THE GAME OF LIFE GAME FULL

The noted that it would be odd to go through your entire life without ever needing to pay to go to the doctor or hospital.The original game of Life was depressing. Medical emergencies and health care are also very expensive in the United States. Everyone pays taxes in real life and most of the students felt that should be incorporated into the game. Adding spaces on the game's board for medical emergencies and taxes were two other popular changes that students wanted to make. There may be some opportunities for tax credits in real life, but generally speaking you will be spending thousands of dollars each year on children. The students noted that it really isn't like that in real life at all. The game actively encourages players to have children by rewarding them with $50K for each child. The most common aspect of the game that students wanted to change was the reward for having children in the game. What Spaces would you add, remove, or modify? What Career Cards would you add, remove, or modify? What Action Cards would you add, remove, or modify? What rules would you add, remove, or modify?

Most students still wanted to pursue the college education, but others were more hesitant because they did not want to have any student debt weighing them down. We had previously had many discussion about the cost of college and what it means to take on student debt. The students who pursed a career immediately received money more quickly in the beginning, but their salaries were lower. The students who wanted to attend college needed to pay $100K upfront and then proceed down the 'College Path.' Students who did not want to go to college did not need to pay anything and the begin on the 'Career Path.' Choosing to go to college does set those students back some money and it took them longer to begin earning money, but their jobs did have higher salaries. The first big decision the students needed to make was whether or not they were going to attend college.

Each board had between four to eight students total. This version of the game is technically only up to four players, so I had students work in pairs.

I broke my classes up into two or three groups. ( Note: I'm not going to share their essays here because we actually ended up doing a combined interdisciplinary project with their ELA class where they had to make connections between The Game of Life and The Necklace, the book they were reading in their ELA class at the time).

THE GAME OF LIFE GAME FULL

This ultimately lead to a full class conversation in a Socratic Seminar and an argumentative essay where they need to argue about whether or not the game is realistic. If something is misrepresented, or not even present, then they needed to offer a potential changes to the rules in order to make the game more realistic. and explain how they are represented, misused, or absent in the game. I wanted my students to take the knowledge of what they have learned about credit cards, medical care, budgeting, cost of children, savings, interest, retirement, debt, etc. How would you modify the game (rules, action cards, careers, etc) in order to make it a better representation of real life. In what ways are the financial consequences of someone’s actions & personal choices often in or out of their control?

The game of life game