Todd was an unmotivated and often times disruptive student in my first Mini-Society. Although Todd's abilities were not much below his classmates he had very little success in school. I used to think that Todd's main purpose in life was to drive me up the wall. It was with a fair amount of trepidation that I posted our Mini-Society flag signaling the first market day. I wasn't surprised to find Todd running around making a nuisance of himself and irritating most of the citizens of New Vensia. At the town council meeting the citizens discussed what they deemed to be appropriate behavior during market days. A few days later when it was again time to post our flag and have our second market day I was much less concerned about what Todd would do. Much to my surprise Todd simply remained in his seat. When I asked him what was wrong, he replied, "Nothing."

I remember putting my hand on his forehead. Since Todd almost never remained seated quietly at his desk, I was sure he must have been feeling ill. I again asked him what was wrong. I'll never forget his reply, "It's not fair. Mini-Society is not fair. There are games to play and stuff to buy but the only way you can get them is to have money and the only way to get money is to work for it!"

At that moment I realized that even if Todd learned nothing else all year, Mini-Society may have taught him the most important lesson of his life. Todd learned something in a couple of market days that none of his teachers had been able to teach him in six years of schooling.

At our third Mini-Society market day Todd was selling tracings of wild animals which he and a friend had made. Todd continued to actively buy, sell, and produce in Mini-Society. At the end of the year his mother told me that this was the first year since kindergarten that Todd had said he liked school.

D. M., Kansas City, MO

My fifth grade Mini-Society students were discussing a couple of hot topics in our town council meeting. One of our citizens had sold a toy airplane to someone other than the person to whom he had already agreed to sell it. Two other citizens complained that someone owed them money and had even signed a contract to pay them back, but repayment of the loan kept being postponed.

One of the citizens suggested that the types of problems we were having were because we weren't using contracts or we weren't using good contracts. Then Natalie asked me if I could give them a lesson on how to write business contracts. I responded by saying that we had already discussed contracts and that we really didn't have time to do another lesson on contracts because we had too many other things to cover during the remainder of the school year.

After the groans of disappointment and a lot of pleading from the students I reluctantly said, "Well, if you really want to learn about how to write a good business contract and if you're willing to give up your language arts class tomorrow then I suppose I could give you a lesson on contracts. I'll give the lesson only if you really, really want it. How many of you want a lesson on contracts?" Every child's hand waved enthusiastically in the air.

My students received the lesson they wanted on business contracts. I had what I wanted, a successful language arts lesson for a class of motivated students.

I wonder how many fifth grade teachers have had their students begging them for a lesson about almost anything, let alone a lesson on how to write a business contract.

L. N., Los Angeles, CA.

On our last market day in my fifth grade Mini-Society everyone was busy trying to sell their surplus products. At the same time most of the citizens were also attempting to use their disco dollars to make last minute purchases. Everyone was having a good time, but Michael (one of my students) seemed to be especially active and happy.

Michael was challenged in several ways. Academically he was my lowest performer. Outside of school Michael's family was on the lower rungs of the economic ladder. Even in Mini-Society, Michael was one of the students with the least amount of money.

In spite of the fact that Michael did not have a lot of disco dollar wealth, he was buying as much as he could with the money he had. What I found especially unusual was that as Michael purchased things he would turn around and give them away as gifts to his classmates.

He came over to my desk to give me something from his box of purchased stock. He told me to take two more of his purchases for my daughters. I had to ask; "Michael why are you giving away the things you worked so hard to earn?"

His reply still brings tears to my eyes: "Where I live there is always someone coming with boxes of food and stuff to give to us. I wanted to know what it is like to be on the giving side."

L. N., Los Angeles, CA.