Book Manuscript

Kids have a lot to say about their education, and not all of it is positive. Have you ever heard comments like these? "I won't need that when I grow up?" "Teacher, why do we need to know that math?" "This is so boring."

If you have been in teaching for any time longer than a month, I'm sure you have heard these or similar statements. This is nothing new. Veteran teachers don't take it personally for teachers have been struggling to make subject matter meaningful and to motivate students since the first teacher taught her/his first student. On the other hand, if one considers the type of education common a few hundred years ago, subject matter relevancy was not such a problem. Children learned to read and to perform some math operations, but most of the time was spent learning skills that were necessary, and affected their economic well being. For example, if a child was a Plains Indian prior to the arrival of "civilization" it was easy to see that the ability to throw a spear, shoot an arrow, or tan a hide directly affected his or her standing in the community, and, not only physical comfort, but survival. Similarly, a farmer's child knew that plowing was an essential task for a family's survival. With the coming of a modern society, relevancy between what is being taught and its eventual use in modern society is not always as easy to see.

As part of our now current lack of focus on relevancy, our students often leave school without the skills necessary for survival in our modern age. It isn't that we teach unnecessary skills and concepts. We don't, but our students can't see the relevancy and the result is a serious problem. One of the keys to true educational reform is the implementation of a curriculum that develops the skills that are necessary for productive survival in our world's 21st century. But, reform of curriculum is not what most of the educators who read this book want to talk about. Most educators want an idea they can implement in their classrooms tomorrow that will make a difference. They want a way to motivate students, and, at the same time, integrate math, social studies, writing, science, art and music in a meaningful way. They want a way to share meaningful learning experiences with other teachers and classes across the states and around the world. They are looking for ways to effectively use the Internet and capitalize on the students' interest in computers and computer technology. If you are one of these teachers and you have not yet had your class declare its independence, on paper, from your mother country and set up its own country, you may be missing a golden opportunity.

What might this country look like in an elementary school?

Picture the following. You are the teacher coming to class in the morning. On the outside of your room, a "STOP" sign is posted and a warning that declares you are officially leaving the United States and entering into the country of Wabrum. (Wabrum will be the name of our fictitious country.) The national flag of Wabrum is posted over the door to your room. Once inside, you go to your desk and get out your materials for the day's lessons. Your normal preparation time passes in a flash and the bell rings. (Research shows that preparation time is one of the fastest periods of the day, only surpassed by lunch and break time.) The students are lined up at the door. Talking is evident and the kids are excited to begin another day of schooling in their country of Wabrum. The country's rulers, being shown the respect all national leaders receive, are the first to enter.

Your school opens each day with the Pledge of Allegiance. (Some public schools still start the day this way while others have stopped the practice. You will have to decide what you can and cannot do here.) A student steps forward and begins the pledge as the rest of the class chimes in, "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of American and to ..." When this is completed the students repeat the Promise of Support. The students begin, "I promise to support the country of Wabrum, its students, its search for knowledge, and its push for excellence." The wording of this Promise of Support have come from a students' committee and have been voted the class's "Promise of Support." They stress the need to support and further the goals of your classroom country. This promise is also a part of your classroom management plan to build morale and a spirit of community.

The teacher turns the classroom over to the president who sits with the vice president in a place of honor in the front of the room. (The students have set this country up as a democratic republic patterned after our own country, but it could be set up using any system of government.) The president announces that he has just received a letter from U. S. Congressman Blankenship which echoes student concerns for pending legislation that would open offshore drilling in their state. He pledges his support for strong controls to assure the safety of the coastal areas, but he says that for economic reasons, he will support the bill allowing drilling. He says that the state's economy needs the revenue the drilling would bring into the state coffers. The President passes the letter to the Secretary of State to draft a reply. He also asks the Secretary of State to prepare a dispatch to the Electronic United Nations (E-UN) to inform the other E-UN delegates of the senator's reply. The President then turns the floor over to the Secretary of the Budget. The Secretary alerts students to the fact that all rents and utilities are due in by the close of the business/school day or late charges will be assessed. (The total time used was five minutes.)

Class control goes back to the teacher who begins the first lesson of the day. As the lesson progresses, this looks like any other classroom. Then you get a hint of something different. Some of the students' desks have title cards as well as regular name tags. Some say Congressman or Senator, one says Judge, one says Secretary of the Budget, one says accountant, one says newspaper editor. On the teacher's desk is a nicely decorated nameplate that proclaims him or her to be "General of the Army." About a third of the desks contain some job title listing.

The next thing an observer sees is the manner in which students move about the room. Services in this room are paid for. If a student needs to go to the bathroom, he first walks up to the accountant and pays one Wabrum dollar and walks out the door. A child who needs or who wants a drink of water, or to sharpen his pencil, pays $1.00 Wabrum and goes quietly about his business.

Your eyes catch two students passing a note in the back of the room. This is against the agreed upon country rules and so the teacher fines the students $5.00 each. One child professes his innocence and is given the option of taking his concern before the judge during lunch time. The class flows smoothly on with few interruptions as all of these actions, such as paying for services, paying fines for infractions of the law, etc., have become just an accepted part of the classroom's routines.

What might this look like in a secondary school?

You prepare for you class the way you always do. In your room, the title cards are kept in a tray on the book case. As a government teacher, you are running three different countries within your classroom, one for each of your three government classes. Flags and symbols for each of the different countries are displayed in separate sections of the room. Your first country arrives during your second period class. Students get the title cards from the tray they are kept in as they enter the room. When the bell rings, you turn the class over to the president and ask him if he has anything to report. He says that he just received a survey over the Internet that asks affiliated E-UN countries to survey whether or not the U.S. and U.N. should get involved in the recent problems in Africa. He asks the class if it would like to study the problem and conduct the survey. The class agrees that it would like to consider the problem, and so the President turns the issue over to the Secretary of State and asks that he prepare a short report, 5 minutes or less, on the issues. The report will be given tomorrow. The class will also review the survey received from the E-UN and make a final decision as to possible participation in the call for humanitarian aid that has been going on in the real world.

The class is then turned over to the teacher who picks up where students left off from yesterday. The use of a monetary system to manage behavior of the students is evident when the teacher fines two students who do not have their assignments completed.

At the secondary level, the class can be as involved as the teacher wants it to be. The only constraints are time and the curriculum.

Is it Relevant? In recent years, the public has been continually calling for educational reform. As an education professional, adding something such as a classroom country to your already bursting curriculum requires careful consideration and a review of the rationale for such inclusion. The following section will look at some leading curriculum spokesperson and provide a rationale for including a classroom country in your curriculum.

To start with, most of the time a teacher creates a classroom country they will only be using it as a shell within which they will continue to teach their existing curriculum. This project does not replace your school's curriculum it merely provides a means to reforming your style of presentation and your classroom management scheme. On the other hand, it can be classified as true educational reform in that it integrates many parts of the curriculum and gives students an opportunity to use their writing, math, speaking and social skills in something very close to real-life situations. It brings additional relevancy to our teaching.

We as educators must make our material more relevant to our learners. According to Orlosky and Smith in their book entitled Curriculum Foundations, Principles, and Theory, Wittrock and Ausubel distinguish between meaningful learning and rote learning. "They argue that, to the extent that instruction concerns simple rote learning and meaningless data, the curriculum is essentially irrelevant to the learner and little is learned." Memorization of irrelevant facts is counter productive. "Most (students) cannot remember what they memorized for their last exams, much less what they memorized a year or more ago. More than 75 percent of various kinds of facts learned in a subject is forgotten over a twelve-month period of time. For a single lecture, as contrasted with a whole course, retention over one hour is also unimpressive--as low as 60 percent. For content, what is perceived by the learner as trivial mater--useless, arbitrary or disconnected--the ability to recall data declines very rapidly, often within minutes. Through developing a mini-country, I content that the material becomes more meaningful and adds relevancy to our curriculum. If that is the case, then the data suggests that if teachers make the material more relevant they could expect increased retention of material. To show relevancy of the material associated with establishing a classroom country we will look at two separate areas: political, and economic. Later on, I will discuss social relevancy of the program in the section titled: Is it Motivational?

As for political relevancy I would first like to pose a few questions. Do we believe in a representative democracy that says power flows from the people to our elected representatives? Do we believe that these representatives should act on our behalf and in our best interest? Many of our country's founding fathers, including Thomas Jefferson, felt strongly that the public schools were the key to making the United States' democratic experiment work. One of our early educational theorists, John Dewey (1859-1952) strongly believed that education and democracy were linked, and that our democratic society would only flourish if school became an instrument of democracy.

If one were to look at the rampant apathy in our country one can quickly see that democracy is no longer flourishing. Elections' analysts continually state that the public is frustrated with politicians and often vote against the incumbent rather than for their opponents. Even worse are the huge numbers of people who have given up totally on participatory government and never bother to vote. They feel powerless to influence their destinies.

Our founding fathers, and many patriotic Americans, have since then have fought and died for their belief in a democratic, representative form of government. If we still believe in these values, we need to teach them in our schools. We need to develop an educated, informed citizenry that exercises their rights.

