Estimated Time: 40 minutes

In this lesson, students are challenged with finding an alternative financial system for their fictional society that is more equitable. Through role play, town hall, and reflective journals, students consolidate their thinking about what makes a financial system fair.

Connections to Financial Literacy

Students will gain an understanding of how social and political structures impact upon personal economic realities.

Learning Goals

At the end of this lesson, students will

  • gain insight into the complex issues that leaders of communities face when managing money as they assume roles of governmental advisers
Readiness

Ensure that there are established rules for role play in the classroom where students understand that they are to work within the established limits of the drama when improvising in role. This skill will be particularly important in situations where some students may have higher status than others in the initial role play scenarios; watch closely so that this ‘power’ is not abused in the context of role play.

When engaging with issues related to class that may make students aware of their own socioeconomic status or relate to their lived experiences of poverty, a trauma-informed approach is necessary. Build your own knowledge of class using CODE's Artists as Disruptors - Learning Hub to prepare for challenging discussions. Knowledge of your students will support your approach.

Terminology
Social Studies
  • Feudalism
  • Feudal roles: king, knight, lord, baron, serf, peasant, noble
  • Fief/Manor
  • Tax
Drama
  • Tableau
  • Thought tracking
  • Teacher in role
  • Meeting
  • Role play
  • Writing in role
  • Corridor of voices
  • Flash forward
  • Level
Materials
  • Information about Feudalism
  • Sticky notes
  • 10 individual pieces of chewing gum
  • Paper for writing in role
  • Chart paper and markers
  • PDF #1 Jot Notes Organizer
  • PDF #2 Guiding Questions for Revisions to Token Economy Structure

Minds On

Whole Class > Corridor of Voices

Have students identify if they disagreed with, supported, or were somewhere in the middle on the issue in their letter to the leader. Invite them to group themselves according to their opinions. Arrange them so that they are standing alongside one another in two parallel lines facing each other, forming a corridor of voices.

Ask students to circle the phrase or sentence from their work that best captures their feelings about the way things are and to be prepared to read them aloud when cued by someone walking through the corridor.

As teacher in role and leader of the community, walk through the corridor as slowly as possible as students on either side read off their sentence or phrase, demonstrating the difficult task that the leader is faced with and the variety of points of view he/she has to consider.

Small Group > Role Play Discussion of a Fairer Distribution of Wealth

In role as village leader, assemble the students and deliver the following information.

Script: (Entering ceremoniously and taking time and care to assume position in chair at centre of assembly location)

 I sit before you, eyes strained from having examined your many letters which were delivered to me last evening. I daresay that I found the sentiments within them to be as varied as the seasons and have for you this day not a solution for that which troubles you, but rather, a request. I feel that we will not find peace within our borders until we are clear in our minds and our aims. I am but one person and will listen to no more than four opinions on the matter of our economy. Break ye into 4 groups, and debate the issue among yourselves. We will reunite in a day’s time for you to share your plans. I leave you with this set of questions (take out piece of chart paper with guiding questions written on it and post it in a spot that is visible) to address in your discussions. All rise. (Stand from chair and exit)

Key Questions for Discussion:
  • Who should control the community’s tokens?
  • How can people earn tokens?
  • Who should get the most tokens? The least?
  • Should there be rules about what people can spend tokens on? On what the people who control the community spend tokens on?
  • What obligations or responsibilities should come with having tokens, if any?

Tell students that for this part of the exercise, they do not need to be in role, but can answer the guiding questions based on what their own thoughts are about creating a fair system of rewards. Help them organize themselves into groups if necessary.

Provide each group with PDF #2 Guiding Questions for Revisions to Token Economy Structure to complete and submit after having shared the information at the upcoming town meeting.

Action

Whole Class > Town Meeting Role Play

In role as village leader, establish the meeting space so that it appears like a meeting room. Establish conventions for addressing the leader and for expected behaviour of participants.

Invite each group’s leader to share the group’s thinking with the other citizens, using their graphic organizers to assist them.

Close the meeting by informing participants that you will take into consideration what they have shared and will meet with them again soon to share your decision.

Variation/Extension: Consider having students show their plans for a new economic system by creating scenes to go along with one or two of their solutions using a flash forward technique. (i.e. What would the world look like if...?)

Consolidation

Individual > Journal Reflection

Ask students to reflect upon the following prompts and record their thoughts in their notebooks.

Prompts: 

  • How is what happened here similar to the way that wealth is accumulated/acquired in our current society? (e.g. First Nations Peoples’ rights/Residential schools, segregation, different number of seats in House of Commons for Quebec, people with most money are able to save it and invest it while poor almost never have left over money to save or invest).
  • What is different? 
  • How is what you experienced in the drama similar or different from the way that wealth was distributed in other societies that you have studied?
Differentiation (DI)

Study different economic systems around the world and compare their affects on quality of life for their citizens. Reduce the number of guiding questions to address for students who are struggling with some of the concepts or who are easily overwhelmed. Allow several members of a group to present rather than one representative if desired by group.

Assessment for Learning (AfL)

Use the completed graphic organizer submitted by each of the four groups to assess learning.

Extension

Small Group > Making Connections Rehearsed Role Play

Divide students in groups of 4 or 5. Invite them to prepare the following rehearsed scenes. Depending on time constraints and the ability of the class, assign one or both of the paired scenarios to each group. Provide time and resources for students to conduct further inquiry into this topic if time permits.

Scenario 1:
a) Recreate the moment in the drama when the tokens were given out randomly (tableau).
b) Create a scene (role play) from modern Canadian society or another time period or culture that you have studied where the wealth or privileges that one group received was different from another.

Scenario 2
a) Recreate the moment in the drama where the wealthy token bearers got to go to school while those without the tokens had to work in the fields instead (tableau).
b) Create a scene (role play) from modern Canadian society or another time period or culture that you have studied where those with money were allowed to do something that those without money could not.

After sharing scenes, lead a debrief discussion with students about patterns and connections they notice between the tableau moment from class and the Canadian society role play. Ask them to comment on the degree to which modern society seems to have changed from medieval society.

Connections

Conduct inquiry projects into issues of poverty in Canada. Prompts: Who is most likely to be poor? What kinds of barriers exist for certain citizens to be able to earn money in this country? Have students create a journal reflection about what they can do to address injustice and inequality in our society today.

Differentiation (DI)

Invite students to select their own moment from the drama from which to develop two of their scenes. Offer choice as to whether to capture scenes in tableau rather than in role play.

Assessment of Learning (AoL)

From CODE resource, use the Tableau Checklist and Role Play Checklist to evaluate students’ final performance work. Use the journal reflection entry from Consolidation as sources for evaluation of understanding the core financial literacy and social studies expectations identified at the beginning of lesson.