* Lesson 11c: economic decisions in other systems :: if the world were a village

Thinking Globally

This lesson was a special lesson inserted into the curriculum at the end of my student teaching. I got the idea to incorporate children's literature as a innovative tool for teaching social studies from my geography special methods workshop. I also wanted to end my student teaching in a positive and memorable way. David Smith's "If The World Were a Village" is an interesting children's book about imagining the world as a village of a 100 people. Each person would present about 62 billion people in the world. Through various social, political, cultural, and economic categories, the author enables the readers to see the composition and conditions of the world in perspective. I hoped to get students to recognize the political/economic justice aspect of the story as many of the world's resources and privileges are possessed by a select few (particularly those in the United States).

Objectives:

Students will be able to:
1) examine the conditions of the global economy.
2) think about the political, economic, and social/cultural differences in the world.
3) recognize the condition of scarcity and distribution of resources in the world.
4) discuss the possible costs and benefits of globalization.
5) think about the role of the US (a powerful, rich nation) in the global economy and their own role as citizens of the US.

Materials:

-100 hands cut out from bright pieces of construction paper. [enough for three economics classes]
-map of the world

Activities:

1)Warm Up Activity

After giving a short introduction to the story, I will read the book to the students. Before and after reading each section, I would ask questions to get students to predict the distribution of resources or privileges (e.g. What do you think is the most widely spoken language? What percentage do you think that is? How many people do you think have access to clean water? What percentage of people can read or go to school? ).

Nationalities (Pages 8-9)
Languages (Pages 10-11)
Ages (Pages 12-13)
Religions (Pages 14-15)
Food (Pages 16-17)

Air and water (Pages 18-19)
Schooling and literacy (Pages 20-21)
Money and possessions (Pages 22-23)
Electricity (Pages 24-25)
The village past and future (Pages 26-29)

2) Main Activity

Discussion on the book. Though I prepared some questions to inspire students' critical thinking, I had hoped that students would come up with their own questions and opinions to shape the discussion.

Possible questions:

• What surprised you about the book? What didn't surprise you?
• What do you think will happen in the future?
• Why is there such an unequal distribution of resources? What should we do about it?
• What are the costs and benefits of a global economy or globalization?
• What is the role of the US in the global economy? How can we help other countries? Should the US focus on its own domestic economic/social problems or focus on the the international problems?
  
• How will international economic/social problems present and future ultimately affect the US?
• What will happen if the US fails to address or ignores the international problems? What do other countries want the US role to be? What countries want us to help them or don't want us to help them and why?
• What is your role as citizens of the most powerful and richest country of the world? How do we shape political/economic decisions? What are the problems of our society---political? economic? social? How can we begin to solve the problems of our society? How can we help to change the world?

3) Closing Activity:

I would like to bring the discussion to a close by connecting the economic principles we had learned so far to how they can be used to solve some of the problems discussed in the book. I want to encourage students to think about the choices and decisions they make as consumers, as citizens, and as individuals and to realize those choices and decisions have an impact on our society and on the world. I think I would like to go around the class and ask each student to write down one thought or reflection or question on their mind about today's lesson to put on a little paper hand. I hope to pin all the students' hands onto a map of the world to be displayed in the class or in the hallway.

Evaluation:

1) Class participation/Discussion