In class we played the classic board game Monopoly with an interesting twist. In "Stratified Monopoly", players roll die to determine who will be the upper class, middle class, working class and lower class members of the game. The player who achieves the best roll essentially has the rules stacked disproportionately in their favor for the rest of the game. Since the rules continually work in the favor of one player, it is theoretically possible for other players to win, but extremely difficult and almost always requires some considerable streak of luck. In our class, none of the players who achieved inferior rolls were able to surpass the competition. This was enlightening on a few different levels.
The board game's true purpose was to illustrate the challenges faced in achieving economic stability for the different classes of income in America. Upper class players breezed through the game, as other players had increasingly difficult times trying to achieve similar levels of success.. all the way down until the lower-class players were generally better off breaking the rules of the game so they could be placed in jail - the lesson being that lower class players could actually experience a higher rate of financial success in the game by being placed in jail and ultimately removing themselves from play. Other players were then forced to pick up their expenses as they froze their assets. I was surprised to see exactly how easy it became for the upper class players to succeed. I represented the upper class player and I eventually got so bored with knowing how my turn would go that I paid for property without collecting the change I was owed, I let players land on my properties and let them just give what they could comfortably afford and sometimes I even let others purchase properties when I had the means, and every financial reason to take that initiative. I felt it was too easy and that victory had been handed to me but I was surprised to see that many of the losing players got so dejected at their loss and "failure" that they seemed to think their inability to overcome the incredible odds was an indication of weakness. they seemed to think that it was reasonable for them to overcome their peers with just the right amount of efforts invested. This was a disappointing concept for me.
We were asked to examine the different types of schools and how they prepare people for their entry into the professional world, and largely prepare them for financial and social stability throughout life. The schools were Executive Elite schools, Affluent professional schools and Middle as well as Working Class schools. These schools successively have less opportunities and resources at the disposal of the students. Students placed in better equipped schools not only receive higher quality and more relevant educations, but have work assigned to them that they are more invested in and care about rather than standardized educations. Their instruction is essentially tailor-made, and students therefore also develop more personal and situationally appropriate relationships with their instructors. in the better schools that cultivate learning, they prepare students to go out and pursue their passions and interest in life opposed to schools that merely equip students with the skills they will need to be "cookie cutter" employees with a strong work ethic.
I went to a school that would be considered Middle or Lower class. We had standardized educations, and because our school was lacking in funds and appreciation, programs in the arts department as well as our French and German language offerings were disbarred while students such as myself enjoyed one of the most successful rates of education in automotive shop in the state of Illinois. We did not have a fancy or adequately equipped auto shop but students who had found themselves in the class only stuck around when they really felt called to it, as our instructor demanded the performance form us that any given automotive garage would require of employees. If I had gone to another school, I would have had an education that actually consisted of courses I cared about or could have seen myself working in. We had no audio or visual production classes, no design classes and nothing in advertising or marketing. On the other hand our home economics classes, parenting courses and photography as well as physical education departments were the areas with the highest concentration of students who excelled in their fields. Students did well because they loved having these options available to them and capitalized on these (non-graduation mandatory) offerings out of their own personal interest. If we had classes like astronomy and polo and lacrosse and other offerings like Roycemore School in Evanston, Illinois: students would have discovered and developed their passions into academic excitement as Roycemore or Saint Viator or other private education students appear to.
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