SETTING THE PROBLEM

With this posting, the developer of a unit of study (aka, the writer of this blog) will go about trimming the amount of content he has identified in previous postings.  To this point, this development has designated eighteen insights concerning the topic of foreign trade and how that trade has affected the availability of jobs in the US.  In the last posting, he listed those insights in a possible order of presentation – the order, over time, in a two-week unit. 

The reader is invited to visit that posting, if he/she is new to this blog; that posting will further direct his/her attention to earlier postings.  This development is in real time and each posting is a bit of an adventure since the writer does not know how exactly the posting will turn out when he begins the process of writing it.

Here is how the developer envisions the presentation of the unit.  To begin, the student needs to become aware of the overall problem.  In a nutshell, the availability of jobs in the US has declined drastically in various industries.  In general, the types of jobs most affected have been manufacturing jobs.  Many see this situation as being the result of manufacturing plants in the US moving to other countries or firms outsourcing their manufacturing needs to firms in other countries. 

The purpose of the unit is to prepare students to be able to debate a related issue.  In addition, the unit will employ an instructional approach that counts primarily on a historical perspective.  Students are to formulate a narrative based on historical accounts of what has happened in the years leading to the current conditions. 

That story begins, in the opinion of the developer, with the punitive policies of the victorious countries of World War I.  To punish Germany and Austria-Hungary, the Allies imposed heavy war reparation charges that hampered the economies of those countries and caused deep seated resentments.  There are analysts that see this earlier policy as being a cause of World War II.  The lesson learned was not to be so punitive after World War II.

Also, there was the passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff in 1930.  The tariff acted to restrict foreign trade in the hopes of keeping jobs in the US especially at a time when many were losing their employment due to the ensuing depression.  Instead, it hastened the depression’s disastrous effects.  By cutting foreign trade, markets for American products were cut off as the countries countered with their own higher tariffs.  This hampered overall demand for goods and services and, in turn, caused many to further lose their jobs.

These two sets of events set the context for what happened in the ensuing years since the end of World War II.  Beginning with the Marshall Plan and the thinking supporting that program, certain dispositions were instilled among American policy makers.  And that is where the story of this unit really begins in earnest.

The first insight was initially numbered nine, and reads, in shortened form, as follows:  After the initial period following World War II, low tariffs, less regulations, floating currency valuations was the stated goals of the US.  An example was the Trade Expansion Act (1962) pushed by the Kennedy Administration.  This served the interests of certain economic entities such as import/export service industry, large corporate entities, technology industries, and retail industries, but hurt workers.[1]

If this first insight is used, the following is offered as a lesson plan based on its content (the lesson assumes students have access to internet service):

LESSON ON INSIGHT I

Objective:  Given current information concerning income maldistribution in the US, the student will be able to utilize that information in the formulation of an argument for the implementation or the rejection of a policy suggestion that is aimed logically to address the detrimental effects of that distribution caused by foreign trade.

Lesson steps:

Pre-lesson.  Teacher identifies a group of students to be the news-people for the unit.  On a per unit basis, the teacher will handout a list of factoids related to the unit’s topic – foreign trade/job availability.  The students are taking their turn at this assignment; that is, in previous units, other students filled this role.  At appropriate times during the unit, the teacher handouts to these students a set of factoids and they are to prepare a newsletter that contains a short article describing each factoid by answering the WHO-WHAT-WHERE-HOW-WHEN-WHY questions for that factoid.  In this first lesson the following factoids are distributed:

--  In 2013, the gap between America’s upper-income and middle-income families has reached its highest level on record.  The median wealth of the nation’s upper-income families ($639,400) was nearly seven times the median wealth of middle-income families ($96,500), the widest wealth gap seen in 30 years when the Federal Reserve began collecting data.[2]

·      - -  The median income – median meaning half of those measured fall above and half below – for the middle fifth of income earning households rose a mere 13% between 1970 and 2014 – an average rise per year of just under 0.3% – and a lot of that increase was due to the influx of women workers into the workforce during those years.[3] 

·      - -  Overall median income rose 0.3% between 2000 and 2004, while those of Canada and Great Britain rose circa 20% during those same years.[4]

