stock market crash

Follow up to my own question:

how does one explain “economy” ?

JohnJohn wrote:
>
> Explain the term “stock market crash” to an LD kid, say a 16
> year old, who struggles with reading.
>
> Some of these kids have been out in the working world, if
> that helps.
>
> John

Well, first I’d cruise the textbooks available, the library books available, to see if somebody had already thought of a way of developing these concepts.

If that didn’t pan out… I’d…

Start out with a small-sized super-simple model of people having to do everything for themselves — raise the food, make the clothes, etc. Let it sink in for a day.

Then “evolve” it into people specializing… and inventing that money stuff to make keeping track of it “easier.” Keep it very simple, with just a handful of “specialties” providing food, clothing and maybe housing, or teaching if you want to be creative. Work with that idea for a day or two… toss out different ideas like “what would happen if a hailstorm hit some of the crops?” which would mean the “Farmer” group couldn’t do what they were doing, or the people hwo made the clothes found a much more efficient way to do it…

Then add a few more elements — like trading with other communities to get different things, in which case you have to have some way to get the stuff back an dforth, so you need somebody to make the boats or cars or whatever.

Then, when they could think about that stuff (and I might even have them act that stuff out, or find a simulation game in the commercial world), I’d introduce the idea of somebody investing in one of those groups — providing the money. And how if you

Or… as a shortcut… I’d start right at that point… with the idea — hey, you work at _____________ ? What if you wanted to *own* _______________? Or you had a better idea? (Like… a restaurant chain featuring Caribbean food… ) HOw would you do it?

You could even do a graphic thing with almost a “food chain” describing the buying and selling and the interdependence of the different specialties on each other — and how if one of the specialites was, say, decorations for your house, if people thought they were going to have tough times, suddenly nobody would be buying those decorations anymore… but the other people would still be buying and selling.

But… if people stopped buying stuff… then people would have to stop using that money to pay people… etc… the whole chain reaction thing.

Actually, before any of that schtick, I’d make sure they understood how banks worked & made money off of loans.