How did the lesson go?
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Did you complete the lesson about international aid at school with your teacher?
If so, we’d love to hear about any good discussions you had. You could tell us…
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… about any good debates between you and your classmates.
For example, about which expert perspective surprised you the most?
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…about how you feel about the experts, who shared their views.
How did hearing from them help you to learn about this topic?
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Comments (21)
This lesson showed me that rulers must struggle to make decision for there country.It also showed me that if a ruler makes a wrong decision there can be an argument between the rulers and the citizens.
This lesson taught me that it can be really hard to keep as many credits as possible because my team started with 50 and ended at 30. I enjoyed the lesson because I got to find out everyone’s opinion on what they would prefer.
Did you enjoy the lesson and found it very easy or did you find it stressful to make your own decision?😜👍🏼👎🏼
This lesson taught me how national decisions can vary depending on its economy.
During the board game where each player started with a different capital, I was assigned to the wealthiest country. It allowed me to choose preferred options giving me more freedom than other countries to such options as to pursue more humanitarian options like aid. Conversely, teams assigned to poor countries unlike me wanted to participate in aid, but their limited financial resources prevented them from doing so. And ultimately, the board game ended with the victory of the wealthy countries which started with more capital.
Although we used imaginary countries in this board game, it also reflected in the real choices made by real-world countries. In real life, when war or any conflict occurs, governments must consider their own financial situation no matter how much people want to help. Even if they want to help, they may find themselves in a situation where they have to prioritize self-preservation and face criticism for their decisions.
This has been shown during the Russia and Ukraine war as well. A lot of wealthy countries provided help or seek for opportunity for their economy like USA, which provided and sold their countries' products. However, small nations were not able to help Ukraine nor sell their products because they needed to maintain the stability of its own first before helping Ukraine.
Overall, this lesson allowed me to have time to think about factors that create decisions of nations and their governments. I really enjoyed this lesson and learned a lot!
So we voted on what we would chose A B or C , most of the time my group chose A but we learnt that if we keep giving other countrys money people can lose reputation.
Hi! In today's class we played a game where almost everyone (because we are a small class) got their own country and decided what they would do. I started the game really badly and ended up one step behind the board.After we finished, the teacher encouraged us to think about our decisions and where we might have gone wrong. I realized that I had not paid any attention to the game at all. I focused on making as much money as possible, but not being bad at the board, which I didn't succeed in. After an hour, I realized that the point isn't to make as much money as possible or to be the best at the board, but to understand that it is not always possible to make the right decision, but it is important to always try. I would like to hear what others think.
From my perspective, the lesson went well, and the outcome was great. I say this because the beginning of the lesson gave me some background information just to give a warm-up. We also talked about the standards and what was expected. Among my classmates, we split up into groups of two. One person described the words we were given that were on the board, and the other person turned the opposite direction. We tried to be on the outer line of saying the words that were in either yellow or red. Then, we got into the next activity. It included reading the description of the country given. We used critical thinking and problem-solving mainly to discuss the choices that were given and debate them. We really got into the income and the outcome of the problems and solutions that were given. For example, one of the choices for war was, “Help, but only if your own companies supply all the equipment.” We thought about bringing supplies and equipment back. After all of the slides, we still had specifically 25 global credits left, and we were farthest on the game board. We were poor in global credit, but we were generous!
In conclusion, this is why I feel the lesson went good. We were using skills, specifically problem-solving step 6, “I identify advantages and disadvantages of potential solutions.” I enjoyed thinking out-of-the-box and thinking about the outcomes of the situations.
This lesson taught me a lot today.
me and my team started with 90 global credits and ended up with 75.this lesson taught that sometimes giving aid can change the country , by giving another country to trust ... or you could end up endangering your country .Sometimes its better to give less than give more as then your country will be in danger , or other countries can be in serious danger like a natural dissaster.
Thank you the Economist Educational foundation for these AMAZING experience!!!! :P
This lesson taught me how much people really are in danger.
The lesson went really well and I learnt a lot of new things and won 3 debates on this topic
On todays lesson I learned that a country‘s decicisons often depend on how strong its encomomy is. Rich countries have more money, so they have also more choices and can help other countries more easily with their money and ressources. The poorer countries might want to give support, but they don‘t have enough money or maybe they want keep their ressources and money for themselves, because they need them for their own people. This made me understand that not every decision is about beeing selfish, but often about their stability and resbonsibility.
In this lesson, we were assigned countries, and told to make the best decisions we believed we could for our country.
I began the lesson with a mindset to prioritize my citizens help, and with my partner to aid crises, and help peace. As we moved throughout the lesson, I watched my classmates make vastly different decisions based on their perspectives. I thought this was extremely odd at first, because it seemed like a one track answer to me on how you support your country. Pretty soon we began to struggle economically, as all our focus on our citizens took away from any trade deals, or production we could’ve tried to form. This is where I began to realize that world leaders have to make meticulous balanced decisions about each and every conflict and issue within the country.
My partner and I faced the revelation and began trying to quickly expand our economy, while facing crises. It backfired completely because we hadn’t considered our people this time, and only considered our economy. This was the exact opposite outcome of our original issue.
