Room City 9:Tips And Treasures From Conducting An Economic Simulation in a Montessori Classroom.
“Can we have economy time? Can we, please?”
I‘m greeted with variations of this query as the students return from PE. There is an hour left in the school day, and the students had their three-hour uninterrupted work period in the morning. The question for me becomes: Do I want to try to squeeze in more lessons with energetic children, who already feel they put in their learning time today, or do I want to permit an unscheduled learning experience that we’re all going to enjoy? It’s not a difficult decision to make.
I nod my assent and a collective cheer goes up from the students. In minutes, the classroom is transformed into a zone of commerce: tables are moved; business licenses are placed on display, goods are taken out of storage, and a line forms in front of the microwave in anticipation of needing hot water. A waitress from Bamboo Cafe approaches me and asks if she can take my pre-order and reserve my usual seat. I’m struck with the beginning of a lesson idea I can teach at the start of next economy time; I could use Bamboo Cafe as an example of a business that adheres to the principle of offering “and something more,” or maybe a lesson on “service with a smile.”
I co-teach a 9-12 Montessori classroom at Bowman International School. The preceding story is an experience a couple weeks from starting our own economic simulation with a class size of 18 students.
On the day I introduced the simulation, I also introduced a manual to go with it. Using a manual is a practical life skill, and I always like to include a manual when I run a simulation. This one is chock full of stuff. I described ideas for what could be bought and sold and categories of goods and services that were out of the question (I was particularly worried someone might try to make friendship a commodity.) There is a section describing how to get a business license and another describing penalties. There is also a section for all of the civil service applications, bank employees included.
My next step was to hire staff for the state-owned bank and to teach them record keeping. This extended the preparations to an extra day to make the simulation successful. When the bank was ready, the state issued stimulus checks of $25 to each student out of a closed pool of $2,000. Students needed to sign to indicate that they had read through the manual before they received their stimulus money. They, then, took their check to the bank and opened their own checking account.
Next came the frantic rush to open businesses. I fielded lots of questions about the application form fields for ‘commercial vs. non-profit’ and what was meant by ‘shares’ in a company. They also put in their requests for goods to resale.
Not allowing students to bring anything from home, I brought in cheap wholesale goods that could be resold. One can of lemonade mix can go a long way, and the low real-world price paid for tea could be stretched out into a lot of separate purchases inside our classroom simulation (but perhaps not as many as were actually conducted; once I received a cup of tinted water after the bag had been reused multiple times). Students could sell things made from readily accessible classroom resources like paper, but they had to pay for these resources if used within the economy. In the second year that I used this simulation, I responded to student requests when I noted it was inexpensive to purchase bulk bags of items students liked, such as cheap plastic beads.
Any items I picked up at the store were offered in an auction to the class, with the government pocketing the proceeds. I borrowed all of the ping-pong paddles from the PE department, so that each participating business could use one during the auction. I tried to imitate the patter of professional auctioneers, and while I can’t match their speed, I got close enough that nobody wanted to miss listening in to an auction:
“In the next lot we have a box of fine, wholesome crackers. I see in the information panel that there are 80 crackers in the box, and I’m sure you could get lots of individual sales out of 80 crackers. Let’s start the bidding at four dollars. Do-I-hear-four-dollars?-I-hear-four-dollars.-I-have-four-dollars-do-I-hear-five?-Five!-from-the-lady-in-the-blue-shirt.-Six!-from-the-gentleman-
with-discerning-tastes-in-consummable-goods-do-I-hear-seven?-Com’n-people-this-box-is-a-steal-for-seven-dollars…”
Montessori Principles:
Prepared Environment
Although I’d been inspired reading articles describing economy simulations during teacher training, it was years before I facilitated an economic simulation of my own. I hesitated because I didn’t know if I could be creative enough to think of enough for the students to do. What I discovered was that I didn’t have to. If I set up a rich environment (a place where lots can happen within described boundaries) the students themselves will fill in the gaps. Time and again, I’m shown that I can trust in the imaginations of children. In this case, I think the manual provided most of the boundaries, and I added additional ones as needed.
