Life and Debt in Haiti Curriculum1
“We live with life and debt, freedom not yet” –Jamaican reggae song
Grade level(s): 9, 10, 11, 12
Subject(s): World History, International Relations, Human Geography, Economics
Description:
Too often discussions about less wealthy nations (also called “Third World,” “developing”
or “poor”) focus on conflict and poverty without analyzing the root causes of those things.
This curriculum will focus on a key aspect of conflict and poverty in poor countries—the
diminishing domestic agriculture sector—and examine some of the international actors in
its decline.
This curriculum is divided into two units. The first is focused on the film Life and Debt,
which chronicles the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s exploitation of Jamaica’s debt
crisis. The second connects lessons from the film to a more recent conflict in Haiti. The
lessons from this curriculum can be applied to many countries in which international
financial institutions (IFIs) have attempted to intervene to “promote development,”
including Mexico, the Philippines, Senegal, and many others.
Part I: By watching the film Life and Debt and further analyzing IFIs through discussion,
students will achieve a better understanding of IFIs and the United States’ role in
“development” in certain parts of the world.
Part II: This curriculum applies lessons learned from Life and Debt to Haiti, the poorest
country in the Western Hemisphere. Recent food riots put Haiti in the international
spotlight, but little effort was made to discover why the Haitian people were rioting and
which external parties shared responsibility for their struggles. Through interactive
activities such as a role-play debt conference, this unit challenges students to dig deeper
to discover the root causes of hunger and the ensuing food riots.
Time Required:
This curriculum is recommended for a 1-2 week unit.
Goals:
Students will gain knowledge of how wealthy and less wealthy nations interact across
borders and what the long-term effects of those interactions are. Students will learn to
approach the public and media discourse about such interactions from new angles.
Objectives:
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Students will be able to analyze IFIs (specifically the IMF)—their mission, why
they give loans, and how those loans affect countries that receive them.
Some ideas taken from The Line Between Us by Bill Bigelow, Rethinking Schools
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Students will be able to identify major stakeholders in IFIs and in the
development of less wealthy nations.
Students will be able to make connections between the IMF’s conditionality loans
and agricultural decline in Jamaica and Haiti, linking this decline to recent hunger
riots and other forms of conflict.
Students will be able to predict long-term effects of IFI loans on countries’
economy, culture, and identity.
By examining news articles, students will also be able to identify what
mainstream media sources often omit when talking about these issues.
Background Information:
This curriculum is designed for high school students of any subject relating to history,
development, international relations, economics, Caribbean studies, and human
geography. Background knowledge in globalization is beneficial. While some
background in economics or trade might be helpful, economic terms will be fully
explained so that no background knowledge is required.
Part I: Life and Debt (2-3 days)
Materials
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Copies for the class of economic terms hand-out (can be found in curriculum
materials)
Life and Debt—80 min. film (available from CLACS Lending Library)
Copies for the class of guided questions (for during film) and discussion
questions (for after film) (suggested questions can be found in curriculum
materials)
Preparation
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On the board or overhead, write the IMF’s mission statement (from website):
“The IMF works to foster global growth and economic stability. It provides policy
advice and financing to members in economic difficulties and also works with
developing nations to help them achieve macroeconomic stability and reduce
poverty.”
Set up film Life and Debt to play in classroom.
Procedures
1. Distribute sheet with economic terms and definitions. Go over these terms as a
class, giving examples along the way and allowing them time to jot down notes.
Have students generate their own examples of some of the terms and how they
play out in their own lives. Keep in mind that students may not have heard many
of these terms before, and they can be confusing, so leave time for questions.
2. Pre-film activity
o Depending on nature of class and likelihood of discussion participation,
brainstorm or free write about the following topics (KWL may also be
useful):
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Jamaica, the Caribbean
Poverty, rural & urban
Agriculture
Free trade
International financial institutions? (IMF & World Bank)
International development
What questions do you hope to have answered by this unit?
3. Provide students with guided questions to answer and take notes on as they
watch the film. Read through the questions as a class beforehand. (Some
suggested guided questions and discussion questions can be found in curriculum
materials.)
