Coping with a Long Class

["Steven S. Zahniser" <zahniser@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear PEN-Lers:

I would like to thank Maggie Coleman, Geoff Schneider, Larry Shute, and
Ellen Starbird for their thoughtful suggestions about how to cope with a
long class session.  Below is a distillation of their ideas, as well as a
summary of what I actually did.

Maggie suggested that I divide the students into groups of three to four
persons and give each group a question to answer.  After 10 to 15 minutes
of careful reflection, a democratically elected representative of the
group would present the answer to the class.

Larry had a similar suggestion and emphasized that the lecturing should be
done in the mornings and the alternative activities should be done in the
afternoons, presumably because it is easier to fall asleep right after
lunch!

Geoff advised combining a budget-balancing game with a "healthy"
discussion of public investment, inequality, and the wisdom of balancing
the budget.  The game that he suggested is "Budget Blaster" (US NEWS AND
WORLD REPORT, February 20, 1995, pp. 33 ff.).  For the healthy discussion,
he recommended the following readings:

	John Cassidy, "Who Killed the Middle Class?", THE NEW YORKER,
	10-16-1995;

	Robert Eisner, "Balancing Our Deficit Thinking," AMERICAN
	PROSPECT; and

	Robert Heilbroner, "Why Fear Debt?", NEW YORK TIMES, 2-28-1995.

Ellen and Geoff each recommended several videos:

	"Battle of the Titans," on globalization and workers throughout
	the world;

	"Controlling Interest," (circa early 1970s), about Pinochet's coup
	in Chile and the export of jobs to Chile;

	"Earth and the American Dream," on growth and sustainable
	development;

	"Who's Counting:  Sex, Lies, and Economics," about how women's
	work is omitted from national income accounting; and

	a three-part series on blue-collar workers in Milwaukee ("The
	Minimum Wage Economy," "Living on the Edge", and "Does American
	Still Work?").

In my class last Saturday, I lectured in the morning and played the budget
balancing game in the afternoon, followed by a little more lecture on the
national debt.  To add an additional twist to the budget game, I assigned
political "personalities" to several of the groups:

	(1) Deirdre "the Deficit Cutter" Dandridge -- a socially moderate
	yet fiscally conservative Republican House member from Ohio who
	wanted to generate a $50 billion surplus;

	(2) "Swingin'" Stewart Anderson -- a newly elected old-school
	Democrat from Minnesota who sought to bolster spending on job
	training programs and to defend vigorously any attacks on social
	spending; and

	(3) Colon Howell, III -- a Republicrat (or was it Democan?)
	representing Virginia in the U.S. Senate, a former military
	officer concerned about America's military preparedness.

Several groups were just voices from California ("Sal from Cal" and "Cal
from Sal").  These groups adopted their own personalities.

Students seemed to enjoy the game (one even remarked how quickly the class
time passed!) and had a lot of creative fiscal approaches.  Space
exploration often was one of the first discretionary spending items to go,
followed by defense spending, and the groups generally had no reluctance
about raising taxes.  One clever group raised additional revenues by
legalizing and then taxing drugs!

I allowed students to form their own groups.  This worked out for all but
one group which included two students (both foreigners) who had little
interest in U.S. budgetary politics.  If I do this activity again, I will
probably select the groups myself.

Thanks again to Maggie, Geoff, Larry, and Ellen!

Steven Zahniser
zahniser@xxxxxxxxx