Last year the kids were able to participate in a circus week at school. A real circus came, camped on the playground, taught the kids some acts, and then a circus was presented to the families at the end. It was really fun and really expensive for the school. So they had the kids do some fundraisers to help pay for it. They built a fence for a farmer, cleared trash out of part of the forest and along a road, and had lots of bake sales. They also did a sponsored run. You know, each kid gets some people to pay him so much per lap he runs. Just the sponsored run alone was so successful, that it raised all the money they needed for the circus. But since the other activities were already planned and would be good learning experiences for the kids, they went ahead and did them. Only now they had tons of leftover money. What to do? What to do? I love the solution they came up with.
They asked the children what should be done. After all, they were the ones who had earned it, they should decide how it should be spent. And since this is Switzerland and true democracy reigns supreme, it was all decided by vote. First, every single child was asked to submit up to three ideas of what they could do with the money. Then each classroom chose the top three of all the ideas submitted from the students in that classroom, by vote. Then the choice was narrowed down again according to age group; so the top ideas from the lower three grades, etc. Finally it was down to three choices, and again, all the children were able to vote for their favorite of those ideas. Some of the ideas bandied about were; donating all the money to the zoo for the new elephant enclosure, building some new playground equipment, having a giant pizza party, having a sleepover at the school complete with food and games, and buying books for the library. What ended up winning was “kleine Stadt” or “little city”. The kids would build a city in school and get to play in it for a few days.
Nick wasn’t completely sold on the idea at first. He thought it was going to be kind of dumb. I wasn’t sure what they meant, were they building miniature buildings in the school that the kids could play with? But as they time got nearer, and more voting took place to decide what services would be available in the little city, we got a clearer picture of what they meant. Again, democracy reigned supreme. Everything was voted on, from if there should be a library or a bakery, to what the town should be called, and what the money would be called as well.
All during the week of July 5th through July 9th was “kleine Stadt” week. They set it up for the first two days and played in it for the next two, then cleaned it up the last day. It was a ton of extra work for the teachers, but the kids had so much fun. I am so sad I only saw a bit of it on Thursday morning when I went up to bring Nick his “money” that he had forgotten at home. I got very sick Thursday afternoon, and was in bed wishing I was dead Thursday evening when the families were invited up to visit “New Aeugst”. Each child was given 40 Aeugster Taler to spend on anything they wanted in New Aeugst. The name of the money is quite clever, as Aeugstertal is part of our actual town, and Taler is an old German word for coin.
Several of the classrooms were set up as different shops or parts of New Aeugst. Sarah and Noah worked together in Tante Emma’s Laden, or the used toy store.
Sophie worked in the Badi and Kiosk, or swimming pool and snack bar.
Nick was a reporter for the New Aeugst newspaper. There was also a bakery,
a zoo,
an Italian restaurant, a flower shop, a hair salon, a disco, and a movie theater. To get all the supplies for the snack bar and food establishments, the kids and the teachers walked down the hill from the school to the little local grocery store in town. The owner was probably thrilled to have so much business in one day! They bought flour, butter, eggs, milk, candy, chocolate, bottled drinks, meat, pasta, napkins, etc. Everything you would need for a real bakery, a real restaurant, a real snack bar. They ordered flowers from one of the local farmers who runs a nursery and had kids bring pets and stuffed animals for the zoo. It was absolutely fantastic all the little details they had thought of to make it seem like a true functioning city. The newspaper even had a daily live news program that they put on, complete with slides and up to the minute news.
So, Thursday night the kids had to be at school at 4:30, after having had the afternoon off. Starting at 5, families and anyone else who wanted, could come visit the town. They gave each family 20 Aeugster Taler to spend, and then you could buy more at the very fair exchange rate of one Swiss Franc per Aeugster Taler. Any money they made would be given to the school/town library to buy books. The kids were so excited to show Chris everything, and I was so sad I couldn’t be there to enjoy it as well. But he did a good job of taking pictures, and I did read every issue of the New Aeugst News (there were 3) so I have a pretty good idea of what went down.
As soon as it was over at 8, Chris rounded up all the kids and drove home as fast as possible. Nicholas, along with several other students, had a piano recital that same night in the next town over. Their teacher had scheduled them all to play in the second half, so they wouldn’t have to leave New Aeugst early. Wasn’t that nice of her? But that is a post for itself.