"Two dollars! Do you know how much I paid for this?" "Can you hurry up; I have to get to work!" "Please, I have kids to feed!"
These phrases aren't typically uttered by Tufts students. But then, Saturday wasn't a typical day for students participating in the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service's poverty simulation. In the Carzo Cage of Cousens Gymnasium, 76 students attempted to simulate in one hour living for a whole month in poverty.
The program is part of a package of simulations run out of a community action agency in Missouri, and Tisch College has been working for nine months to bring it to Tufts.
Director and Associate Dean of Tisch College Nancy Wilson first heard about the program on National Public Radio as it was implemented in Savannah, Ga. "It just sounded really interesting to me, so I mentioned it to some of my colleagues," Wilson said.
One of those colleagues, Student Program Specialist Gary Van Deurse, helped to launch the program at Tufts. He and other Tisch College staff went to Missouri and took part in a simulation to learn about the program.
"Participation in the simulation for us was really affirming that this is a great learning opportunity," Van Deurse said. "We thought, 'Wow, this would be a great learning tool for Tufts students who are engaged in community-based work.'"
As part of the simulation, each student played a character, from children to senior citizens, and was placed in a family. Each family had four 15-minute "weeks" to accomplish various goals, from paying mortgages to getting their "children" to school on time. Many families had babies to take care of, portrayed by sacks of rice.
The goal of the event was "to give students a background in what it's like to be low-income," Van Deurse said.
Students interacted with tables representing different agencies whose booths lined the border of the simulation space. Besides just the very unfriendly "Friendly Utility Company" and the "Food-A-Rama" grocery store, students could sell their belongings at "Big Dave's Pawn Shop," get short-term, high-interest loans at "Quik Cash," and then pay their mortgages at "U-Trust-Us National Bank."
These tables were staffed by volunteers from the Community Action Agency of Somerville (CAAS), a non-profit group that co-sponsored the event and fights local poverty.
Somerville resident and community activist Bonny Carroll, who portrayed a caseworker at the event, explained that she was at the simulation in order to help increase poverty education.
"I lived in poverty as a child, and I lived in poverty for a lot of my adult life ... I have a lot of investment in this education being given to people who may not have any of those experiences," she said. Carroll explained that she wanted the simulation to have a "ripple effect" on poverty awareness and education at Tufts.
"I think we have to talk about class issues, and we usually don't," Carroll said. "It's a hidden subject [behind] almost every issue that we have."
Students at the simulation were recruited from various campus community outreach programs that service low-income families. Many were Tisch Scholars, and others worked with Jumpstart, the Leonard Carmichael Society, Tufts Literacy Corps, or Hillel.
For this reason, Van Deurse explained, it is important for the students to understand what it's like to live in poverty. "For anyone who wants to be an active citizen, they have to have an understanding of all of the diversity of people... Folks have different incomes, which impacts their ability to get things done in life," Van Deurse said.
Senior and Jumpstart member Tri Trinh attended the simulation for exactly that reason: to "get a feeling of what the families around here are all like... [and to] learn a little bit more about what's going on," he said. "We work around the Somerville area... Poverty's a big issue."
Before the simulation began, some students were skeptical of how effective an hour in a gymnasium could be in helping them understand poverty. "I don't know if poverty can be simulated, but I'm interested in seeing how it turns out in the end," Tisch scholar and junior Genevie Gold said.
After the simulation, some of Gold's doubts were assuaged. During a post-simulation debriefing, Gold and many other students shared their thoughts on the program's worth. Taking part in the simulation made her realize "how resourceful people are, how strong they are," Gold said. "People do this every day.... It may have saddened me, but it also gave me hope. There's a lot of potential."
Junior and Tisch scholar Steve McFarland also found the program valuable. When volunteering, McFarland explained, he only sees one corner of a low-income person's life, but the simulation "let me zoom out and see the broader picture, how [poverty] affects the people you're working with," McFarland said.
Sophomore Meredith Turits found the simulation worthwhile as well. "I'm not usually a fan of role-play, but I thought this was really, really well done," Turits said.
Turits explained that Tisch scholars are trained extensively in understanding poverty, but "there's only really so much you can do to put yourself in that position," she said. "I thought [the simulation] was a really fresh way to talk about the same kind of message." Turits believes the event "definitely" gave her a new perspective on poverty.
During the discussion following the simulation, many students mentioned that the event gave them a new appreciation for the reality of being low-income. Even though it was an hour in a gym with sacks of rice as babies and paper money, the simulation helped students understand how real poverty is.
Student responses during the debriefing emphasized the difficulties of living in poverty. Several were unable to pay their mortgages, many were not able to get all necessary food, and most students neglected their children at some point during the hour.
"I think it went well," Van Deurse said after the simulation and debriefing ended. "It only works if people get why it's happening and get the real meaning beyond the game, and I really felt like the students got the connections."