As far as physical materials go, the most important piece to prepare is the blank checks. I had those ready to go by the hundreds, and Room 9 City would grind to a halt if we ran out. Goods to resell are important, too; though, even without them, a dull economy could happen.
Teaching good accounting records is next on my list of important preparations. Besides being a good opportunity to work math skills into the project, most of the disagreements that came up in Room 9 City could be solved by analyzing the accounting records. Balancing personal checkbooks never really caught on, but each business was required by law to log all of their transactions, and the bank kept its own records. See Figure 1 for excerpts from bank records, a processing log for checks, and the account for “The Store.”
It should be noted that I didn’t tell the bankers how to lay out their records; I just described what needed to be captured and why. There is probably more captured in all of the records than is strictly necessary, but it is important that the students own the process.
Student Responsibility and Empowerment
We have a Maria Montessori quote hanging on our classroom wall:
“The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, ‘The children are now working as if I did not exist.’”
I let this philosophy guide my praxis, including facilitating this economic simulation. Each day when Room 9 City opened for business, I asked myself: What am I doing for the simulation that the students could do for themselves? For example, I noticed a big chunk of my time was spent writing weekly paychecks for my civil-service employees, so I hired a city comptroller. Evaluating clean-up and issuing citations (the latter of which really only happens once per company, as nobody wants to pay fines as a result of disrespect for the time limits and cleanliness expectations) was turned over to a newly commissioned FBI. The FBI also took on the investigation of financial transaction disputes by examining the records. Even the auctioning of goods (a job I enjoyed) was given to ambitious auctioneers in the second year. A good Montessori teacher knows when to get out of the way, and pretty soon, all the day-to-day tasks were performed by students. I was spending my time observing and working on one-time problem-solving.
A notable exception to redistributing responsibility to the students was that I maintained the role of mayor (actually I called myself and my co-teacher “the State”). In part this was because I wanted the simulation to keep going as long as the students were interested in it, and if I’d left the top-level decision-making to the students, it would have ended sooner than that.
For example, I instituted a state lottery commissioner position for a student, who wanted more math; however, if that kid had been free to implement every product idea that came to him we would have been bankrupt in no time. While that would have been a good learning experience in fiscal responsibility in the public sector, I weighed that against future learning experiences should the simulation be able to continue. Keeping the Head of State role allowed me the option of making such a call, but perhaps someone more knowledgeable about parliament (or someone more adventurous!) would choose to have a student-run government.
In-Game vs. Out-of-Game, How to Problem Solve
One day Jane was outraged when the clothing for a class stuffed animal her company had commissioned from the Fabric Hut fell apart due to shoddy workmanship. Tim, the owner and operator of the Fabric Hut, was a firm believer in caveat emptor, adamant that they would not issue a refund. Both parties brought the problem to my attention, thinking I’d tell them what to do. I thought about it and eventually said, “In the real world this might be solved in court. Jane would sue Fabric Hut on behalf of her company, and both parties would hire lawyers to represent them. It seems like it’s time to introduce a court to Room 9 City. If both of you would agree to delay resolution on your case until I can train lawyers, I will make sure yours is the first case to be heard if it goes to trial.”
Both parties quickly agreed to a hold on their issue. Even Jane, who was not breathing correctly a couple of minutes ago when she was so mad, was enamored with the idea of seeing what a courtroom trial would be like. Even later, when their lawyers explained the option of out-of-court settlements to them, there was no way they were going to pass on the pageantry of a real trial.
The first year I had three students sign on to be lawyers. They didn’t just become lawyers, they had to learn how to do it right and then pass a faux Bar exam. The Bar exam had questions about law that they could look up the answers to, but the meat of the exam is scenario questions lifted off a real exam I found online. These questions and my mini-lessons covered: how to question a witness; the 5th Amendment; attorney-client privilege; the defense’s right to all of the evidence of the prosecution; the philosophies behind the American judicial system; UFC code; the need to represent your client to the best of your ability regardless of your personal beliefs, and other issues of professional integrity. One girl described it as the hardest test she’d ever taken and felt a great sense of accomplishment when she received her license to practice law. The second year I ran the law program as a correspondence course, where students received their work through the class mailbox, and we held a graduation ceremony, where the new lawyers earned a diploma and made speeches.
