順天中学校・高等学校

11/29/2014

On November 29, the workshop was provided by the staff from DEAR (Development Education Association and Resource Center) and the students tried Trade Simulation.  This is the third workshop provided DEAR and will be the last one at Junten.

The students were divided into 7 groups.

The Blob Tree (Blob Tree: an illustration of a tree that has faces with different expressions on it) was used to express the students’ feelings they had at the starting of the DEAR workshop series.   Since the start, students have taken several workshops.  In today’s workshop, students had an opportunity to think back their experience in the past workshops and how they have changed.

After Blog Tree, students played “Trade Simulation.”  Each team functioned as a “country” and had the president, a foreign minister, a trade minister, an information minister and civilians.

Each President received the rules of the simulation game.  Each team received the list of resources.  They were tasked to produce 4 products and sell them on the market.  Each country was given different sets of resources.  Some countries had only scissors and papers, some countries had no resources even money, and some countries had abundant resources, more than necessary.  Students worked to come up with a way and a solution to produce the 4 products with the resources that are available for them.  Some countries without any resources would negotiate with a country that has necessary technologies or materials to make the products.

In doing the simulation, students learned the challenges and difficulties entailing with negotiations. Students were very competitive. As the game moves on, a huge gap between a country that produced more products and a country that produced much less products. Students experience “poverty”. During the simulation, the product standard was changed. Students had to quickly comply with the changes.

As a result, while two countries grew very rich, other countries remained poor without any sign of any improvements. The richest country made $94.540 and the poorest country made $180.

At the end of the workshop, DEAR facilitated a review session.  Students learned that the richest countries had much more wealth than other countries.  These two countries had been informed about the product standard changes in advance.  The market worked to sustain these two countries.  Through the simulation, it came to clear that there was a big gap between poor counties and rich countries and the students realized that the similar phenomena is happening in our real world.

Students were able to see the reality in which rich countries control Money Game in the world.  It was a simulation game, but some of them experienced a great loss, while some of them experienced a great victory. The workshop was very meaningful and was a kind of a wake-up call for the students who will go on to the real work with real competitions

【Comment from students】

Competition helps grow and cooperation helps to improve the quality of the competition.  Both competition and cooperation are necessary.   I understand how people in poor countries feel.   Even if you want to work, there are no opportunities in some countries.   Some people have to fight against prejudice and bias, which they can never win.   I feel sad to imagine that poor countries are treated in the way I experienced today. Think of the people and provide help and the support both side, helping and helped, can grow.  That is a good volunteering.