I don't know how to do it. I've always prided myself in my ability to explain complicated current events to my students. For the most part, the trick is to relate the news to things they can understand. One of my favorites was likening Osama Bin Laden a few days after 9/11 to my stunned third graders to a dude who hired a bunch of thugs to break into houses and then destroyed stuff. The story went on from there.But this one has me stumped. Maybe it is because I barely understand all the ins and outs myself. Usually, economic news leaves me kind of cold. But I really need to get a better understanding on this so I can explain it to a bunch of fourth graders.
I mean I could simply just teach them the meanings of the words arrogance, overconfidence, greediness, evilness, hypocrisy, and assholes, but I'm not sure if that's enough.
Any ideas on how to liken this whole situation to something they can understand? I'm stumped on this one.
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5 comments:
that's a tough one. i'm trying to come up with something along the lines of "sub-prime mortgages" as magic beans. but once you starting bringing in things credit markets and TED spreads it gets a little too complicated.
If you figure it out, let me know becasue I don't fully get it either. My company sent out a 401k update explaining how this mess affects our 401k junk and I understood about 2 words of the thing. It's kind of like Sarah Palin's recent interviews with Katie Couric - I know they're using English but to me it's some weird word salad where comprehension is out of my reach.
Maybe you should compare them to a craven, drunken, gambling uncle who doesn't care that your family won't be able to eat for a year because you loaned him the cash to pay off his loan shark so he wouldn't lose his testicles. Everybody has an uncle like that, right?
wow, "word salad" - that's awesome. i started to do a bullet point rundown of how all this happened, but then i found this piece in Kiplinger's that explains is pretty nicely, i think. still a little wonky, but more accessible than most things you might find.
I'm facing a similar dilemma in my classroom (although I suspect there may be a few more children in Park Slope suffering more immediate effects of events on Wall St), Cheers Jamie for the Kiplinger article, I'll check it out tonight)
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