I wanted the practice of law to be perceived well by the new lawyers, and so to supplement their income, I alternated paying a retainer fee to each of them. Besides handling cases, the lawyers could make money drafting legal documents for the other students using a do-it-yourself legal forms example book I found in Kinkos™. In the case of Jane vs. Tim, Tim had the option of paying for his choice of lawyer; or, if he didn’t think he could afford one, having a public defender appointed for him.
When we finally tried the case I invited the other 9-12 yr old classrooms to come observe. We set up rows of chairs in the multi-purpose room for the audience and had a judge’s bench, witness stand, and tables for both sides up in front. I hired a bailiff to announce the judge’s entering the room and other items of protocol. The lawyers were splendid in their questioning of witnesses: no leading questions, no hearsay, no drawing conclusions outside of opening and closing arguments, etc.
There were some tears at the closure of the trial (one side had to lose), but the legal experiment ended on a nice note. The lawyers remained interested and tried to schedule a go-out to see a real trial. In Montessori, students are encouraged to follow their interests as long as they have them, plus practical life is part of the curriculum; no lesson was more popular the first several years of my teaching than the one on phone etiquette (which unlocked the privilege of calling the outside world to arrange additional learning experiences). Arranging a time to drive a few students out to observe a trial appropriate for children to go see proved too difficult, but they did find a public defender who was willing to come in to speak to the class.
“Out of game” refers to wearing your big teacher hat and declaring how something is going to be. Whenever possible I tried not to resolve issues out of game, but instead tried to think of what the real-world analog would be to use “in game.” This requires a bit of creativity, and it helps to understand how our world works, but the students appreciate it. I went with courtroom procedures in the above story because that was what I know, but I’m sure another facilitator out there knowledgeable in arbitration could have made that work, too.
Maria Montessori believed the students’ goal is to become adults, and they want to do the practice of adults. Making the economic simulation as realistic as possible speaks to that need.
Follow the Child
Lindsay didn’t care about accruing wealth or drinking hot cocoa. Her passion was science, and she wanted to share it with the world. She was the first student to check the ‘non-profit’ box for business type on her business license application. After being accepted, she went through my science poster bin and prepared lectures on different subjects. They were good presentations but not all that popular among her peers, even on days she offered them for free. Even the occasional attendance of a paying teacher would not have offset the costs of the accruing mortgage payments for the classroom space she bought for her non-profit.
That year, I offered grant money for the arts and education. Anyone could apply, but Lindsay was one of only a few who took me up on it. She came in from a long weekend with a six-page grant proposal in hand, complete with character references she asked people in her outside community to write for her.
Both years we ran the Room 9 City simulation it went on for months; At least three 45-minute sessions were conducted each week alongside the students’ other studies for several months. I attribute part of this longevity to being aware of what the students were interested in and facilitating experiences where they could explore those interests. To do otherwise, the students would have gotten bored long before, which is when a simulation should close.
Listen to the child, observe the child, and then match the learning experience to the child. Multi-age Classroom
George’s first year in Room 9 City was far from successful. He tried very hard though. He served lemonade at the lemonade stand, Lovely Lemonade, but was laid off when they weren’t hitting their sales target. I loved the day he was hired to play live music at Bamboo Café and whipped out his trombone. Again, the Bamboo Café decided they couldn’t justify the expense and let him go after only one performance (I wish I had a state-sponsored arts fund set up that year). His final attempt was to use his remaining capital to purchase the area where the sink was located. He offered a pretty good deal for cup/plate washing: $2 for a week for personally washing every dirty item your place of business produced. He felt he couldn’t lose, because he decided he owned the sink and everyone was either obligated to accept his deal or be fined for breaking the health code. Unfortunately, the other businesses refused to recognize his monopoly and washed their own cups in the sink anyway. Maybe he could have tried suing or perhaps hiring some muscle, but by this point he was ready to give up.
