Hello! Welcome back to my blog. This week in Humanities, we did something pretty neat: A simulation.
Our class was split into four groups. A large majority of the students were put into group A, which were the peasants. A smaller portion of people, (me included) were put into group B, which were the people who controlled the shop. Group C was meant to act as the law, and group D was the king and his subjects.
Getting Through The Day
The simulation did a great job of showing how unfair life was for lower classed people in 1700’s. Group A was given a VERY low salary, and basically couldn’t do anything. They didn’t even get CHAIRS! It legitimately felt unfair, as Group C and D were the only people able to afford items at the shop such as real life candy and pop. Each group also had daily tasks, which were all writing assignments. To make things even more unfair, each member of group A had the task of writing a 100 word paper on the activities they did that day during the simulation, while group B only had to write 50. All these things really brought the simulation to life, and made me think harder about how REAL PEOPLE were treated in the 1700’s. Life was heavily unbalanced back then. The upper classes were literally just living off the backs of the peasants, rolling in luxury, while the common citizen struggled to get through the day.
As a member of group B, I was still part of the lower class, but I got paid slightly more than group A. My tasks were smaller, and I was able to talk to more people. We even got chairs to sit on. We didn’t end up buy anything from the shop at all, as we used our money to bribe other groups, and make deals. Speaking of money…
The Shop
I was in group B, and we were in charge of the shop. We quickly realized that groups C and D would be able to buy literally everything at the shop, if we made it affordable for ourselves. We decided to help out Group A, by making it affordable for them, while charging like 50$ for a pack of smarties, if you were from group C or D. This was pretty fun, and helped group A out a lot. Groups C and D even ended up buying stuff for that price, and for some time, we were richer than the king himself. But we soon realized that life would become even more unfair, when the tax collector came along.
Taxes
We lost like 90% of the stores profits, just from taxes. What’s worse, is that it went directly into the pockets of group D. This did a great job of representing how badly the lower classes were taxed in the real world. Things got even worse for group A, when about halfway the simulation, group A and B had pay 1$ in taxes per person each day. The problem, is that group A’s daily salary is only 1$ as well. This was a huge deal, and got many of the groups pretty angry. Mixed in with other things, such as multiple desease epidemics, and the king keeping the only shop items for himself, this fed the fire and got people thinking about a revolution.
The Revolution
At the end of simulation, groups A, B, and C were all very angry. So, we signed a truce, and attacked the king. In order to do this, we had to first smuggle the weapons that the king had in his possession. After we attacked him, he ran away into hiding. He then joined a whole different nation entirely, and we all got slaughtered. Yeah, it wasn’t much of a success.
Absolute Chaos
The simulation cool, but I feel like it could have been a bit cooler if it wasn’t as chaotic. If I we were to do this again, I would try my best to stay calmer, and avoid all the running around that was happening constantly.
Real World Connections
In my eyes, the simulation taught me about the atrocity of a lifestyle that peasants lived in the 1700’s. They were taken advantage of in so many ways, and I understand why people would want to revolt. I feel lucky myself, as that could have been MY life, and that I could have been in there place. I’m lucky to live in the time period that I do.
The simulation was a lot of fun, and I hope you found it interesting reading this. It doesn’t end here though! You can check out my other posts at any time. Thanks for reading!
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