April 17, 2011 08:11:49 PM
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I taught a Cultural Analysis class at Juniata College in Pennsylvania a couple years ago called Beyond Tolerance. For the class students are required to design a workshop that experientially explores some major topic area from the course materials (racism, classism, heterosexism, etc). One of the best, which with a bit of tweaking, I actually still use today in workshops, is a redesigned version of Monopoly.
The game runs very similar to the classic game with a few major twists, namely the fact that each player begins the game with a different amount of money and a profile. Along the way players make choices about what comforts and/or necessities they would like to have and have to pay bills for those things, each turn around the board as well.
Some people are wealthy and/or middle-class and generally breeze through the game, buying up property and going to college, while other, poor and/or working-class players struggle to pay their bills each time they pass “Go” and practically fall apart when a "chance card" gets thrown their way.
In this version, are more like real life and can be anything from “You found money on the street collect $10 if you live in a middle-class neighborhood, $5 in working-class, and $1 In a poor”, to “You just found out you are pregnant. Add $100 to your bills each time you pass go, or pay $200 now to have an abortion”. One of the most difficult for students was “You found a very sick puppy on the street who will likely dies without attention. Make a choice a) take him to the vet $100, b) take him home and try to care for him add $20 to your bills each week, c) leave him there to die.
Because of the difficult nature of making a decision to do something like have an abortion for a student who is staunchly pro-life or else face other devastating outcomes, student’s quickly realize that money makes a huge difference in the “options” and resources available to people. It may not change their belief system, but it encourages them to examine their beliefs critically instead.
The students designed the game to favor those who choose to invest in education. This way even the poor who manage to get a college degree can increase their income (when passing the space to get paid) and increase their standard of living.

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Basic structure, rules and "class-based" neighborhoods.

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Rosalie

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