Our group... COMMUNITY!!

I thought it was incredibly interesting the things that people had to say about their lives growing up. It was definitely a subject that almost everyone in the class had something to say about, especially about Western. In our plans, we never even thought to bring up Western, but wanted to more focus on Kalamazoo as a community (bringing up the different Harding’s, like Todd suggested, and the different side of the train tracks ideas). But really, Western was a great way to start a conversation about university towns, and better, our university compared to others. It brought up great questions about our community such as: why doesn’t Western try to involve students more in Kalamazoo life?? Students’ love staying in the summer just because of the great activities that Kalamazoo offers during the summers. I thought it was a great discussion that made us all think out loud about our own university and how it is and isn’t a community. Maybe to make our lesson go along with what we ended up discussing, we could have used pictures from Western comparing to Kalamazoo, again maybe focusing on the different side of the train tracks idea, almost like Western as the higher class compared to the city that it originated in... ironic.

I thought our game went sooo well. I felt like everyone had fun and really realized the pros and cons of the game, and how they could change it for almost any idea that they want to portray in their classrooms. While I understand that people were concerned about the stereotypes, I also thought the pro's weighed out the cons with dealing with the stereotypes... people realized why certain communities do end up the way they are, and even some of my group members were like "ohhhhhhh" in realization of each group. While we knew what it was like on paper, we didn't imagine, besides Brett who had already experienced in, that students would really identify with their character and really get into it.