How to make Marxism interesting when teaching high school?
For a pedagogy class, I need to write a lesson on Marxism. However, I’m drawing a blank on ways to teach it that would make it interesting. Time is a big issue too; hypothetically, I’m teaching this in one class period.
I would like to do some type of exercise where the students imagine themselves as from different classes (economic classes), but this seems like it would take too long.
Anyone have any ideas for a quick, informative, interesting way to teach Marxism to high schoolers?
Thanks.
Tell them to imagine it’s 50 years in the future, and the following changes have occurred:
- No fish left due to overfishing (profiteering)
- Insufficient drinkable water left due to climate change (caused by polluting which is caused by profiteering)
- Most farmland is now a dustbowl due to over farming and excess use of fertilizer (caused by profiteering)
- Food prices are ten times higher (discounting inflation) than they are today due to the rich getting richer and continuing to buy up all food production and sales networks then colluding to jack up prices (profiteering)
… and so on.
Now explain that a horde of thousands of starving people riots in the streets. Some of them kick down each student’s door. "Whose side are you on?" the rabble’s spokesperson asks. They have 30 seconds to respond before being beaten and hacked to death if they answer wrong. Hungry people are not amenable to quibbling.
Arm those students who say they’re on socialism/the poor’s side with actual pitchforks, baseball bats, etc. Arm the self-professed capitalist students with guns but a limited number of bullets. Now let nature take its course.
Set it 100 years in the future if you prefer. or maybe 150, it could take that long to actually happen.
Or you could talk about the current recession and the boom/bust cycle of capitalism… maybe even dare I say it suggest that capitalism is not completely good nor socialism completely evil, and that a balance of the two is necessary for the long-term good of all?
Tell them to imagine it’s 50 years in the future, and the following changes have occurred:
- No fish left due to overfishing (profiteering)
- Insufficient drinkable water left due to climate change (caused by polluting which is caused by profiteering)
- Most farmland is now a dustbowl due to over farming and excess use of fertilizer (caused by profiteering)
- Food prices are ten times higher (discounting inflation) than they are today due to the rich getting richer and continuing to buy up all food production and sales networks then colluding to jack up prices (profiteering)
… and so on.
Now explain that a horde of thousands of starving people riots in the streets. Some of them kick down each student’s door. "Whose side are you on?" the rabble’s spokesperson asks. They have 30 seconds to respond before being beaten and hacked to death if they answer wrong. Hungry people are not amenable to quibbling.
Arm those students who say they’re on socialism/the poor’s side with actual pitchforks, baseball bats, etc. Arm the self-professed capitalist students with guns but a limited number of bullets. Now let nature take its course.
Set it 100 years in the future if you prefer. or maybe 150, it could take that long to actually happen.
Or you could talk about the current recession and the boom/bust cycle of capitalism… maybe even dare I say it suggest that capitalism is not completely good nor socialism completely evil, and that a balance of the two is necessary for the long-term good of all?
References :