Teachers set aside politics to help students tackle economic inequality

When Allegra Smisek’s 8th -graders in suburban Hopkins, Minn., play a simulation game, representing countries with more or less resources, “they quickly find out that the students that start with less need to form alliances … or work for the wealthy countries in order to survive,” she says.

Over the course of several class periods, the Global Studies students exchange work for fictitious currency, and help their teams adjust after natural disasters. Suddenly, they’ve got a better idea of some of the forces driving economic inequality.

It’s a topic that might be coming up more often now, as the United States Congress