But is the school the correct place to teach these values? B. Othanel Smith wrote, "The curriculum is always (or should be), in every society, a reflection of what the people think, believe, and do..." What do we think? What do we believe? We live in a democratic republic and we need to empower students with the knowledge of how to live in this republic. Adults in our society are, in general, powerless. Powerless because they do not know how to organize to get things done. As a partial result, you have certain pressure groups that learn the skills of organization and hold undo power which they use to push their personal agendas. This is the democratic way. What I see wrong in America is that so many people have not discovered this power. People need to become part of the process or they will for ever stay a pawn complaining about being pushed around by the system. This later group of people never internalized "Government 101." They view participatory government as a platitude rather than a reality. "Empowering people means that we educators have a responsibility to assure that individuals, our students, gain those competencies to act so that they indeed can take control of their lives. If this is to be the age of the empowered individual, then schools must furnish opportunities so that students can be fully unique and in control of themselves and their destinies."

Developing your own classroom country does more than provide political relevancy, it provides economic/business relevancy. Schools have an obligation to turn out educated, productive citizens that are producers in the market places, not merely drains on our economy. We have a dollar based economy and students need to practice fiscal responsibility someplace before they get real jobs and have real plastic credit cards. Properly implemented, a classroom country will show students the values inherent in a strong work ethic. They will learn to budget their income, balance their needs and wants, pay their bills, and, if interested, use their ideas to promote entrepreneurial activities. Further, with the inclusion of the Electronic - United Nations (E-UN), students will join a global economy, understand the need for a nation to pay for global commitments, learn how to use E-mail in a relevant manner and use the Internet for meaningful research.

The rewards provided to students just from the productive use of computers and electronic networking can not be overstated. Toffler in his book, Power Shifts, talks a great deal about the growth of electronic networks in the market place. He notes that companies are becoming more dependent on them for billing, ordering, tracking data, trading, and communicating. We have an obligation to society to prepare our students meaningfully in regard to computer networking. Toffler goes on to say that we are not yet in the end-game concerning networking. He says we are currently into the "second stage" of networks and that researchers are working on "third stage" networks. These new networks will give even more intelligence to our information sphere. The networks will be given more and more artificial intelligence and we need to prepare our students for working and living in this new world. When talking about this impact on schools and curriculum, Ornstein and Hunkins say, "Learning styles should be influenced as networks interact with the students using them, as networks carry on conversations and act as critics of the information being sent. Such networks will have students of the future thinking more multidimensionally and creatively_utilizing visual, computer, and communication tools to enhance the way they process and utilize information."

Further, full integration of computers, computer networking, and information management will have a profound effect on our curriculums. As Daniel Barron and Timothy J. Bergen put it, presenting the computer to students will really give them power and control over the curriculum. If they control the machine, they can control the information; if they control the information, they may in effect gain increased influence in the classroom. This shift in classroom power from teacher to student, could be a real system break in how school is "played": Learning could come to dominate teaching. Allan C. Ornstein & Francis Hunkins added, "The computer is much more than a tool. Indeed, it can be a 'partner' the students can use not only for 'joint' inquiry but even for suggesting and creating new curricular areas into which they can delve. The computer has the potential of personalizing the curriculum of the future." Productive use of the E-UN will provide your students with these opportunities and more.

But some people are resistant to changing the curriculum. They want to see things stay exactly as they have in the past. To begin true reform, our curriculums need to put our students into the race. We need to make our students thirsty for knowledge. To students, the curriculum cannot be a meaningless mass of material that experts say is important to know, the curriculum needs to be a dynamic living thing that students, being thrust into, find out that they need to absorb for their future success in our society. A leader in the Constructivist model of curriculum theory, Barbara Spector says, "Schools are society's vehicle to support and maintain productive change in today's world of constant Change... As decision makers, we must explore the impact of change on ourselves as professional educators and private citizens. Learning ways to work in changing organizations, to contribute to the changes, and to shape the direction in which the schools move empowers teachers to create a climate which allows maximum teaching effectiveness, growth, and satisfaction. Orlosky and Smith wrote, "if schools are to maintain their health and vitality, the curriculum cannot remain fixed in a world of change." John Dewey would say that if a country's citizens have not internalized the need for participation in a democratic society then schools need to help teach students these concepts. When speaking about school curriculum Dewey said, "The scheme of a curriculum must take into account...the intention of improving the life we live in common so that the future shall be better than the past." If we believe their is still a place for representative democracy and a free market economy, then we need to teach students how to participate in it. We need to prepare students to take their place in a productive dynamic economy and social system. Ornstein and Hunkins said, "One thing is certain: 'Knowledge is power.' Those individuals who develop new thoughtways to create understanding will indeed have meaningful roles in the future." As educators, we have an obligation to provide our students with these opportunities.

Is it motivational?

We have talked a good deal about relevancy, but motivation is just as important. We can have the greatest curriculum in the world but that does not mean the students will learn. There has long been the old saying, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can make him drink." A teacher when responding to this old cliche answered, "You many not be able to force it to drink, but if you put the horse in the race, the horse will get thirsty." The classroom country will help you as a teacher, put your students into the race. The race is life and whether anyone likes it or not, we are all in it until we die. We need to teach students how to make the most out of this life.

After reading these ideas, you might say, "But this imaginary country is just a game, the kids will soon get tired of it. They will see through these attempts at motivation and stop wanting to play-the-game." To this I ask you, "What is life?" It is getting paid for doing your job. It is spending your money on things and services that you feel will make your life just a little bit better. It is being in control of your environment. It is having prestige or power among your peers.

Do you get tired of collecting and spending money? Do you get tired of getting respect from peers and bosses? Do you get tired of people listening to your suggestions and changing their actions or modifying your environment based on these suggestions? Most likely not as these are some of the more positive, enjoyable parts of our daily lives. They give us a sense of identity and provide us with a measure of self-worth.

Let's take the time to look at this issue in a bit more depth. It is easy to see how salaries and spending affect our lives, and many teachers throughout the years have used token-based monetary systems to increase motivation. Building a classroom country goes farther. Students who gain more direct control over their environment begin to increase their ability to handle issues of power and prestige. This simulation offers children a measure of control, success and empowerment. When one values these concepts, it is clear that everyone wants to have a measure of control and dignity within his/her individual world. As teachers, we are not into teaching for the big-bucks. We like the feelings we get from helping students, making a difference in people's lives, and being respected for our opinions. If you cannot immediately see this, I ask you what a faculty thinks of a new principal that does not respect teachers' opinions, and does not treat the faculty as professionals. That administrator and school are going to be in for some tough times, for teachers will not buy into the system. They will do their job and collect their pay, but they will not have given their all. Likewise, kids work harder when they buy into their learning environment.

I have taught in three different countries during my years of teaching. One was the tiny island nation of Bahrain, in the Persian Gulf. One thing that I learned through this experience is that the size of your world is not as important as how you are viewed by others within that world. Put another way, if your are a fish, the size of the pond is not as important as is your size within that pond. While the governor of the state of California has a lot more power and prestige, when the major of a small town walks down the street and is greeted with waves and handshakes by everyone one s/he meets, his/her feelings of self-worth and being in control of the environment are just as rewarding, and because of fewer headaches and quality of life, the environment may be more rewarding.

A child's world is small. It is his home, his friends around his home, his school and his classmates. If he/she feels more in control within these areas, and feels more powerful or has more prestige within these areas, feelings of self-worth and the conscious decision to buy into the system soon becomes evident. While kids may never become president of a real country or of a big business, being president in one's own small pond becomes very real as the classroom pond is a huge portion of a student's universe. While this ma seem to be an lot of trouble to go to improve a child's self-concept, educational experts agree that power is an important motivator. (Glasser)

Let's look at how a child interacts with his/her immediate universe. A child lives in a family. The family is a mini society. There is a form of rule, a judicial system, and an economic system; but rarely is the child ever in charge of that system. When the child is out on the streets he, is part of a larger system/society. It has rules that are enforced by policemen, and a means of reviewing the law through a legal system. It has a means for exchanging goods and services called a monetary system, or an economy. It requires you to pay for things you want and assures that you will get paid for things you sell. It rewards people in this system with increased status and money based on being a good singer, actor, teacher or doctor. If one goes to the international levels, one can see that there are all of these same factors, it is just that the rules become international law; the police become armies; and the monetary systems become international business, banking communities, trade agreements, and governmental structures.

Where does the child fit in all of this? When do they learn these lessons? How do they learn these lesson? Are they taught these lessons, or are they merely experiences we hope they get through living? Where do students learn the feeling of succeeding and being a success within this framework? Finally, when and how do children learn to handle leadership and power? I suggest that one way you can expose your students to all these elements is through developing your own mini- country. For now, let me begin by answering just a few very basic questions.