4. Watch the film Life and Debt (approx. 80 minutes).
5. Review answers from guided questions as a class to check for understanding.
Make sure to ask students what parts of the movie were confusing and which
questions were difficult to answer. Focus on reviewing and explaining these
questions.
6. Call students’ attention to the IMF mission written on the board/overhead. Explain
what a mission statement is/does, and ask a student to read it out loud.
Clarify any unknown terms (such as “macroeconomic”) and answer any
questions students have about the mission statement.
7. Continue film discussion by asking students to discuss the following questions
with a partner:
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How does the IMF mission relate to what you saw in the film?
What is the purpose of IMF loans to developing nations?
Why would IMF impose free trade conditions with their loans? What might
be the positive and negative consequences of those conditions? For
whom?
 Hint: Who are the major stakeholders in the IMF? (show IMF
voting power image, can be found in curriculum materials)
How might conditions benefit them (US)?
In the film, who was affected most by the IMF’s loans to Jamaica? How
were they affected?
Why would Jamaica accept IMF loans? (Hint: What were Jamaica’s
needs and options at the time?)
After watching the film, what do you think are some benefits and
drawbacks of globalization?
8. Come back together as a class to discuss these questions, and list responses on
the board or overhead.
Part II: Life and Debt in Haiti (3-4 days)
Materials
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Copies for the class of Debt Conference handout (can be found in curriculum
materials)
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Copies for the class of IMF Executive Director’s opening remarks (can be found
in curriculum materials)
Haiti Debt Conference role descriptions (can be found in curriculum materials)
Name placards for debt conference participants (listed under “Preparation”)
Copies for the class of TIME magazine article “Food Crisis Renews Haiti’s
Agony” by Kathie Klarreich; April 9, 2008. (can be found in curriculum materials)
Computer and internet connection to play Associated Press youtube video:
“Haiti’s Poor Forced to Eat Dirt As Food.”
Link: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wHiYkcm-Ro&feature=related>
Images of US rice in Haiti (can be found in curriculum materials)
Preparation
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On the board or overhead, write: IMF Conference on Haiti Debt, Fall 1984
Also write the names of the eight groups in the role play, and IMF Exec. Director,
(all conference attendees) on the board.
o U.S. government official
o Haiti government official
o Rice farmer in Stuttgart, Arkansas
o Rice farmer in the Artibonite Valley, Haiti
o Teacher in Port-au-Prince slum, Haiti
o Haiti Environmental Justice Coalition
o Corporate farmer in US
o Student in Cité Soleil, Port-au-Prince slum, Haiti
Create name placards for each group
Procedures (ideas from The Line Between Us by Bill Bigelow (Rethinking Schools))
 Preparations for conference:
1. Explain to the class that they will be doing a role-play about a 1984 decision that
affected millions of people in the Western hemisphere. Explain that each student
will receive a role and will be grouped with others who received the same role.
You will play the role of IMF Executive Director.
Distribute copies of the Debt Conference handout. Read aloud and discuss with
students the issues that they’ll be dealing with in the role play.
2. After students seem to understand the issues they’ll be discussing in the roleplay, count the class off into eight groups and distribute roles to each group.
Ask students to read their roles carefully and to highlight parts that they think are
important and give clues to how they might feel about the various issues in the
Debt Conference.
3. Once students have finished reading their roles, ask them each to write an
interior monologue from the point of view of a member of their group. An interior
monologue is the inner thoughts of an individual at a particular point in time, so
they should write in the first person.
Encourage students to invent a persona and to think about that person’s name,
family, history, hopes and fears, especially related to this conference. Allow
students about 10 or 15 minutes to write (note: this is an individual activity).
4. After students have completed writing their interior monologues, have them read
these aloud to other students in the group.
5. Ask students to work in their small groups to come up with tentative answers to
the questions posed on the Debt Conference handout from the point of view of
their group’s characters. Encourage them to use lessons from Life and Debt to
help them with their answers.
Reassure them that they will be more familiar with some issues than others and
that they will have a chance to consult with other groups after they have
answered the questions for their own group.
