Lesson Idea: Black Tuesday Game

On October 29th, 1929, the US' stock market crashed, and with it went the rest of the world's economies. Millions and millions of people lost their jobs, their homes, and in some cases, their lives. As the world struggled to come back from the brink, the US particularly had a hard time coming to terms that not everyone could be "self-made", and a deep-seeded distrust of banks and investments was begun that still prevails into 2016. Many historians also point to Black Tuesday as the beginning of Nazi popularity in Germany, due to Adolf Hitler's promises to restore Germany with his Third Reich throughout the early '30s. Once again, a great way to teach about this to your students is with a historical game (I'm obsessed, I know)!
The point of this game is to help students learn about the Roaring '20s and their subsequent fall from grace, which ended up causing much of the conflicts that occurred in the early 20th century. Banks invested without car, alcohol was illegal, and gangs ran wild; all of this was born and died within 10 years. I suggest that as the game progresses, you tell the students of events and central ideas they must connect with this era so they will have a better idea of what it actually was when they're tested over it.

The name of the game is this: you can NOT tell the students what this game entails. The investors on that October day didn't have the foresight to prepare for the crash, and neither can your students. In fact, I'd avoid mentioning the '20s unit at all if you can, just so they can be blindsided better. In place of Black Tuesday, you can call this game "The Investment Game". Here are the rules:

• Students each get $1,000 (preferably in Monopoly money) and are given two ultimatums: they can get an extra $1,000 dollars for not participating in the investments, or put the money into your own stocks to "earn twice as more". Really try to sell the idea of investing!
• Set up your own stocks for the students to invest in. The minimum they can invest is $1, but they can keep putting in as much as they want. You can call them names (like DOW or JFK), but in the end they function like actual stocks. The only difference is that you determine their value from day to day.
• As the students invest, try subliminally favoring those who end up with "smart" investments, so they'll end up investing more. The goal is to get all of their money invested over several stocks.
• Encourage the students to also have others invest for them based on what they consider "safe". These students will unwittingly play the role of the banks.
• After about a week, have your "Black Tuesday". Tank all of the stock values until any students who invested would only get a fraction of what they originally started with.
• As the panic ensues to get any amount of money that's left, offer to buy all of a student's stocks for a minimal fee-nowhere near the original amount-and watch as those who stayed out of the stock market gloat.

After the final rule, the game is over. The students will either be penniless or loathed, and then you can launch into your lesson about the Crash and the Depression. If you could fool them, it'll be a success: the students will now identify with those who also lost money, albeit in the real world. However, I don't take responsibility for making them hate banks.

-Pharaoh Noh-Tyep