For twenty years now, I have taught upper elementary and middle school. During this time, I have used different forms of this system to teach my classes. Time after time when students come back to talk to their "old" teacher, the one thing they remember out of all the "pearls of wisdom" put forth in my classroom is our classroom country. It is a strong motivational device and it teaches kids skills they will use their whole lives. It augments your subject matter making it more meaningful, and it sometimes sparking an interest in business, government or law that carries forward into the adult lives.

How much time does it take to run this country?

The way I have done it, most administrative functions are performed by students working on their own before school, and during recess or lunch. Setting up the country itself is a learning process. After the program is up and running, it probably takes less than an hour out of an elementary school week and possibly no more than 20-30 minutes from a secondary school week for administrative details such as paying bills, or making announcements; furthermore, these activities are learning processes not merely administrative functions. In fact, the way the country is set up, administrative details are reduced into routines which are built into the class structure, and the routines cut down on interruptions and speed up normal class administration. Implemented well, the simulation could mean an actual decrease in lost instructional time.

Can unexpected problems crop up?
Yes, problems can crop up, but they are not as much problems as they are learning opportunities. Admittedly, some problems are not a lot of fun to deal with. For example, one problem in the real world that will enter into your mini-world is crime. Remember, you are creating a microcosm of the real world. Some people will attempt to take the easy way out and steal other people's money or possibly do some counterfeiting. While no one wants these negatives brought into the classroom, isn't it better that children learn lessons such as these within a small "play" environment rather than in the real world where people die and/or go to jail? In the classroom, problems are at a manageable level. As the teacher, you still have a lot more sophistication and maturity than do your students. If you, as a teacher, help kids learn how to handle these problems now, maybe we can reduce the need for the real police to handle them in the future. One thing I should probably point out is that I have attempted to make this country a positive experience for everyone. No one wants big brother always looking over his/her shoulder. For this reason, I have learned to do without a police force or an army made up of kids. I keep for myself these enforcer roles. Children are sometimes inclined to be too bossy, and I don't want to give them the opportunity to engage in approved tyranny. Also, as teacher, you are still responsible and must retain final authority. (And after all, I'm the teacher! That's what they pay me the big bucks for!)

What about an Internet Link?

As this book goes to press, we plan to offer electronic activities by setting up a special BBS or education discussion group through one of the university net systems. This discussion group will be specifically for classes that set up their own countries. If you are one of those people, the plan is to give your class a place to discuss issues on line. Through this linkup you will be able to get help and share your experiences with others. We will provide you and your students access to information that we hope they will find important and fun. We will, periodically, throw out an issue on some socially or politically timely issue and then offer the various countries to explore the idea and share their findings with the other countries from around the states and the world. This forum we plan to call the Electronic United Nations (E-UN). As part of this issues forum, we plan to put out periodic surveys. You will have the option of putting out the survey at your school and then sharing the results with the rest of the E-UN. We will tabulate the results and, pass these results on to the real political leaders of the world. We will also take a more in-depth look at some of these issues, and your country will be able to vote to take action on these issues just like at the real UN.

For those of you who are not yet linked up to the Information Highway, don't worry. You can very successfully develop a strong learning environment in your own room an/or school without linking into the Internet, but the Internet link will be there for you when you are ready for it.

This chapter will provide you with a detailed plan for starting your Classroom Country. The process will outline one possible step by step plan for such an implementation, but is not the only possible plan for implementation. It is recommended that as an educational expert, which is what you are, you utilize these materials as a jumping off point in the process. You will modify your procedures as you go along. If you have any ideas for improving the project, please write me and share your findings and perceptions. In subsequent editions of this project, I will make a concerted effort to make use of your suggestions.

Is it easy to setup? With this book as a guide, along with some patience and flexibility on your part, your classroom country can soon be up and purring.

Start Slow Take your time. This is not a fast process. You are breaking ties to your mother country, not breaking track records. On top of that, you are not just breaking ties with your mother country, you are building a new nation and doing it from scratch within your classroom. This is not done over night; it is not done in a week. It is a process so you have to let it work.

If you are preparing for a new school year, I would recommend that you first get all your regular classroom management strategies in place before you start the revolution. So to speak, you need a bit of stability before you can handle a revolution. On the other hand, you might consider using the early stages of the simulation (choosing a name, motto, flag, promise, etc.) as a means of unifying your class and building morale. Assure them that when the classroom has fully implement the classroom routines, you will be ready to start building a country.

How ever you plan to start, one of the first steps is to talk to your students. Tell them what you have in mind. You are thinking of offering them a chance to start their own country. It would have its own legal system, its own legislative system, its own monetary base, and its own business. Explain that it is a process, not a simple study unit, but that if they are interested in working through the process they will learn a lot about the real world.

Put properly to the students, I have never seen a class that was not thrilled with the idea. The normal problem is holding them back because they want to do it all yesterday.

The next step is to discuss with the class the steps that need to be worked through. While the steps organized below are not the only way to do this, they are one way I have used in the past, and they are logical and have worked well for me.

     Step 1: Declaration of Independence
     Step 2: Choosing a Governmental System. 
     Step 3: Constitutional Convention
     Step 4: Ratification of Constitution
     Step 5: Choosing Governmental Leader
     Step 6: Institution of Legislative Body
     Step 7: Designing and Printing Money
     Step 8: Developing an Economy Based on Civil Service
     Step 9: Expansion of Economy into Private Enterprise
     Step 10: Development of an Active Legal System
     Step 11: Developing Relations with Foreign Nations
     Step 12: Electronic United Nations
     Step 13: Introduction of Crisis Issues
               1. Inflation
               2. Taxes
               3. Poverty
               4. War
               5. Crime

I do not recommend that during your first meeting you give the class the whole list of things you plan to do. It may seem overwhelming, but these are all issues that you can address and many that will need to be addressed if you are to build a viable classroom country. Now that we have an outline of where we are going, let's get started on this process.

The first thing I do when starting a new classroom is review or teach the American Declaration of Independence. A suggestion for setting the tone and mood for the new country, as well as showing the process you are going to be going through, is to view the movie "1776." "1776" is a musical that takes you through the struggles our founding fathers dealt with as they wrote America's declaration. It is funny, but there are a few colorful jokes and some questionable language. It all fits together in a manner that portrays the writing as a long slow process requiring give and take, diplomacy and forcefulness. I have used this movie for a number of years with both 5th and 6th graders and would not start my country out without it, but watch it first. See if it is for you.

Next, look at the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Break it down into its basic parts: introduction, reasons that justify a revolution, examples that show the King of England forced us to revolt.

Next, elect representatives to draft your own declaration. This is going to be a working group so keep it small. The members have to agree, and they cannot take all semester to do this. Give them a bit of help. I offer you the use of a reproducible master in the back of this book to use as a work sheet. You will find that I personally like keeping most of the declaration's introduction as the words are still stirring to the soul and help students remember their own nation's Declaration of Independence.

As the students prepare their document, they will need to have a bad guy to revolt against. Colonial America had their King of England, George III. I might recommend that you use yourself as the hypothetical bad guy. Let them call you a dictator, a tyrant, etc. They get a feeling of power and yet you are setting the rules and so you haven't relinquished control. Keep the examples of your tyranny to a minimum, we do not want this document getting into the hands of subversives that might think you really are a terrible teacher! And one more caution. I do not recommend making your principal the tyrant. Some principals may not see the humor!

As in the original document, your final document will be hand written. This is an opportunity for that one student we have in all our classes who has impeccable handwriting to shine. When the committee likes the document, it is then signed by all the members who drafted it. Typed copies are given to the class for their review, but they do not get the opportunity to change or sign the Declaration of Independence. Remember, the entire nation did not write or have input into the drafting of our declaration. It was done by just a few representatives behind closed doors. (I wonder if the room was smoke-filled?)

Now it is WAR. You have declared your reasons for becoming an independent country. They are there in black and white. For the revolution to be successful, you need the support of the people or they will not fight and die for the cause. Don't worry, this is school. Our war for independence is very bloodless. For our wars, might-makes-right. We are fighting a war here! Some people may cringe a bit over a war in the classroom, but we are recreating a miniature world. In our real world the country with the biggest, most powerful army, often gets his way. To make this dramatic and to make the point sink in you can hold your war like this.

The war is over, and the revolutionaries have won. You are a NEW NATION! (Note: Some people might feel better voting rather than going to war, as it reduces societies dependence on war to settle disputes, and shows a peaceful model for decision making. On the other hand, some people will say the symbolic act of war is just there to teach students how we have historically settled such problems. You decide how you want to handle this.

Step 2: Choosing a Government

With the war over, now comes the hard part, nation building. The first step is to choose the type of government you want to participate in now that the old has been overthrown. The type of government you use might be dependent on your curriculum. If you have to teach a certain form of government, that is what you have to do. On the other hand, if you want to let the kids experiment a bit, it can be very rewarding as you can actually switch from one form of government to another during the school year to let the kids get a better understanding of each form of government.

