Middle and High School … from a Montessori Point of View
SPENT is an online game that challenges you to survive for a month while facing the choices of someone poor, living in the United States.
The choices are hard, but the game ties in well with the personal finance part of the curriculum, as well as the consideration of the wealth distribution.
Razib Kahn has a fascinating interview with Milford Wolpoff, one of the main scientists behind the research that argues that humans are not all part of a single family tree, descended from a single ancestor who moved out of Africa about 200,000 years ago.
This section focuses on the theory, and has a nice explanation of what mitochondrial DNA is (and why it’s important):
It gives an excellent perspective on how science works, and how scientists work (scientists are people too with all the problems that entails).
The entire thing is a bit dense, but it’s one of the better discussions I’ve seen describing the process of science in action, with little hints at all the challenges that arise from personality conflicts and competing theories.
Oliver Miller responds (warning: harsh language) to advice given by writers in the Guardian on how to be a writer.
The key thing he mentions, to which all his other advice builds, is the need for good, constructive peer review.
So you need to surround yourself with fellow writers who are supportive but also honest. Some people will tell you that your writing is always good. These people are lying. And some people will tell you that your writing is always bad. These people are also lying. …But a few rare people will point out the stuff that they like, call you out on some of the dumb [stuff] that you’re writing, and gently but forcefully suggest ways to make your dumb [stuff] better [my italics]. Treasure these people. Learn to recognize them. These people are your only hope.
— Miller (2011): How to be a Writer
One of our economics assignments this cycle asks students to divvy up $200,000 among a group of ten people. One is a divorced mom, another a playboy, a third a bank manager, you get the gist. The purpose is to compare what students think it should be, to what a socialist might believe, to students’ estimation of reality. I’m really curious to see what they come up with.
Michael Norton and Dan Ariely have some actual data on the wealth distribution in the United States that might really challenge some assumptions (Norton and Ariely, 2011 pdf). They asked survey respondents what percentage of wealth they thought was owned by the poorest 20% of U.S. citizens, the next 20% and so on. They also asked what kind of wealth distribution people though would be ideal. Finally, they compared what people thought to what was actually there.
People, apparently, really underestimate the income inequality in the U.S..
A second part of the same study gave people pie charts of wealth distribution in different societies and asked them to pick out which one they would prefer to live in if they were dropped at random into one of these societies. They compared the more socialist-like Sweden, to the U.S., and to a perfectly even distribution. People greatly preferred societies with a more equal sharing of wealth.
I think I’m going to have to modify this assignment to use these graphs. I’ll also have to use their definition of wealth:
Wealth, also known as net worth, is defined as the total value of everything someone owns minus any debt that he or she owes. A person’s net worth includes his or her bank account savings plus the value of other things such as property, stocks, bonds, art, collections, etc., minus the value of things like loans and mortgages.
–Norton and Arieli (2011): Building a Better America – One Wealth Quintile at a Time in Perspectives on Psychological Science