I rounded the corner to enter Mr. Kapptie's classroom and was met with a group of my classmates standing around his door. They had their backpacks lined up against the wall and with every new person that joined the group, Mr. Kapptie instructed them to set their backpacks down and take off sweatshirts/jackets. He had a ruffled appearance: his hair in slight disarray, slightly sweaty, and an excited energy. He continued to repeat his instructions until the bell rang and then he gave us a new set. Basically, everything was fair game until you claimed a spot and then theft wasn't allowed. He made a comparison at some point to throwing us in a pool; we would either sink or swim and then told the group to split into two. One group would stay at that door and the other would move down to the other entrance to his classroom. We shifted into position and he told us not to enter until he had both doors open and said we could. On his command, my group jostled into the doorway and as I glanced down the hallway, I noticed the other group was doing the same.
We were met with darkness and constant noise. Various types of candy littered the floor and I heard several classmates voicing their confusion. We all only hesitated a few seconds before grabbing candy off the floor. Once my hands were full I asked Mr. Kapptie if we could claim spots yet and he either didn't hear me or ignored my question. I decided that I was going to and set my candy down on a desk and continued to grab candy. As I moved around on my hands and knees, I noticed my classmates doing the same. I glanced around the room and noticed projections and laptops set up with some sort of video playing that created loud, hectic noise. I had no idea what was happening on the other side of the room. All of the candy was gathered up within in a couple minutes and my classmates and I stood by our piles, waiting for the next instructions.
I brought my pile over to a table where Delaney and Megan had their stashes set up. My attention was pulled to the white boards on the far side of the room. Mr. Kapptie said there would be announcements every two minutes but that was all of the instruction given. On the whiteboards, he had listed each type of candy and numbers underneath. I realized that we were in the midst of a mock stock exchange and the videos that had been continuously playing were of stock exchanges. The numbers underneath the types of candy were their stock prices. I didn't see any trading for the first little bit. It seemed like we had all gathered around the white boards and were just watching Mr. Kapptie change the stock prices.
Throughout the entire class period, Mr. Kapptie made announcements concerning the candy companies. They included the tootsie pops coming out with a new product, two companies combining, and one companies stock splitting.
I didn't trade or buy much. My pile was relatively small, except for my tootsie pops. I had over thirty of those. Very few people were willing to sell when it was good to buy and buy when it was good to sell. For the most part, I went back and forth from the boards to the table with my stash and just observed the people and the stock prices. Mr. Kapptie came up and told me that two companies were going to merge. A couple people approached me and I sold a few pieces and rejected a couple others. I approached a couple people, made a few trades, and was also rejected.
At the end of the period, Mr. Kapptie "closed the market" and wrote the final prices for each stock. The company that had split was worth the most. We totaled up how much we had made; I had around $3300. We didn't have very much time to talk about the activity. Mr. Kapptie asked how many of us thought that the stock split was bad and one word to describe the activity. No one could have the same word. We out the candy in one bag and the money and hints in another. We were allowed a single piece of candy and then the bell rang.
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