Depending on the age of the students and your teaching objectives, this is a good place for kids to research the different forms of government. To make better use of time, some kids could have been doing this research while others were writing the Declaration of Independence. To get a smattering of the major forms, I would recommend they research a democratic republic, a monarchy, a dictatorship and a communistic form of government. (There is a possible worksheet to help students prepare this report in the back of this book.) The kids then give their reports to the class attempting to highlight the positive advantages of their specific governmental form. It is almost time for "War" again. (Remember, there is a democratic alternative to the "war" form of resolution.) Before final resolution, you need to point out the strengths and weaknesses of each form of government. One good way to do this is to make a concept web for each government as the students give their reports. Save these concept webs and hang them in opposite ends of the classroom on the day of the war. Then one at a time have students point out each systems strengths and weakness for the last time. If you have any great orators, now is the time for them to wax eloquent. If your orators miss a few points, you as the teacher may need to point them out so that children have a strong basis for making their choice of government.

Now it is "War!" Students who wrote up the reports DO NOT stand by their project any more. They need a free vote in this, also. At your command, the whole class rises. They are told to quietly stand beside the sign that depicts the type of government they want to see rule their country. Might-makes-right again in our war. If no governmental type has 51% of the class, the government with the smallest votes is dropped out until you finally have a majority. You now have chosen a governmental type to rule your country. (Wouldn't it be nice if real wars were fought this way?)

Step 3: The Constitutional Convention

I find writing the Constitution the hardest part of setting up the government. (I am sure our forefathers found it even more difficult.) If the students have already learned about the constitution, your job may be a bit easier, but not by much. You need to come up with a working document that somewhat matches our constitution. Even if you choose a dictatorship, I suggest you use some form of a constitution. It helps everyone understand what is going on a whole lot better.

As usual, there is a worksheet you could consider using for developing your constitution in the back of the book. It might be a good starting place for your students search. Again, I have kept a great deal of the preamble, because I feel students should get a feel for what our constitution sounds like.

When having students write their constitution, you may find that it is one document that you might like to break down into parts and have students work on in cooperative groups. This document lends itself to this because of the various segments of the government: Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. It is also easy to make some subdivisions within those three main areas, or you may want to have two or three groups each working on each branch of the government. Then have all groups working on a specific branch of the government come together to compromise on a joint document setting up their branch. This can be a very interesting process as each group defends its own plan. They will also experience what the House and Senate have to do when they need to work out compromise bills.

When each major section is worked out, you need to bring the groups together and work out a final joint document that encompasses all the branches of the government. There are some areas that could be in conflict with each other. For example, the executive department group might put in their section that the judges are appointed by the president like our Supreme Court Judges, but the judicial group may have put down that they were going to have the judges elected by the people. Also, you may have the Legislature set one length of time for terms of office, and the Executive group may have set a different length for terms of office. One possible format for handling this process would be to have one or two representatives from each group sit at tables or desks in the front of the room. The committee members sitting in the front of the room outline the major points of their section to the class. The class gives input and tries to see if there are potential problem areas or areas that could be changed to allow the country and the class to run more smoothly and with less waste of time.

As food for thought, here are some guidelines I often encourage the kids to consider.

1. Terms of office: You want to give a number of kids the chance to be president/king or whatever. Four weeks is plenty of time to be on top of the heap.
2. Police and an Army: I feel pretty strongly about this one area. I feel the teacher, and only the teacher, should be viewed as the policemen or military authority. The kids love to be policemen, but they get carried away. I can see why the Gestapo had no trouble getting recruits. (If the class gets out of hand, I always threaten I will use my military authority to over throw their revolutionary government and reinstate the proper governmental control, that being the United States of America with me being the classroom potentate.)

The kids want a finished product and so they will work it out, and, if you continually refer the students back to the actual U.S. Constitution, they will get a good working knowledge of our actual constitution and will probably know it a whole lot better than many of their parents. By the way, don't forget to work in a means of amending the constitution. The U.S. Constitution may not have been amended very many times, but your country might find itself amending it quite a frequently. Consider it more like a living, growing thing.

As an aside, while your students are working on these reports, constitutions, etc., there are a few additional research projects that could be given to early finishers. Your country might like to have its own equivalent to a state flower, bird, national anthem, national and presidential crests, flag, etc. Each of these topics could be researched and brought up for discussion and a vote. As mentioned earlier, one other idea I would suggest you consider is the construction of a Class Promise. Nations build unity just like schools build school spirit. They use colors, songs, animals, etc. Have fun with it!

Step 4: Ratification of the Constitution

Now it is time for a ratification vote. This is not a war. The students are voting to ratify a constitution. All the amending and compromising has been completed. Set up a ballot box and hold a secret ballot. I am sure it will not surprise you, but, since the kids made the constitution, they love it and it will pass overwhelmingly. You will find that by now, even though the government is not yet installed, the kids have thought about it so much that you already have a separate country mentality.

Step 5: Installing the Government

The procedures surrounding the picking of heads of state and the installation of those people is dependent on the type of government to be installed. In this book, I will only be discussing four of the major types of governments: democratic republic, monarchial, dictatorial, and communistic. There are, of course, other forms of government, but you can use the ideas presented here to choose any government you might want to study and install.

Democratic Republic

It is now time to campaign. If you can work the first election out to coincide with an actual local or national election, so much the better. Kids will pattern their slogans and advertising gimmicks on the real ones the adult politicians use. If you want to allow them to set up political parties, that can be a great learning tool in itself.

Watch the use of paper. I am a conservationist at heart and the kids, if allowed free reign, will crank out a thousand campaign posters. One possibility is to limit each group to a set number of posters. You will end up with better posters that are more artistic and have a deeper meaning than just "Vote for ME."

After you have elected a new president and vice president, it is time to invest these new officers. In other words, time for the inauguration. Have the president prepare a short speech appropriate for the occasion. Then, on inaugural day, at 12:00, which is the time the American President is inaugurated, have the judge or chief justice swear in the new president and vice president. If this is the first executive body for your new country and you do not have a judicial system functioning yet, as teacher, you have the power and authority to swear them in so go to it.

Regarding official oath used in the swearing in ceremony, as a public school teacher, I am opposed to people officially swearing in school, and so I use a promise instead. I have the kids develop the promise, but I have included a draft document in the appendix if they want a bit of help getting one together. The actual oath is found in the U.S. Constitution. This is another one of those research projects you can give a group of students. I also do not use a Bible for obvious reasons. Instead, we take the promise by placing our right hand on our social studies text book.

With the inauguration, you have the official transfer of power. You now have a government that is up and running.

1. Elections: Be sure to make the students write speeches if they want to run for office.
2. Political parties: These might work out fine, but you may need to break up some possible cliques. Groups that exclude others based on sex or nationalities are a potential problem. You can preclude this from happening, by laying ground rules on the construction of the political parties, right from the start. One way to get around this is to say that in order to be a bona-fide party and put up candidates, the party must have at least 2 people of each sex, and 2 people of each represented ethnic background. If this is not a problem for your class, that is great.
3. If you think the boy/girl thing could get to be a problem in your room, you might consider forcing students to have a mixed ticket. Remember, you are the teacher. They are constructing a mini country, but you are responsible that the class runs well without any cultural or ethnic problems.
4. Believe it or not, kids will consider taking down or defacing each other's campaign literature. Set up guidelines on this right off the bat.
5. Consider making the kids register to vote. It is an additional duty they will need to perform in real life.
6. When you hold your elections, use a voting registration first to check off who voted.

The kids really like this form of government for some reason. It might be the TV image of King Arthur, or maybe coverage of the British Royal Family, but, for whatever reason, kids like the idea of being a king or queen. Once, when I was teaching in Bahrain, an island in the Persian Gulf, my principal even instructed me to use a monarchial form of government to rule my country. You see, Bahrain was an Arab state which has been ruled for over 100 years by the Al Khalifa family, and he did not feel the ruling family would appreciate the idea of bringing in democratic ideas and the vote into his country. Being a long way from home, and a guest in a foreign culture, I could see his point. I promptly declared a boy, Abdula Al Khalifa, and girl, Basma Al Khalifa, both members of the ruling family, the king and queen. (Boy that was simple.)

This story actually brings me to an important point, that being how to select the king and queen. This is not a voting situation, there is a logical basis for selecting anyone as king or queen. It is an accident, and an accident of birth to be exact. My recommendation is to look at each of the kids to and see if you can find any logical way to declare anyone in particular king and queen. While I was teaching in Panama, the children chose to have a monarchy one year. I told the class that I was going to choose the boy and girl who had the longest continuous family history in our geographic area. This can be an interesting discovery all by itself. In the Panama case, the queen was a girl who was from a Panamanian Indian tribe and the boy was of mixed decent but his family had been in Panama for over a hundred years.

The kids do not actually like this method of choosing a king and queen, but I tell them that kings and queens are not voted on. It's like a lottery based on blood lines. Selecting your king and queen in this manner gives them a better sense of what a monarchy really is.

