Day 1

Today was the first day of second semester. I have a regular Civics and Economics class 1st period and then two sections of AP Psychology 3rd and 4th--in which I'm looking forward to using some of the information from the text and the portfolio sections of a WHOLE NEW MIND.

Civics started off by me giving out different envelopes with make believe cash--from the Republic of Thomas--depending on which number the student drew out of a hat. The amounts of cash ranged anywhere from $200,000 to $12,000 with three of the envelopes being empty to represent the unemployed. At first I told them that it would cost them $40,000 to go to the bathroom, $60,000 for a homework pass, and $100,000 if they wanted a free test grade.

This exercise drew the responses I was looking for of that being unfair to the lower moneyed folks. We then discussed income distribution and taxation and tomorrow we will go hard on those particular topics. The bulk of the discussion today was in illustrating the differing economies from different time periods.

I tried to illustrate--although they were a bit reluctant to participate being the first day--how the richest people could control the land and factors of production and that that is what happened during the ancient period relegating the lower folks to serfdom or slavery. I continued the discussion into the feudal period where I attempted to establish that the wealthy could have hired out some of the others as protection (aka knights) while the majority were still bound to the land and to the lord.

We also talked about dictatorship and communism/socialism using this same model.

Tomorrow I plan on taking tax money from each student based on the current per centages and beginning the discussion on Social Problems/Issues and Public Policy.


As for Psych = we began with the Knot exercise (each student grabs the hands of another in a big circle) in which they try to get untangled. We observed the emergence of leadership, periods of frustration, the use of humor, and the analysis used in problem solving, etc.

For the most part it was merely an introductory day with overconfidence illustrations (Wreat-->Water and "Absence makes the heart grow fonder**these only for my benefit**) and then I allowed half the class for beginning to read the introduction and chapter 1 as I have 50 students and 30 textbooks. Hopefully that will be rectified before too much longer.

All in all, a pretty good first day. Hope yours was as well.

dt