I have chosen to present three lessons to illustrate how a fusion curriculum works. Each lesson takes approximately three days. The first day students discuss traditional economic principles. The second day students discuss a reading related to these principles. The third day students perform an activity illustrating the related personal objective, which is affective in nature.
The economic theme for these lessons is, “What are the types of economic systems and how does each operate?” Each economic system—traditional, command, and market—leaves a certain amount of decision-making to the individual. Thus the related personal objective for the three lessons is, “What choices can I make?”
A separate lesson is devoted to each system. The lessons illustrate how each system answers the following basic questions:
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What is produced?
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2.
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How much is produced?
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3.
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For whom is it produced?
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4.
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Who needs it?
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Each system to be discussed is an ideal type. Economists use ideal types because they recognize the futility of studying each real economic system in detail. Thus ideal types are useful, even though no real economic system corresponds to an ideal type. This should be pointed out to the students in advance.
A. Lesson One—Traditional Economic Systems
Introduction
—This lesson shows the unique ways in which traditional economies limit the choices that are available to people. An analogy is then made to tradition in one’s family or society. Thus the affective focus of this lesson is on the way tradition can determine and even eliminate certain life choices. Students are asked to consider, “How does tradition limit my choices?”
Day One
—Students are introduced to the three types of economic systems—traditional, command, and market. These terms were developed by the economist Robert Heilbroner in his book
The Making of Economic Society
.
Students should understand the following principles after doing the reading:
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Tradition is by far the most widespread form of economic life.
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2.
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In a traditional economy, answers to the “for whom” and “how much” questions are fixed by custom, habit, religion, or law.
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3.
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Traditional economies change very slowly.
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Day Two
—Students will read a short selection from a book by Joe E. Pierce entitled
Life in a Turkish Village.
The selection describes work and marriage in a traditional economy. After doing the reading, students will discuss the following questions:
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How does tradition answer the basic economic questions in this society?
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2.
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What alternatives do Mahmud and his family not have because of their traditions?
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3.
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What traditions eliminate choices for you?
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The reading serves as a bridge between the cognitive and affective aspects of the lesson.
Day Three
—Like people living in a traditional economic system, Americans have accepted some family traditions without question. This role-play focuses on the origins of holiday traditions within the family and on the possibility of creating new traditions.
Students are given the following directions:
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Split into two groups. The first group meets briefly to devise a role-play about what a family would do at a gift-giving holiday. Be sure to include specific holiday traditions that have been observed by group members’ families.
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2.
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The second group observes the first group’s role play and analyzes it by answering the following questions:
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a.
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What traditions were observed? What was the purpose of each tradition?
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b.
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Where did the traditions come from?
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c.
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What was the purpose of each tradition?
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d.
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Could these same purposes be better fulfilled in other ways?
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e.
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How are people limited by these traditions?
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3.
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The second group meets briefly to devise a role-play about another family at a gift-giving holiday. The goal of this role-play situation is to think up different customs that would fulfill the same purposes behind the traditions in the first role-play.
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The first group watches this second role-play and analyzes it using the questions listed in point 2.
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5.
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Both groups share their observations and discuss the following questions:
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a.
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Which traditions would be easiest to accept?
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b.
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Which traditions permit the most freedom? Which the least?
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c.
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Which traditions strike you as having most meaning?
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d.
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What other purposes could different traditions fulfill?
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B. Lesson Two—
Command Systems
Introduction—This lesson explains how a command system answers basic economic questions. It looks at the pros and cons of the command system, noting that non-command economies rely on this system at certain times. The closely linked personal development questions is “When do I let others make decisions for me?”
Day One
—Students should understand the following principles after doing the reading:
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In command economies, the basic economic questions are answered by a group of planners. These planners answer the “what to produce” and “how to produce” questions.
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By setting wages, planners also answer the “for whom” questions. Wealth is usually, though not always, more evenly distributed in command than in non-command economies.
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Shortages and surpluses of goods are common in command economies.
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Command economies are able to act quickly.
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5.
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A command economy does not have to be a dictatorship.
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Make sure students are given an adequate opportunity to express their feelings about command economies.
Day Two
—Students will read a brief selection from
The Russians
by Hedrick Smith. The story is about queues, or lines. It shows how consumers shop in the Soviet Union, one country with a command economy. After reading the article, students should discuss the following questions:
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Why are consumer goods so scarce in the Soviet Union?