As you know, to invest a king or queen you crown them or hold a coronation. This is a very solemn occasion. You can get as elaborate or as simple as you want in these preparations, but realize that there is more pomp and splendor attached with monarchies that with other forms of government. You will need to have someone to crown the king or queen. This was often a representative of the church, but you can decide how you want to handle this. Once more, I recommend some sort of a speech as one crowns the monarch, and you should ask the new king to prepare some words for the mass of people who want to share that special day with the royal family.

Choosing of a dictator is a bit easier. Not many classes choose this form of government, as it gives them very little control. In fact, after having put together quite a few classroom countries, I have never had a group choose this form of government. If they did, I would choose one of the physically strongest males, as you know dictatorships fall back on the old Might- and Right- issue. The reason for the male image is that history has given us hundreds of male dictators and very few, if any, female dictators. Remind your class and the dictator that you are still in charge of the military and if you do not like the way the rule is progressing, there might be a coupe d'etat.

This might be a good place to warn you about something. Kids take role playing very seriously. If a student is the ruler of this classroom country, he/she has power and status within the classroom. If you use the power vested in you as teacher to kick him/her out of power, hold a coup d'etat, feelings can and will be hurt. I will give you a personal example. The class in Panama which chose to have a monarchy provided me with a real eye opener. I did not actually want to have the monarchy as I needed to teach the republic form of representational government, but I let the kids have their way saying that we would change the government sometime later in the year.

The king that year could not handle the power, and he abdicated the throne. There was a great deal of discussion about how to fill his seat, but while many boys wanted the job, I would not give it to anyone because we had a queen. If she was to choose a king, that would be one thing, but I was dealing with 5th graders and no one wanted to woo the queen. After quite a few weeks had passed, some kids felt the queen's power had gone to her head. Actually it hadn't, she was feeling a lot more confident and self-assured than she had been earlier in the year, but she wasn't really doing a bad job. Needing to change the government to a republic, I conspired with some of the malcontents to stage a coup. The poor child was devastated. Her whole world came crashing down around her, and I felt just awful. Even though I had been doing classroom governments for many years prior to this, I had never truly understood how completely kids buy into their roles in these mini-societies. My advice, be careful with the use of coup d'etat. If you do find it necessary, I would recommend that you tell the student who must change roles before you do anything else and ask them to "play act" his/her situation. That way they will feel a lot more in control.

As to the investing of a dictatorial government, dictators often get to power through force, and so there really is not a swearing in process. Normally after seizing power, the new dictator may go on TV and, declare in eloquent terms, how his illegal activity was necessary for the well being of the country. With words, they try to make illegal activities legal. You might want to follow this line of thought.

Keeping in mind what I said about coup d'etat, do not overlook the fact that no matter what happens, you are the head of the military. If the country is corrupt, dysfunctional, or getting out of hand, you can always take over and make yourself the dictator. This is, in reality, just taking back full control of your classroom and, in some instances, it is a justifiable action. If the government is not functioning well, you can minimize the negative impact of a coup by doing some "saber rattling" before actually using the coup. Warn them of the need to get their act together. Develop your own speech about how the government has been dysfunctional. If you want to play out the role, you can use terms such as, "in order to safeguard the learning process...it is your duty, your obligation, to take this illegal action to protect the rights of the people."

I have never had students choose this form of government and, spending most of my time as an elementary teacher, I have never needed to teach this form of government in depth. I do not feel it would be an appropriate choice for most elementary rooms, and it could result in a backlash within your local community. I do believe that when students are researching the different forms of government, they should research this form as it is an important alternative used by a lot of countries in this day and age, but, beyond that, I can not recommend that you set one up in the classroom.

Step 6: Instituting the Legislative Body

Overall, students do not know what types of things they can make into laws. Also, by and large, they are not interested in making laws that limit their freedom, they want laws to expand their freedom. What you need to do is have in your mind some ideas of what you are willing to let them make laws about. I am going to write down a few things for you to consider as possible areas to let them explore. Keep in mind that you are not turning complete control over to them. You are still the teacher, and they understand that this is a game. You have a job to do, and they expect you to remain the teacher and ultimate control in the classroom. Although you do not make a big deal of it, no law will be passed in your classroom without your first seeing the law and approving of it. (Is this democracy or what?)

If you are comfortable with the idea, you might even allow students to get into the area of academics and work on things such as a homework policy or a grading scale.

What I normally do is have Congress meet one day each week during lunch. The first time I meet with them. Beforehand, I will give them a list of the areas I think they can work on to develop laws. I will remind them that in order for the classroom to function efficiently I, as the teacher, need some authority. There also needs to be a means of punishing people who break the laws. If I would like some control mechanisms, I will ask them to draw up legislation that would make such laws. For example:

Movement within the Classroom: All citizens of (name of country) have the right to a good education. In order to do this, the teacher must have the power to establish a positive learning atmosphere within our country. An important aspect of this learning atmosphere is the control of unwarranted movement around the classroom. For this reason, the president and the teacher must have the power to limit movement after class has started. Students may not move around the room without first getting permission from the teacher or the president. Fines for breaking this law will be set by (the teacher/president/judge/legislature - whoever you want to take care of this administrative procedure).

You will notice that our bill/law has five central parts.

1. title
2. rationale for the bill/law
3. the actual rule or law
4. who will enforce the law
5. the penalty for breaking the law or who will set the punishment

Ok, the House members write their first bill. They show it to you and you make suggestions or explain why certain things will just not work. (Remember, the principal and parents are not going to accept having a party the last hour of every day!) After you make your recommendations, the kids vote on it. This does not need to be a secret ballot. It must pass by 51% in order to be considered as passing the House. If passed, the kids send the bill to the Senate. If it passes the Senate, it goes to the President. If he signs it, it becomes law. What I do then is have the president, or someone he appoints, announce the new law the following morning when class begins. A copy of the law is then posted somewhere in the classroom on a permanent bulletin board display. Remember that the procedures I have outlined for making the law, may be quite different depending on how your constitution has set up the law making process.

One of the tricks in dealing with Congress is to give them something to do. If they do not know what to do during their lunch time congressional sessions, tell them you need a law to accomplish some function. They will soon get the hang of it.

Step 7: Designing and Printing Money

The students love this part. They all know what money is. They see their parents work day after day to get it to pay the bills, go on for vacations, and buy things they want and need. Money and the resulting economy is an area that excites the students a great deal, and it is a great motivator and controller if used properly. On the other hand, just as in the real world, money is a source of potential abuse and crime. Every year I have done a monetary-based economy there have been some of the negative parts of our real-world social system. There is the obvious theft of money from other students desks, but that can normally be controlled by asking students to keep the money on their person just like you do in real life. I am sure you would not even consider leaving two or three hundred dollars in your desk, unattended. It is better that they learn these lessons with play money than to learn them with real money.

One illegal activity that comes up quite often, but is normally easy to deal with, is counterfeiting. The children typically use a photocopier. Most of the time they do not look on this crime as really hurting anyone. I believe they kind of see it as beating the system. They are just getting more money without stealing, etc., etc. As a teacher, you will quickly figure out who is doing the counterfeiting. In a small closed society like you will have, it becomes quickly evident when certain people all of a sudden have an unlimited supply of money. Also, they are still kids and this is a game. They cannot help telling at least a few friends. What fun is it to beat the system if you cannot tell someone that you beat it? What some of the students don't understand, and you now have the opportunity to discuss that when someone steals from the government, they are stealing from all the people in the society because the people pool their money together to make the government work. There are some ways to stop this problem and, strangely enough, I look forward every year to dealing with this problem as it gives me an opportunity to deal with social problems in a context that is not TOOoo bad.

But let's start at the beginning. First, make a completely new set of bills using a new design each year. By the end of the year there is too much old money floating around out there and one does not want brothers and sisters to receive a large inheritance from an older sibling. In your country, everyone should start the game in the same place.

As is the case with our government, the government you are in control of the printing presses. I have some money blanks in the appendix which will make it easy for you to set up the money. I would recommend that you hold an art contest to design the front of the money. After that is done, make a master plate for each of the major denominations. These masters then need to be kept under lock and key, just like the Federal Government keeps its plates stored safely away. You will notice that the money is set up in sheets that contain ten bills per sheet. When you run the money, keep track of how many sheets of each bill you reproduce. What I do is write this information on the back of each master sheet.

Next, the bills need to be marked to cut down on the possibility of counterfeiting. The best way I have found to mark the bills, is to use one of those teacher stamps you get in an educational catalogue along with multi-colored ink. I am not sure if you have seen them, but there are ink pads that have red, yellow and blue all on the same pad. After marking, any bill that does not have this colored ink imprint on the back of the bill, is considered a forgery. This technique has made it much harder for potential counterfeiters, although, given color copiers and the possibility that someone could order a stamp, it does not rule out forgeries.

Now comes the tedious job of cutting out the money. I have set the bills up so that you can use a paper cutter to cut the money. Use the lines to be the approximate edge of each bill and with a few swipes of the paper cutter, the money is all cut into neat stacks.

