than teach kids to colour in maps. Who knew?

Prompt:

Reflection:

All in all, this was a superb session, meeting every one of the standards set at the start of the year. To give the students a real life experience, something wider than the curriculum, to work in vertical groups of students across year levels, for total involvement with a high quality outcome, and to enjoy the rewards of hard work.  

Here's my quote of the session, to the question: 

"What I learned was that I wouldn't like to be poor... Even though this was only for an hour, I found it frustrating, we couldn't do anything... we just watched all the other groups trade and we couldn't do anything. In the end we managed to use our resources... but we were basically stuck. And no matter how hard we tried, we couldn't do anything. That wasn't a nice feeling at all.     

Two other observations from Mr Matt Eames:

1. Waste. When you looked under the tables at the end, the countries who started with the most resources... under their tables, it was a mess. The countries who had very little had used every available millimeter of paper, their tables were immaculate, and under their tables was nothing. Is this like real life - click here.

2. Equality. No group gave any of their resources away. Compare this to the global picture here.   

Make you think, doesn't it? If you were involved in the session, I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. 

And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes the session. Next session will be announced fairly soon - if you haven't already, please sign up for email updates. That way you won't miss out on anything.  

Dougal Fergusson & Ned Riley

MAAT