Summarizing Week’s Lessons on Poverty and Wealth in the US

A couple of weeks back we played musical chairs in class. The chairs were suppose to represent the opportunities available to everyone in the United States. While a few of us had chairs with our names on them, others had to struggle to find a chair for themselves. I was one of the people who had a couple of chairs to myself so I had a chair available to me that no one else could sit in. I was one of the more privileged people who did not have to work hard to the main goal of getting a chair. This relates to how some Americans are born into wealth and therefore do not need to work hard to get what they want, those are the people with their own chairs. While these Americans are so fortunate to be able to survive on minimal work, others work hard and still struggle to survive.

In America people are constantly fighting and competing with each other to find a way to make money to support their families. Americans are fighting because there are on a certain amount of opportunities available to everyone. This would be an example of a more equal fight for opportunities. We played another version of musical chairs unlike the first version. This second version involved 21 people with 20 chairs and two people always had to fight for the last chair.

In the first example, it wasn’t the Americans’ fault that they are not able to get one of the limited opportunities because some had already taken them. But in the second example, it was the Americans’ fault if they were not able to get an opportunity because it shows that they did not work hard enough. It is always the person who works harder who will win in the end.