As stated, money is one area in which some of society's negative ills can creep into your country. Be open in discussing this with your students. Explain that if too many problems persist, you will just do away with the monetary system all together. That is an extreme threat as it will destroy half of the educational value of your independent country, but, as teachers, we must look at what is overall best for our students. In all my years of teaching, I only had to follow through with this threat once. I had a student that was stealing money from others, and I could not figure out who it was. The classroom atmosphere was degenerating as no one was trusting anyone else, and so I made a decision to stop the game. This was a rare example. I write about it here to let you know about all the possible things that can go wrong, but do not let the fear of something possibly, maybe eventually, going wrong prevent you from risking the learning adventure associated with setting up your classroom country. I have found that the rewards for student learning far outweigh the negatives. Even when I was forced to quit the game because of one student whom I could not stop from stealing, the class learned a great deal over the months they played the simulation. One thing they learned was the effect selfish activity can have on the larger society, and how it affects innocent members even if they were not directly a victim of some criminal activity. In the real world, this would be similar to how shoplifting; or credit card, insurance and medicare fraud cause the prices and taxes to go up.

To conclude this section, let me reassure you that even though there may be a few problems inherent in using a monetary system, you as a professional educator can handle them. You will have more control over the entire classroom atmosphere. You will have at your disposal a motivator that is almost universally accepted, money, and you will have control over the purse stings. (You always wondered how Congress could so easily spend billions of dollars. Believe me, you will soon understand it a lot better when you control the purse strings of your own country.)

Step 8: Developing an Economy Based on Civil Service

You have money; now you need to actually get your economy up and running. The first thing you need to do is figure out how much you will pay people, what they will get paid for, and, conversely, how much you will charge for services they receive as well as for fines if laws are broken.

The amounts of money do not need to be similar to what is paid in the real job market. You can do this if you want, but then you will need to print very large sums of money, and it really isn't necessary. So my first suggestion is keep the salaries relatively low. Later you will be able to raise salaries, and, through this, you will be able to show students how inflation affects overall prices in an economy.

If you think you might use the Internet as a vehicle to converse with other similar countries through the Electronic United Nations (E-UN), I ask that you START with the formula shown below. That way, there will be a basis for comparing relative inflation and deflation rates in various economies based on what you have done inside your country. But however you decide to set it up, one strong suggestion, I have is keep salaries low and the pay scale simple. A students job is school and school work, and so they need to be paid for attending school. You will also need to pay the elected members of the executive, legislative and judicial branches an additional salary to compensate them for the jobs they do within the government. There will also need to be people who will collect and keep track of fines and payments for rent and utilities, as well as doing miscellaneous jobs around the room. I will give you a possible salary schedule you could start off with, and, if you are doing the Electronic - United Nations part of the simulation, the one I will request your country begins with. I do not wish to stifle creativity, only introduce a factor that will allow for comparison.

With this set-up, you have students earning anywhere from a low of $50 per week to a high of $100 a week, or maybe slightly higher if some people are allowed to have more than one job. After setting up the basic salaries, you need to establish the basic expenses.

You will notice that we have consumed 80% of the basic salary with just living. They will need to use the remaining 20% of their income on services and privileges they want to purchase. You will also notice that this gives a decided advantage to those students who have additional jobs. The money they make above their basic income goes into what could be called "discretionary income." This sets up the normal economic differences in our society and will cause those with just a basic student salary to want to go out and get a job, or, as you will soon see, create a service that he can get others to pay him for. This is the basis of the private enterprise system.

To start the project out, you first need to hire people to do some of the basic civil service jobs. You do not want to put everyone into a civil service job. (You know what that has done to the American economy.) Be somewhat limited in the numbers of jobs you set up. The government already has a huge payroll just paying judges, congressman, etc. The following are some possible civil service jobs to consider.

1. Accountant: He/she helps the Secretary of the Budget keep track of the money in the treasury, how much is in the Federal Reserve, how much is brought in, and how much is spent. The Secretary gets the money ready so that it can be easily paid out on payday. This is a very big job and will reinforce the importance of basic math skills.
2. Rent/Utilities Collectors: These people keep track of the collection of money on such things as rents and utilities. Math is again stressed.
3. Classroom Aides: They collect fees for use of government privileges like going to the bathroom, or sharpening pencils. They can also be used to collect and keep track of fines.

Next come the job interviews. I like to give each person who applies for a job the chance to come in for an interview. I normally conduct these during lunch, but when you do it is dependent on your schedule. I normally have the president or one of his/her representatives sit in on the interviews. I handle the first couple so that the kids get an idea of how to do it and then you can let them do the talking. After the interviews, I sit down with the person that helped interview the candidates, and we rank order the candidates based on their written application, job experience, and their reactions during the interview. The obvious next step is to offer the chosen individual/s the job/s.

As stated earlier, I normally pay salaries and collect rent and utilities once a week. If you take classroom time to do this, the first time it will take almost an hour to get everyone paid and to collect all monies due. As kids get better at it, the class time can be cut down to about 30 minutes. This can also be handled during the students' free time. The person in charge of setting up the payroll can have an envelope with each student's name and the amount of money to be paid written on the envelope. At home, they sit down and fill each envelope with the correct amount of money and then bring the payroll back to school the following day. The first thing in the morning, the students can collect their envelopes and initial a payroll sheet showing that they have collected their pay for the week.

The same can be done with the utilities. Children can have an envelope into which they place their payments for rent, electricity, water, AC and heat, etc. Then they turn the envelope over to the civil servant whose job it is to collect these funds. The civil servant has a sheet on which he records who paid what, and the balance of each child's account. There are a lot of great math skills that are put to use here. There is a sample generic form in the appendix. If an individual is behind in his payments, the state can try to get the judge to garnishee wages. This is normally not necessary. If you make sure everyone pays bills right away, they will not spend the money on other things and then not have enough to pay basic bills.

What to spend money on is a serious question. If you make money, you want to be able to spend it. There is the obvious use of money to buy privileges in the room. Given the salaries outlined above, these are some figures I have used for privileges in my room.

There are also classroom fines that need to be discussed. The following are some fines that I would consider reasonable given their proposed salaries.

What else do kids spend their money on? Kids sell each other things. Dollars are an agreed upon medium of exchange, and that is what your country's dollars have become. There is a finite number of them and everyone has agreed to accept them as the medium to exchange goods and services. (We are really getting into the nitty- gritty of economics here.) To facilitate this, I hold an auction once a week for about 15 minutes. Students bring items they want to sell. Typical items include pencils and pens, candy, and, at the elementary level, stickers and toys. With the use of an auction, kids see that money, when it has an agreed upon value, can be used to buy real-time things. Each child may only sell a set number of things per week. A child may put a minimum bid on an item, and there is no such thing as "I was only joking." If someone bid a certain amount and then fails to pay up and take possession, he is fined $10, which is given to the seller, and the bidding is started over again. The government keeps at least $1.00 per item sold for providing the auction services.

I recommend one other thing. That is that the state sell a controlled commodity each week and tracks its price. Something thing that is easy to produce and has instant appeal for most of the students is a homework pass. Hang up a chart in the classroom and record the price you get by selling one homework pass each week. Watch what happens to the price. In the beginning the price will be very low because salaries are low and the expendable incomes are also very low. As time passes and people save more money, the price of the homework pass will rise. We will later talk about inflation. If you build inflation into your country, you will see a dramatic rise in the price of the homework pass. Then later on, when your chart is looking pretty nice, introduce "supply and demand" by suddenly offering two or three passes for auction the same week. Then offer five passes the next week. Then go back to offering one pass a week. What happens to the price of our basic commodity? The things you can do with the auction are only limited by you and your students' imaginations.

For those of you who want to be sure your evening assignments are done so that students practice the skills you worked on in class, your homework passes could allow the students to skip the odd problems. That way the kids will still get some of the practice and your homework pass will have some value. Students won't like a 50% pass as well as a 100% pass because even good students forget an assignment every now and then. When they do, it is nice to be able to dip into their wallet and pull out a "No Homework Pass" to solve the problem.

One more point on salaries, if you want to eventually charge taxes, I would recommend you keep a record of salaries on a spread sheet. Then it will be easy to have the spreadsheet total up the income paid out so you can figure the taxes. Depending on the age of your students, this could be a great learning opportunity. Again, don't worry about trying to do all parts of this project. Pick and choose what you want. If you don't do taxes this year, maybe, in a year or two, you will decide to try taxing the population.

Step 9: Expansion of the Economy into Private Enterprise

Once you have your civil service economy up and running, students will want to go into business for themselves. What they can do is limited only by their imaginations and what their fellow students are willing to spend their money on. The following are some successful businesses students have started in my classroom.

