I didn’t want to do this lesson plan for the Oral English class because it doesn’t strike me as a particularly useful one. But it is guaranteed to use up ninety minutes. And so when I really couldn’t come up with anything satisfactory, I reached for this standby in the Peace Corps lesson plan book. It goes like this: The scenario is that the earth has been devastated by some disaster, man made or natural, it doesn’t matter, and they are putting together some people to go on a space shuttle and settle Mars. You have a list of thirteen people with descriptions of their abilities and ages and nationalities. You give each student a profile of an individual (more than one student can have the same profile). And you tell them they must argue for why that person should be allowed on the space shuttle because only seven of the thirteen will be allowed on board. After everyone has made the argument for their particular profile, you break them up into groups and have them choose which seven they would take on the shuttle. The people are of diverse backgrounds and ages. Some men, some women; some old, some young; musicians, athletes, scholars, doctors, nurses, judges, models, etc. I am not sure what exactly the point of this exercise is. I guess it is supposed to have them weigh competing values and I think I could modify to make it more philosophically interesting. But yesterday it did the trick just as it was.

The culture class was much more interesting and part of the reason I did not come up with anything for the oral English class was I put a lot of work into the culture class. Essentially, I had them role play the U.S. Congress. Some of the class was Representatives, some Senators, and some of the Representatives were Republicans, some Democrats and the same with the Senate. I had them try to pass an Immigration bill. There were three provisions and the first time they did it they were held up by the fact that the minority party in the Senate can prevent things from coming to a vote. And so they had to compromise, and they realized you do not have to compromise with the minority party in the House of Representatives because bills can pass with a simple majority in the House but the Senate can filibuster. It was good because they were not just told this but had to act it out and actually try to pass a bill and find a compromise. I am not sure they got it all, but if they did they will know more than most Americans about how the political system works