Stick game makes some changes

When playing the "Stick Game" with the kids, I always come up with laws that I would enact if I were in their place. Just in my head, mind you. Sometimes they do exactly what I thought to do, and sometimes they surprise me.

When we last played our game, a student had seceded from his table to form his own one-person table; they decided to reinstate the laws punishing people for stealing and making it so they could police each other on the matter; social welfare was in full effect stating that no table should ever have less than 20 sticks; taxes will come at 6 minute intervals instead of 10; and any table over 50 sticks had to pay 2 sticks per person in taxes instead of 1.

Things got heated when they realized that the one person table had a guaranteed 20 sticks no matter what, but only paid 1 stick in taxes. Someone tried to make the table minumum 5 sticks per person instead of 20 per table. If the single person table was poor by tax time, the might not have enough to pass any laws or pay to play the game. A huge debate ensued. There were tears. The class voted this out. Crisis averted.

This week they brought back the law saying that every team gets 10 sticks for every correct answer. This was after I was giving handfuls of sticks to one table and 2 or 3 to other tables. Armed with this new more consistent income, they then changed the tax law so that every table paid 5 sticks in taxes regardless of how many people were at the table. It raised taxes for most tables, but the wanted to raise taxes to support the new income law. I  actually hadn't thought of that, but it made sense for the game. It actually lowered taxes for the rich team, but they were no longer getting handfuls of sticks when they answered questions correctly. They are creating balance.

Little by little they are taking power away from me and working together to benefit each other. It's beautiful.

Re-purpose with Purpose

Hi Team,
In the last few weeks my repurposing elective has been taking old things and transforming them into new things.  This has been going...ok.  While we have no lack in creativity in the class, we lacked direction.  We came up with some very inspiring pieces like this bench that was a table and this display case and cds that were turned into a toy table saw.

On the whole though, we needed a goal.  After watching way too much Project Runway over mid-winter break, I was inspired to make the class more like a game.  Every 2-3 weeks the students are given a challenge.  This week's challenge was to make a lamp.  They had an hour to play with light bulbs and twinkling lights and to sketch out an idea.  The next week they had 30 minutes to search through the Ann Arbor Reuse-it Center.  The following week they had to create their lamp.  On the final week, they will put on the finishing touches and present their lamp.

The people at the Reuse-it Center loved it so much they started making $20 and $30 items only $1.  We got $70 worth of stuff for $10.  They said they loved our project and thought the kids were cute.  I'll take it!  While our pieces are still in progress, it's going to be amazing!

Glass Blowing Tour (posted on 2/5)

On Tuesday our class when to see a glass blowing shop. It was pretty cool. Here are some photos from our visit.

New Civilizations

This week we read the picture book, Weslandia. In this book, a young boy named Wesley creates his own civilization in his backyard. Based on a central crop he creates, housing, clothing, entertainment, tools, and commerce. 

In keeping with our "Systems" theme, we have been studying and discussing the different ways our society runs and how societies develop. Our Stick Game is a part of this discussion, although the students are still working on how to make it work better.

In the coming weeks we will be creating our own brand-new civilization. We will have a giant territory for the entire class, with language and general cultural signifiers. The students will each create their own specific territory. At each step in the creation of our civilization, we will look at how different cultures have dealt with that stage of development.

It will be exciting to see what we come up with.

Come See the Museum

Our Artifact Museum is up!!

Many moons ago, we went to an antique store in search of treasure.  That's probably why we went to the Treasure Mart.

We then "discovered" the secret stories behind these precious relics.  We then wrote these stories down for posterity.  We went though several drafts and had to help others edit them.  Please come and visit our fantastical museum.

See if you can figure out which artifact belongs to which story.

Even Alexander has a story to tell, but you have to use your imagination to fid out what it is.

Stick Game Update

Charity vs. Social Change

We played our stick game again today.  The results were very interesting.

A lot of laws were passed and all of them got voted away.

They passed the "No Taxes" law again, but it was repealed when they realized that the government would run out of money.

They then proposed that a person would get exactly 10 sticks every time they answered a question correctly.  I thought that this was a good law, but the students thought they would run out of sticks and repealed it on a vote.

When the concept of the injustice suffered by those that were persecuted for picking up sticks the government left on the floor came up, one of the persecuted teams passed a law that said, "If you are caught by ANYONE stealing sticks off of the floor, you have to give them back and pay a one stick fine."  Another good law, I thought.  Again repealed by the students that weren't being persecuted, for they outnumbered the ones that were.  They, interestingly enough, couldn't understand why everyone wouldn't want this law to go away.

 The system passed a law that if no one got the answer to a question correct then everyone owes 1stick.  The poorest team paid to get the law overturned. When the repeal of the law was vetoed, they didn't have enough sticks to pay to put it to a vote.  The other teams chipped in to pay for a vote.  It was repealed.

At one point, I started being very unfair with the wealth distribution and would only give a few sticks to one group while I paid other groups handfuls of sticks.  Soon one team ran clean out of sticks.  When I pointed this out, some people would give the poor team a few sticks.  Others said things like, "Why would I give them sticks? I like being rich."  No one even tried to pass a law that would overcome the injustice that made them poor in the first place.

I am curious to see what happens next week.

A Story Was Told

Hey Team!
Last December I told a story for The Secret Society of Twisted Storytellers. 

 If you are having trouble viewing the video, you can click here, or copy and paste the address in your browser:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zgzZ4oD_5Q