Although I wasn’t able to attend the meeting that my social justice group had with Mary McKay from the McSilver Institute, I was present when Ammu Kowolik, the assistant director, and Gary Parker came to talk to our class. Instead of potentially boring our class with a constant stream of statistics, Ammu and Gary put together a gameshow, complete with contestants and prizes. Gary would choose a member of the audience to answer a multiple choice question that had been projected on the board. If the contestant. Answered correctly, he or she would win a prize of a purple, McSilver institute shirt. The questions were based off of surprising examples or facts. Interspersed between the rounds of the gameshow, were videos or images conveying graphs of information that had to do with national poverty. Everyone was engaged.

The presentation method used by Ammu and Gary was so effective, that our group will probably do something similar as part of our teach-in. We have given some thought to engaging questions and ideas such as how many hours a week does a minimum wage worker have to work in order to be able to afford a two-bedroom-apartment? (The answer being 136 for New York, and as a bonus answer, the highest is Hawaii’s necessary 175, being more than 24/7.) One aspect of this that we have struggled with is what prizes to give out. We want to make sure that it is valued enough so that our activity is attractive to the other middle schoolers, but also related to poverty, and not an extremely unnecessary luxury. Any ideas?