1. Bankers: People need a safe place to store money, and bankers come to the rescue. Some of my "banks" have even developed a check-writing program, that allows the individual to write checks against the funds they have in the bank. Other "banks" have created credit cards.
2. Store owners: These kids want to sell items. They can set up almost like a thrift store, in which people sell used items they don't want any more. People then bring items to be sold on a consignment basis.
3. Cleaning services: At the elementary level, the child who always has the messiest desk in the room is often willing to pay someone to keep his desk clean.
4. Insurance companies: Rather than insure people for health, death, etc., our insurance companies insure people against paying fines. For example, they determine how great a risk a child is, and offer him/her a basic insurance policy that covers part or all of the fines they rack up in a week. I would always recommend the insurance company sell deductible insurance, and let people know that their insurance premiums will go up if they get tons of fines. This is a great exercise in free enterprise and working out probabilities. The company can either make a ton of money or go bankrupt. (It is also about as close as we can get to gambling. By the way, no lotteries please!)
5. Attorneys: When we get into the judicial system, you will see that we have a need for attorneys. This job appeals to quite a few students.
6. Tutorial Services: This is NOT a homework service and if you think it might become one, don't even suggest it, but some kids may be willing to run a lunch time/after school study service.

Step 10: Development of an Active Legal System

You have laws and you have human beings. You now need to get your judicial system in order and interpret those laws. You have already decided how to pick the judge. Most likely, he is either elected or else you let the president appoint him like the U.S. Supreme Court is set up. However you do it, you have a judge.

You have two major types of court cases. One type is going to be decided by the judge acting both as the judge and jury. This is going to be a lot like traffic court or the TV program "People's Court." The plaintiff states the problem and shows what evidence there is to the judge. The defendant then states his side of the case, and the judge makes up his mind and hands out the punishment. This is clean and simple. It is fast and, with the limited amount of time you have to spend on minor differences, this is the way to go. Since the students do not have a lot of legal knowledge other than what they have picked up on the TV, it is really just a matter of whom the judge believes.

In order to give a bit more gravity to the situation, you can add some pomp and ceremony. Maybe you would like to give the judge a black piece of cloth that he wears over his shoulders when sitting as judge. Maybe if someone can come up with a graduation robe, he could wear that. Your judge can't be seen doing all the mundane court room tasks, and so you should definitely have a bailiff who keeps order in your court room, and says things like "All rise, the first district court of the sovereign nation of __________, is now in session. Chief Justice ____________ presiding." You also need to have someone swear people in, and your bailiff will be doing that. See the appendix for a prompt sheet to give the judge so he has some idea of what to say and do.

If you really want to get serious about this, you can try to get a real lawyer give you copies of outdated state statutes. The classroom could then adopt them as their classroom laws along with those that they make up on their own. Then the students can learn how to look up state statutes which, who knows, might be the thing that sparks some budding Supreme Court Judge into the practice of law.

We need to discuss one more area in this section, and that is trial by jury. I do not recommend that you have a trial by jury very often, but the kids love it, and since it is part of the real world they live in, I have at least one each year. I save it for the serious cases, such as counterfeiting, etc. You do have to be careful as the teacher not to humiliate any one. This must be done very carefully for we do not want any real-world law suits.

Another option, if you want to have a trial by jury, but do not want it to cover a real crime, is to stage a crime. (From many points of view, this might be the preferable approach.) If TV can fake a crime, a teacher can fake it. (We all know that to be a great teacher you must first be a master actor.) Work it out before hand with some child. Leave clues, develop some witnesses, etc. Then stage your trial.

There is also the possibility of using a real crime that has been in the newspapers and use the evidence, as it is presented in the newspapers, to argue the guilt or innocence of the accused. The trick is to have fun, learn something, teach about society, but don't harm kids self-esteem in the process.

Step 11: Developing Relations with Foreign Nations

One of the first things I would do after setting up your country and putting the organization in place is write letters to the state governor and the president of the United States to let them know that you have officially broken ties with them. You have revolted. I would send them a signed copy of your Declaration of Independence and your constitution. Assure them that you would like to work in peace with their governments. Of course, make sure it's clear to them that you have set up a simulated country.

Next, have your country's leader appoint ambassadors to handle issues pertaining to your relations with those foreign governments. Hopefully this individual can write reasonably well. (All these skills we learn in school are really important, aren't they?) In a letter, let the other world leaders know that your country will be taking a stand on issues of global and international importance. When there is something going on of importance in the world, encourage your leader to act like a national leader. Have them direct research into the issue and when they are ready to make an informed decision, fire off letters of protest or support just like a real country would. When you write these world leaders, be sure to assure them that they can count on your country's doing its share to support international humanitarian and peace keeping efforts.

Another thing that you can do to establish empowerment within your class is to send your Declaration of Independence and Constitution to your local newspaper. It makes a great human interest story. You can then have your students write regularly to the editors and try to get their views on issues of local or national importance printed up in the newspapers. If you really want to become part of the whole process, you can start running some school wide surveys. You should do it in a scientific and unbiased manner. If your questions are done well and the sampling is accurate, the newspapers may even use your data as a sampling of public opinion on different issues. With outside recognition like that, your students' feelings of importance and self-worth will soar. Also, as a teacher, your personal feelings of self-worth will soar.

What about relations with other classroom governments. If you are a secondary teacher and have more than one class, or if you are an elementary teacher that has a school with more than one classroom set up as an independent country, I would recommend that you make overtures to the other countries to set up some form of relationship. Maybe you can work jointly on some surveys. Maybe you can work jointly on some letter writing campaign. Maybe you can work on a local environmental issue or even just share copies of your constitutions and laws. Maybe you can agree to research an issue of local or national importance and then meet to discuss or debate the best way of resolving the problem. At the secondary level, there are a lot of issues that could be debated. During the late 1980's and early 1990's there was the Gulf War, relations with Russia and Germany, Bosnia, Health Care Reform, Aids, and the Middle East peace process. There are always going to be issues that make good forums for research and discussion.

Step 12: Electronic United Nations (E-UN)

The use of the Internet is something that you should not overlook. One of my own personal goals is to link up, via computer networking, classes across the United States and in foreign countries. I can see these classrooms sharing with each others, copies of documents they write, or doing on-line discussions on important national and international issues. The logical extension of these discussions will be to share the student's perspectives with elected officials who can see for themselves the views of their informed, school-aged constituents. Students may not be able to vote now, but if they learn more about government and become empowered in its use, when they get to be adults, they will vote, and they will make their views known.

To give you a better feel for how we intend to set it up, I provide the following outline of the proposed Bulletin Board that will support the E-UN.

Declaration: The E-UN has been established for the purpose of teaching students of all ages and from many countries, how decision are made in our complicated, global village. The E-UN will act as a forum for students to research, discuss and vote on issues of importance. The E-UN will act as the compiler of information, and will distribute such information in the manner agreed to by the members of the E-UN. The E-UN will act in a manner similar to the United Nations in New York, except that there will not be a Security Council, and all votes will be made on the basis of one vote per member country.

The E-UN will not act as a lobbying organization for any position or special interest group. It will report results of votes and survey's to its member nations and will send on to governmental agencies such information as it feels is important to assure to the student member nations that their opinions are heard.

Discussion Groups: The E-UN will provide an area for on-going e-mail discussion on a variety of topics. All individuals will be allowed to view the discussions, but only the country's heads of state will be allowed to post notices, ask questions or take positions. These inclusions will become the country's official statement/position on these issues. Countries may join and participate in as many of these discussions groups as it likes, although access to some discussion groups will be limited by age. The decision concerning the appropriateness for inclusion of differing aged students into specific discussion groups will be made by the administrative staff of the E-UN, and their decisions are final. Teachers may, of course, limit their class's participation into different discussion groups. Teachers will be given a code, that will allow them access to all discussion and will grant them the ability to open or close discussion areas to their students.

Surveys: In order for the students to have a forum for research, and discussion, the E-UN will, on a periodic basis, develop surveys. The administrative staff of the E-UN will be the sole body able to put a survey to the entire E-UN. Member countries will, from time to time be asked for their ideas on issues they would like to formally discuss. Countries who would like to survey an issue may submit an idea or draft survey to the administrative staff of the E-UN for its consideration. Every survey will need to be carefully researched, drafted, put out to the member nations, and finally collect the data, compiled the results and send the results to the appropriate authorities. For these reasons, that the numbers of issues surveyed will need to be limited.

Participation in Actions of the E-UN: Countries that participate in actions of the E-UN will need to commit funds to those actions. As an example let's build a situation that could come up in the E-UN. In the real world, newspapers begin reporting on a civil war being fought within country Abc-xyz. Thousands of innocent people are dying, famine seems to be imminent. The issue is brought to the E-UN and the students do research on the issue. Attempts are made to contact by e-mail and the Internet, sources of information within the country. Information found out is placed in the E-UN discussion group established for the issue. A survey is sent out to participating nations. After discussion and a vote by members of the E-UN it is decided to take action. In real life, action by the United Nations must be paid with real dollars and yen. In our world, actions also need to be paid for so nations that vote to support the action will pledge money to support the their decision to take action. Each country that pledges to support the E-UN action will pledge a certain number of their countries dollar assets. The money will need to be collected from the citizens, or from the government coffers. Symbolically, the "play" money will be mailed to the offices of the E- UN who will report on the collection of these pledged monies. When the money arrives at the E-UN offices, a chart will be posted showing all the pledges various countries made and who have sent in their pledged money. In order to speed up the processing of these figures, these "play" monies will be sent in with a form that will make accounting simple, see the appendix. This form includes your countries name, the E-UN issue that the monies are pledged for, the dollar amount included, and the average value of your homework passes up to that time. (The average value of your homework passes, see the section describing the economy, establishes the foreign exchange rate.) This process, while symbolic, will show that commitments must be paid for, and taking action is more than just a vote or a words. Sacrifices need to be made for every action that a country takes.

