Colin Higdon, 11/22/16

Today, in English class, the students took part in activity that not only tested their thinking skills, but their communication and negotiating skills as well. The class was divided up into groups. Each group was given a set of materials, for example, my group was given a ruler, various types of paper, paper clips and scissors. Each group had to build certain things with the materials that were given out to the class. Since no group was given all the right materials to build the things they were assigned, groups would be forced to trade materials in order to get the things they needed. The first group to build all of the things assigned won and they would be rewarded with bagels the next day.

My group somewhat achieved success today because although we didn't win, we were very close to it. We successfully built three of the four things we were assigned. We were in the middle of completing our last object when it was announced that another team had won. Based on what other groups had completed, I believe we were in "second place" because we had the second most things completed.

The tools we were provided with, such as, scissors, a ruler and some paper helped us get that extra step ahead in completing a few of the objects right away. I think what held us back was some lack of communication within the group, such as, when some materials were traded away with out consulting the rest of the group. Also there was some lack of order in the group for example people would just be spitting out random ideas on what to and nobody could actually decide on what we were doing.

This experiment shows that it is not necessarily about what you have, its about what you can do with what you have. For this particular experiment it was essential that you had "inherited" things so that way you could trade for other materials to help you be successful. This shows that in capitalism, the "rags to riches" American Dream idea is a very tough thing to accomplish and is often not very realistic. To start from absolutely nothing and make it to the top is extremely uncommon, and the majority of American Dream stories usually involve some sort of inherited "privilege" for lack of better term.