Last week, my students participated in a two-hour simulation I designed on resettlement in the United States. The goal was to give them an experience of what challenges, attitudes, and services they or their friends might face in America. The second-year students played the role of grocers, a clinic worker, bill collector, nursery school teacher, employment officers, factory bosses where participants built houses from legos, and a community college teacher. The results:
- Many students decided to have 2-3 children and live in a 3-bedroom apartment. I told them to imagine their infant children and represent each child through a 10-pound stone, but they choose small rocks instead, for ease over realism, but as with most teens inexperienced in parenting, the children (rocks) were left unattended at home or at the nursery school.
- The families immediately used their funds to pay for rent, but rarely paid their food bills. Perhaps as food in the camps is always provided, perhaps because they weren’t hungry enough to remember.