The next year, George came back raring to go. He had a plan for changing his fortunes; he’d decided the most profitable job was that of bank manager, and he made sure he got that job. George had lots of new ideas to improve the bank, too, such as personalized checks, breath mints, company accounts, an in-box, and a wait line with a courtesy gap. He did well for himself, and I got to mentor him on dealing with disagreeable customers (students tended to be at their worst when there was a problem with their account). George retired feeling proud of himself and his accomplishments.
I teach a 9-12 year-old classroom, which means I have each student for three years. There are some definite advantages to this, which I capitalized upon in running the simulation for two
consecutive years.
For the most part, the elders in the classroom were the most successful entrepreneurs. Instead of being lost, most of the youngest students became the employees of elder-run businesses. This is where they studied what the elders were doing and came back the next year ready to implement what they learned.
Ownership
Teachers, like students, are going to do their best work when they own it. I’ve taken other simulations I’ve created and shared them across classrooms before, but I always stopped short of interfering with another teacher’s vision for the project. All of the simulations in the other classrooms turned out great, and I would have only diminished their success had I tried to get the other teachers to do things my way. That’s why I recommend making your own economics simulation, using resources like this paper as a guide.
One thing that may hold some back from this course is concern that they may not have the expertise for the subject matter. I’ve found that a layman’s knowledge is plenty for this age group; I know I haven’t had anything one would consider advanced economics training, just a semester studying economics in high school plus occasionally listening to NPR, but this has proven to be enough to throw a good economics sim. Just get started and do what you can. You can always add more next time. The second year, I introduced real estate, variable-rate loans, grants, taxes, and other content that made the first year pale in comparison. The first year was a success all the same, and it really came down to the students’ imaginations, not mine.
The more likely obstacle to crafting your own simulation is fear of the unknown. The answer to this fear, for me, is trust in my students. I trust in both their creativity and acceptance of my human imperfections. They want this to work, and leaning on them to help fix problems is not met with open air.
Other Options
Despite the reassurances above, you may feel a commercially provided economics simulation product is the only way forward for you right now. If so, by all means go for it. The subject matter is of definite interest to this age group (how many times have you seen your students ‘sell’ some mass-produced hand-made treasure to their friends?), and it would be a shame not to do anything to reach out to that need. It’s a start, and it could lead to your own program in time. There are many products out there to choose from, and I think the next best thing to your own program would be to find one that you could adapt to your classroom and Montessori principles.
Take, for example, the pacing guide of such an off-the-shelf program. Instead of teaching the supporting lessons in order, what if you observed your students and skipped around to the lessons that most interest them at the moment? If they seem eager to produce things, perhaps that’s when you bring out the lessons on assembly lines vs. cottage industry. If they’re stressing over starting capital, maybe that’s when you pull out the lessons on venture capitalism and bank loans.
The currency itself is another area you could look at modifying. I suspect most commercial products out there are going to use paper money, if for no other reason that in the age of freely sharing ideas across the Internet your product is more sellable if you provide physical things. Does your program really need physical money though? Would record-keeping that is less prone to getting lost be a better solution for your classroom?
The freedom for student exploration is another aspect to consider. To best apply the Montessori principles described in this paper requires a system where students have the liberty to retry efforts or move on to new ones. If your commercial economics product comes to you with fixed groups or product lines, you could consider removing these limitations for your classroom.
In Review
I have facilitated several widely different simulations besides the economic one described in this paper, including global warming, human evolution, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. In each of them I’ve found it best to apply Montessori’s principles as my guide. While the lessons provided in her albums are great, it’s understanding of the philosophy that makes Montessori adaptable to the modern world. Preparing the environment, observation, following the child, capturing the imagination, including practical life, letting the children learn from each other, owning your work, independence…these are timeless ideas. Through applying these ideas we can create proper Montessori experiences that Montessori herself never dreamed of in the 1900’s. Through applying these ideas we can make school a successful learning experience that all children love to participate in.
Montessori Leadership / June 2015 / p 21