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Why are Russian consumers willing to wait in such long lines, with so little choice about what they buy?
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3.
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When do you let others make choices for you?
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Day Three
—This activity has been designed to recreate some of the experiences of working within a command economic system.
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Split the class into groups of five or six students each. Each group would look upon itself as a planning committee, with full planning responsibility for the class.
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Each group must select a goal for the class to reach. The goal can be in any of the following areas:
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a.
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class trips
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b.
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academic achievement
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c.
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ways in which students relate to each other
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d.
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raising money for class projects, or
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e.
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deciding what is most important for the class to do.
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After a goal has been chosen, the group must decide on the means for achieving that goal. These should be described as a series of steps toward the goal.
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Keep in mind that each group is a planning committee for the entire class. For the purposes of this activity, assume that the class is a command economic system. In other words, everyone must follow your plan. Each committee has a chance to share its plan with the rest of the class.
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After each plan is presented, answer the four basic economic questions:
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a.
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How did each of the plans answer the four basic economic questions?
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b.
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Which groups did each plan benefit?
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6.
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Discussion questions:
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a.
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How would these plans be carried out in a command system?
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b.
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How did you react to being planned for?
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c.
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What did you gain? What did you lose?
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d.
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How did you feel about planning for others?
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C. Lesson Three—
Market Systems
Introduction
—This lesson discusses the economic model of a market system. It presents an ideal model of the market system. It relies on Adam Smith’s classic explanation of the “invisible hand” to describe the interaction between producers and consumers as the free-choice system in operation. The personal development issue looks at the free qualities of choice making.
Day One
—After doing the reading, students should understand the following economic principles:
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In a market economy, the basic economic questions are answered by the interplay of buyers and sellers.
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2.
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The “what to produce” question is answered by producers competing for the business of consumers in order to earn profits.
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Prices in a market economy are set by supply and demand.
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In order to work, a market system requires the presence of private property, freedom of exchange, the profit motive, and competition.
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Day Two
—Students will read a brief selection called “The True Story of Horatio Hiss.” The story sketches the career of a man who came to the United States early in the twentieth century and became a success. After reading the story, students should discuss the following questions:
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What free choices did Horatio make in his career?
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What assumptions does the idea of a pure market economy make about people’s relations with one another?
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What economic choices do you make freely? Which choices will you make freely when you enter the labor market?
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Day Three
—This research activity is designed to test the hypothesis that there is a market economy in retail foods in the United States. Give students the following directions:
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Make a shopping list of six or seven of the food items your family uses most often. Enter them in the chart in the Workbook or copy the chart in the text onto a separate sheet of paper.
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Assume that there is a market economy in the United States. Imagine that you check the prices of these items at a number of different stores. How similar or different would you expect the prices of these items to be? Why? Keep your guesses in mind as you do your research.
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Test the hypothesis that there is a market economy in the United States. Visit two local supermarkets and two small neighborhood stores to compare the prices of the six or seven items. Fill in the chart with your findings.
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(figure available in print form)
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Share your findings with the class. Then discuss these questions:
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a.
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Do the data you gathered support the hypothesis that there is a market economy in the United States? Why or why not?
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b.
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What other hypotheses could your data be used to support?
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c.
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How do you explain the differences in price between national brands and house brands of the same item?
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d.
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How do you explain the differences in price between the stores?
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The second part of this activity will help students explore the economic choices open to them and to decide which ones they make freely. Give students the following directions:
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Each of the categories in the chart below describes a place where food can be bought. Within each category, you have a number of choices, in terms of price, brand, quality of product, and convenience of shopping.
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Begin with the supermarket and list the choices you have in terms of the four categories given. List also the advantages of shopping in a supermarket and the choices that are not available when you shop in only one supermarket. Use the chart in the Workbook or copy the chart in the text.
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When certain choices are not available to you in your usual supermarket, you might decide to shop in a competing supermarket. Fill in those choices, along with the advantages and choices not available.
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As you write the choices not available in a given situation, go on to the next category until you have filled in the entire chart.
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(figure available in print form)
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When you have finished, discuss as a class the following questions:
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a.
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What choices are realistically available to you and your family when you purchased food?
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b.
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What considerations are most important in shopping for food? How might you change your habits to better meet your needs?
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c.
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Are you free to choose the kind of food you buy? Are you free to choose how you obtain food?
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d.
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What other choices do you make freely?
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