·        - -  Since the mid-1980s, inequality of income in the US has grown faster than any other advanced economy; its higher than any other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries except for Chile, Mexico, and Turkey.[5]

·       - -   In the years since the mid-1980s, the US has had the fastest rate of growth of people living in poverty than any other OECD country except for Israel and near last in economic mobility and the percentage of working aged individuals without a job.[6]

·       - -   In 1977, 22% of US jobs was in manufacturing; in 2012 it was 9%.[7]

Same day lesson steps:

1.     Teacher hands out the newsletter for the day.  Students are given time to read the newsletter while attendance is taken and other administrative items are handled. (seven minutes)

2.     Teacher leads a discussion to answer the following questions:  what is the problem the newsletter addresses?  What might be the cause or causes for such problems?  Since some say that these numbers on income show many more people are not doing as well as people did in the past due to the loss of well-paying jobs, what do you know about what has happened in the last twenty years to explain this?  (If the school’s community is one in which a local manufacturing plant has been closed, chances are students might be somewhat knowledgeable of the effects those plant closing have had on job availability.  Teacher can utilize that knowledge and sensitivity to point out the relevancy of the information contained in the newsletter.)[8] (twenty minutes)

3.     Teacher finalizes the discussion by informing students that the unit they are beginning on this first day will look at foreign trade and review how that trade has affected the availability of jobs. (one minute)

4.     Teacher informs students that he/she wants the students to investigate the passage of a law.  They are to not only look at what the law aimed to do, but the reasons it was first suggested and then passed.  The teacher reminds students that laws are passed by Congress and that the members of Congress are elected by citizens who either live in a Congressional district or in a state of the United States.  These members, if they want to get re-elected, should keep a good number of their constituents, at least, not angry at them.  That means, Congress people generally try to avoid voting for bills that are unpopular.  Their assignment is to find out why the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 passed by Congress and what was its major provisions.  Teacher singles out two or three students to report to the class how workers and/or unions viewed this law. (fifteen minutes)

5.     Mid way during students’ research time, the teacher projects a list of comments (see assignment below) about the Trade Expansion Act that the students determine, for each comment, whether it is true or false and why.  (seven minutes)

Assignment:  If there is not enough time during the class period to complete the “True/False” exercise, students are to do so at home.  Following is the list:

·        The Trade Expansion Act (TEA) passed after a great deal of debate.  (Correct answer is false.)

·        Generally, the people of the country were aware of this pending law and many citizens involved themselves in expressing their opinions.  (False)

·        The bill that led to TEA was an extension of policy that promoted the ideas of Brent Woods accords that were arrived at during the final phases of World War II.  (True)

·        Leading the support for the TEA was the labor unions.  (False)

·        Because of the TEA, large corporations benefitted immensely.  (True)

·        The TEA merely extended the ideas and provisions of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930 (a tariff is a tax on imported goods making those goods more expensive).  (False)

·        The TEA was an effort to apply the lessons of World War I and how the victorious nations punished the defeated nations, leading to great resentment.  (True)

This first lesson will be included in the final unit and will probably be the first lesson presented to students.  This blog will probably present one or two lessons per postings in the upcoming weeks.  As for this first lesson, hopefully, the reader can detect the concern for the federalist value of equality in its choice of factual content and in its choice of questions.

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[1] See “Excessive Marshall Plan Thinking?”

[2] Richard Fry and Rakesh Kochhar, “America’s Wealth Gap between Middle-Income and Upper-Income Is Widest on Record,” Fact Tank, December 17, 2014, accessed on August 31, 2017, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/17/wealth-gap-upper-middle-income/ .

[3] Edward Alden, Failure to Adjust:  How Americans Got Left Behind in the Global Economy (Lanham, MD:  Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2016).

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] “Chart of the Day:  U. S. Manufacturing Employment, 1960-2012,” Global Macro Monitor, accessed October 15, 2017, see https://www.creditwritedowns.com/2012/05/chart-of-the-day-us-manufacturing-unemployment-1960-2012.html .

[8] For example, Muncie, IN has had plants close and the effects to the local economy has been quite significant.  Muncie is but one example of this trend.