Introduction and Lesson Theme
Thinking about and discussing world problems in the classroom is made productive by adopting procedures and methodologies that lead to increased understanding of the complexities inherent in controversial issues. A foundation for the open discourse that produces informed opinions lies in setting the parameters for discussion. Impatience may tempt us to bypass the seemingly mundane exercise of defining terms, but time spent in clarification is rewarded – although those rewards, in miscommunications eliminated and sidetracks avoided, may be apparent only in hindsight. The exercise of building an agreed-upon working vocabulary is particularly important when the terms of discourse are loaded with nuance and tossed around in every-day conversation in countless ways to serve countless purposes.
The goal of lesson 1 is to propose a working vocabulary. The two-part background outline defines "poverty" and "capitalism" in economic terms. In the accompanying three classroom activities, students first confront the slippery nature of their own use of the terms and then proceed to construct a tacit agreement about what the words will mean as they embark on their classroom investigation of whether capitalism is good for the poor.
The exercise will also help students to focus on world poverty, rather than on the American from about which they have greater knowledge. Learning to distinguish between relative and absolute poverty will give them labels for something they know but may not have found easy to express – that poverty in the United States may look like vast wealth from the perspective of sub-Saharan Africa. Is Capitalism Good for the Poor? is a unit about world poverty, absolute poverty, and lesson 1 is designed to help teachers and students sharpen their focus and zero-in on what they are studying and what they are not. Lesson 1, then, is not intended to address the question of whether capitalism is good for the poor. It is intended to provide the groundwork, so that the investigation intended to answer that question can begin in earnest in Lesson 2.