Membership in the E-UN: Only student nations that apply for and receive official acceptance as a E-UN member will be allowed to participate in the activities of the E-UN. To be a member nation, the student country must be setup using basic guidelines as provided in this book. If one will participate in economic discussions and surveys, it is necessary that a new economy be established every year so that the results of different activities (i.e. inflation, deflation, taxation, adoption of governmental positions, etc.), and their effect on relative prices in different countries can be compared. Participation will also require the payment of user fees in order to offer the telecommunications access and administrative functions provided by the E-UN.

Step 13: Introduction of Crisis Issues

Crisis 1: Inflation/Deflation (note: there is an serious factual error in this section and it is being revised by economics professor from the Univer. of Wisc., Eau Claire, Dr. Edward Young.) Inflation has been called the hidden tax. Governments often blame it on unions pushing up wages, but if you check with an economist the biggest single cause is the government printing up money and spending it without collecting the money in the form of taxes or user fees. As this book goes to print, the United States is in debt to the tune of 3 trillion dollars. That means that if the government wanted to pay off the debt tomorrow, every man, woman and child in the United States would each have to give the government approximately $20,000. No matter how you put it, that is a lot of money. You are going to be able to show kids how inflation works by slowly printing more money and putting it out into the economy. You will remember that I recommended that you auction off one homework pass each week. The cost of this commodity will be our benchmark for inflation. There are a known number of these passes being put into the market, one a week. If demand and the money supply stay pretty constant, the price at auction, should also stay constant. As stated earlier, I recommend that classes keep records to chart this figure.

As the class settles into the use of its economic system, people will begin to gain affluence through savings, selling goods or providing services. Prices of our home work pass should begin to rise in a rather gradual but consistent manner. Now, begin your inflation. What you want to do is just get more money into the system. Let's say that you give cash awards for students who head their papers properly and write neatly. Set a certain amount that you plan to infuse into the economy in this manner each week. Note what you are doing on the homework pass commodity chart and watch what happens to the price of passes.

Another way to do this is to allow the president to play Santa Claus. Have him/her give across the board wage increases. Figure out the approximate increase in wages by comparing your old payroll to the new payroll. Now look at the price of your commodity and see what happens to its price. After a few weeks with increased wages, the treasury will begin to decline and so, you might need to raise rents or institute taxes to pay for all the increased costs of salaries. It will not take long for kids to see what happens when the government spends the money they borrow or print.

If your inflationary economy has gone along pretty well, and you think the kids are able to handle it, you might throw in deflation. The government printing presses stop. You cannot pay full salaries, so everyone's salary is cut in half. You are in deflation, and without some infusion of money it could lead to a depression where no one has money to buy things or hire anyone to do work. This becomes a very graphic simulation of the real world.

Crisis 2: Taxes Kids have been making good money. All of the salaries have been paid from money that has been coming off the government printing presses and the money you collect from rent and utilities. You tell the president that the Federal Reserve Bank is in a crisis. You are running out of dollars and suggest that he start an income tax structure. The kids don't like the idea but no one ever likes taxes. The President and Secretary of the Budget talk to Congress and ask them what they want to do. You are going broke. No one wants to say that terrible five letter word, but as the teacher you state that the presses will not roll anymore unless the government takes steps to bring in additional money, most likely through taxes, or else cut everyone's salary, which no one will want to do.

Eventually you work them around to the point that they decide they will raise an income tax. They can decide first if it is to be a flat rate tax in which everyone pays the same percentage or a graduated tax in which you pay either more or less based on your income. The U.S. has, of course, a graduated income tax in which the poor are supposed to pay fewer taxes and the rich pay more taxes. (In the real world the rich have tax loop holes which many times mean the poor and middle class pay more than the rich, but let's not make our country too realistic.) I recommend that to make accounting easy, the government charge a set rate on the base wages, and then a higher rate when it climbs over a certain amount. For example:

You will need to hire a new government employee just to keep track of the tax money, but what the heck...this is a bureaucracy and we are getting bigger and bigger. (If I ever wondered how our Federal Government kept on growing, setting up classroom governments has quickly helped me understand our government.)

If you want, you can even have the kids file income tax forms by the 15th of April. That should be interesting. You will find forms to help you do this in the appendix if you want to give it a try.

Crisis 3: Poverty Play the game long enough, and someone is going to go broke. The first thing to do is to have them go to court and declare bankruptcy by filing a Chapter 11. See the Appendix for a form for this. There needs to be some consequence for filing bankruptcy and so I would recommend that if the person is an elected official they lose their job, or, if you don't want to do that, that the court take away a large enough portion of the salary so as to pay off their debts slowly for them. That will stop people from going into debt, declaring bankruptcy and then starting to build up debt all over again.

Besides over-spending and getting in debt, poverty can also come into play. This comes about when one is making a basic salary but expenses have risen to the point that ends can no longer be meet. Let's say, you only have a basic job and your expenses are $42 with the taxes. You need to go to the bathroom and get a drink a couple of times a week and so every week you run out of money. Society will need to decide what it wants to do about that. If you set up a plan before someone runs out of money, it will be easier to handle the problem. Maybe you want the state to pay for the bathroom break, sort of like food stamps, or maybe you decide that people who only make a basic income do not need to pay for the bathroom or water. What ever you decide, realize that it may come up and what will you do about it? There is also the possibility that people can apply for welfare, but I don't want to be seen as training people to live in a welfare state and so it would probably be better to just talk them into getting some additional job that pays a small income. Maybe they could clean the erasers or sharpen pencils.

If you see certain people falling into this category, the next time you have a change of government and new people get chosen for jobs, be sure that you work some of the people who only had a basic income last time into a higher income this time. We want to show everyone one that they can reap the rewards of the free enterprise system if they are willing to work.

Crisis 4: War Do you want your country to take part in global conflicts? Have the students watch the newspapers and take issue with what is happening. There are always going to be global hot spots. If after reading about the issue, the class decides they want to participate in some manner, they will need to commit their country's resources to do that. How does your country do this? First, if you want to do this right, appoint a Secretary of State. This person's sole duty is to watch the newspapers and report to the country what is going on in the larger world.

If the Secretary of State wants to get involved in an issue or the president orders him to research a situation, the thing the Secretary of State needs to do is read the magazines, and newspapers to figure out the various sides to the issue. Next, all this material should be presented to the president. He can decide what action, if any, he wants to take. Some early actions might be to write the heads of other countries and express his views on the subject. He might encourage the U.S. Government to get involved or stay out of the issue.

Then as time passes and the various world governments ask for help from the United Nations, you can decide to side with, or go against joint action. Let's set up a simulation: Iraq is moving closer to Kuwait's northern border. The U.S. goes to the United Nations and asks for sanctions against what is viewed as a hostile act by Iraq. Does your country verbally support the U.N. resolution or do you vote against it? Now, the U.N. decides to send troops to Kuwait. What are you going to do? Do you send troops? Do you sit on the sidelines? Obviously no one in the class is going to actually go to the desert to fight, but if your government is committed to military action, it is going to have to be paid for. As the teacher, you will assess a certain amount the government will have to pay per week to support your military action. This will be paid by the class in some form of additional tax. Say a 1% increase in their tax structure for as long as you agree to support the military action. Should the military action result in an actual war (let's pray it doesn't), the tax rate might be raised to 2% or more depending on the situation.

If you are part of the E-UN, you will be given an opportunity to vote on the issue over the Internet and, through that, take some action. Your class's decision, along with all the other participating members of the E-UN, will be sent to real political heads of state.

You could also use this same format to take action on environmental or health issues. This use of the tax to pay for your support of global actions displays a large measure of the commitment each individual has to tighten up his/her belt when making a commitment. Further, not everyone is going to agree on supporting or not supporting various issues, and this will allow individuals to crystalize their feelings and force them to express these opinions or have the government act in opposition to what they would really like to see happen. All of these actions better prepare students to take their places in a democratic society. If we can help teach knowledgeable, pro-active students who understand the system, they will be knowledgeable, pro-active adults who are more willing and able to participate in our American system with its free enterprise economy and its representative form of government.

Conclusion:

If you have read this book straight through, you may become worried that you will be able to pull it all off. Relax! Setting up a classroom government is done slowly. It sort of evolves. Further, there is nothing that says you really must do any certain part of it. You can pick and choose only those things you want to do. Maybe you only want to set up the government and not use the economy, do it! Maybe you like the idea of a classroom economy as an aid to motivation without the government, do it!! Pick and choose. Building your own country will be as rewarding to you as it is to your students.

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