Once we saw the result of our not so simple solutions, we began to make more careful decisions, which minimized damage while supporting our country. It showed both of us how weighing decisions and perspectives matter, and practically why it’s important to stay informed, and listen to others while making large decisions as their opinion can warn you from negative outcomes. It also showed me one of the main objectives of this festival, which I now believe is to stay informed about global issues, and force you to consider outcomes.
How did the lesson go? Today, when we were playing the board game. My classmate and I were together during the lesson. Once we got our fictional countries with their global credits, we started with 50 credits. Our country was a mid-sized country, but also still very strong. We got our board games, and we got to choose our decisions between 3 choices.
Even though each time it was time to discuss, it was pretty hard to choose between A and B. It showed my group of two that it was hard to pick because of the consequences that would happen. In my opinion, the game was fun to learn during the lesson. We got 25 global credits by the end, and at the end of the day, this lesson taught me a lot.
For me, the lesson went great. Most of the things were very interesting. Just like the activities. We had to get in groups and be the “leaders” of a country. We used our GC (global credits) to help or not, and there would be an outcome from that choice. After the activity, most of the groups were at the start or 1. The highest a group got was 4.
In conclusion, the lesson went great.
What did you learn in the lesson?
Personally, I think that the lesson went fairly well. For starters, we all cooperated with our teammates/classmates very well and we gave our reasoning and opinions as to why we chose our answers. As for the actual questions in my opinion it was very hard to choose which choice was the best option for our team, but overall it was a very fun lesson. The lesson was about International aid:What’s the best way forward? My teammate and I’s country was Avalonia and we had 75 Global credits. In the end we had 55 global points.For some of our questions we had to give reasoning and think about what could be our outcome such as “Is this the answer we should choose or should we choose a different answer?” We also had to come to an agreement for our answers.
In conclusion, I feel like the lesson went very well I had a lot fun thinking about "what would happen next or what could the outcome be" I also had fun thinking about advantages and the disadvantages.So overall I had a lot of fun having to think ,compare and contrast and having a fun and informational lesson.
This lesson taught me that you need to give aid at the right time. One of the questions was to do with education shortage. We had to choose A, B or C. Some of my classmates chose C, which was to stop giving aid completely and make a speech about the shortage. My team chose A, which was to stop giving aid temporarily because of the war in that scenario. In conclusion, the lesson taught me that you need to give aid at the right time and not all the time :)
This lesson taught me, what international aid is, the people that can give international aid, how to give it, why it is given, and the positive effects that it has on the people that were affected by a bad situation.
This lesson taught me that if someone makes the wrong decision for their country it will affect their financial ability to help their own people and will affect their relationships with other countries .
Written by the one and only ✨💕sensible_globe💕✨.
See y'all later 😉
The lesson gone so good and me and my friends made up teams and worked on for a solution with teamwork and the improved our knowledge and teamwork skills and also the listening skill which was the major skill mentioned and one thing which I thought a bit more interesting was the tactical situation of helping countries and thinking of the consequences where other countries might attack due to our aid to an another country so my skills are getting better and better everyday heartfull thanks to “The economist".
Yes, we completed the lesson about international aid with our teacher, and it created many meaningful and thoughtful discussions in our classroom. One of the most interesting debates between my classmates was about whether international aid truly helps countries develop in a strong and independent
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Yes, we completed the lesson about international aid with our teacher, and it led to some very thoughtful and engaging discussions in our classroom. One of the most interesting debates was about whether international aid truly helps countries become independent or whether it can sometimes create long-term dependence. Some of my classmates argued that aid is essential because it saves lives during emergencies, supports healthcare and education, and helps countries recover after natural disasters or conflicts. They believed that without international support, many vulnerable communities would struggle even more.
On the other hand, some students shared the perspective that too much aid can reduce motivation for governments to improve their own systems. They discussed how aid might sometimes be mismanaged or not reach the people who need it most. This viewpoint surprised me because I had mostly thought about the positive side of aid. It made me realize that the effectiveness of aid depends on how it is planned, delivered, and monitored.
Hearing from different experts’ perspectives helped me understand that international aid is a complex issue. It is not simply “good” or “bad,” but something that requires responsibility, transparency, and cooperation between countries. Overall, the lesson encouraged us to think critically, respect different opinions, and understand that global challenges often require balanced and carefully considered solutions.
This lesson taught me that big news topics like AI aren’t just about facts they really make you think about how the world works and how our choices matter. In class we talked about how AI can help people learn, solve problems, and even support doctors and scientists, but I also learned how AI uses a lot of energy and resources, and that can harm the environment. Some classmates were surprised to find out how much energy AI actually uses, and that made us all look at the topic from different sides.
I also learnt that hearing other people’s opinions can totally change how you see something. During our discussion, some students said AI is useful when used responsibly, while others warned that relying on it too much can make us lazy or dependent. Listening to these different views helped me understand that issues like this aren’t simple — and that understanding both the good and the bad is really important.
Overall, this lesson taught me that talking about real issues with others makes learning stronger and more meaningful. Instead of just reading about AI, we got to share ideas, debate different points of view, and connect the topic to our own lives. That made me feel more confident in explaining what I think and listening to others too.