6. Ask students to choose which other groups in the role play would be likely to be
most receptive to building alliances around any of the issues on the conference
hand-out.
Choose half of each group to be traveling negotiators. These students will travel
around the class looking for potential alliances with other groups. For example,
the US government representative might want to get together with the corporate
farmer and see what they have in common, and the rice farmer in Artibonite
might find something in common with the rice farmer from Arkansas. Encourage
students to be open to alternatives and remember that each group has
information in their role that no one else has. This session is an opportunity to
share that information with other groups that don’t have it.
7. Allow travelers to circulate the class, speaking to people who could be potential
allies on certain issues. Travelers may only speak with seated students to avoid
travelers clumping together and leaving seated students out of the role play.
8. After students have completed meeting other groups and building alliances on
the four issues, they should return to their own group and prepare arguments for
the whole-class Haiti Debt Conference. Each student should have written notes
on the group’s stance on each issue and the argument behind those stances.
 Conference proceedings
9. Convene the class into a large circle (if possible) with students seated with their
group. Their name placards should be visible.
10. Distribute the IMF’s Exec. Director’s opening remarks.
As Executive Director of the IMF, welcome the students to the IMF Conference
on Haiti Debt. Explain that you have some opening remarks about the
conference, and they can feel free to follow along.
At the end of your welcome speech, host a brief Q & A session, but keep it short
and do not dig too deeply into the issues to be discussed during the conference.
Leave the bulk of the content analysis to the students.
11. According to Bill Bigelow of Rethinking Schools, there is no right way to proceed
with the conference. Here is his advice on how to proceed in general with
conference simulations:
“I’ve handled it differently with different classes. Generally, I prefer a relatively
informal process where we move issue by issue with students offering comments
in support or opposition and proposing alternatives, but not in the form of actual
resolutions. Because students have such different information in the roles, I
encourage them to ground their opinions about the issues in details about their
lives, and how a particular change might affect them. This makes for richer, more
concrete exchanges in class. I always ask for a show of hands on various issues
but I tell students that these votes are merely advisory,” and the IMF Executive
Director will make the ultimate decision about whether or not to approve the loan.
 Conference Follow-up
12. Ask students to write what they think will happen to the various groups in the role
play if the loan passes. Ask them to share these responses with their group, and
then list responses on the board or overhead.
Encourage them to think about the economic and cultural ramifications of this
loan, including how the individual lives and identities of the conference
participants could be affected.
Some questions that could be discussed include:
 How are rural Haitians likely to be affected by the loan?
 How are urban Haitians likely to be affected by the loan?
 What effects will the loan have on rice farmers in both countries?
 How is the loan likely to indirectly affect the environment?
 What are the potential long-term effects of the loan? In 20 years, what do
you think Haiti will look like as a result of policies imposed by the loan?
13. After the class has discussed the conference and potential long-term results,
distribute copies of Kathie Klarreich’s Time article “Food Crisis Renews Haiti’s
Agony” (4/9/08).
Have students read the article, highlighting parts that they think are related in
some way to the Haiti debt conference of 1984 in which they just participated
(remind them that this article is written 24 years later). Also ask students to
highlight parts that stand out to them as surprising or questionable.
Encourage students to keep in mind the stories of the Haitian farmer, teacher,
and student from the conference as they read the article.
14. Working in pairs or groups, ask students to analyze the article using the following
questions:
 How does this reporter explain the recent violence in Haiti?
 How does your knowledge from the film Life and Debt and the Haiti debt
conference help you analyze this article? Where specifically is it helpful?
 How does this reporter depict Haiti, its history, and its people?
 What information is missing from this article? That is, what should the
reporter have included to give readers a better picture of what is
happening in Haiti and why?
15. Discuss these questions as a class, listing responses on the board or overhead.
 Optional assessments:
16. In class or for homework, have students watch the Associated Press video
“Haiti’s Poor Forced to Eat Dirt as Food.” Ask students to consider the following
questions as they watch:
 How does this video depict the people of Haiti?
 What does the reporter say is the reason behind Haiti’s hunger problems?
 What does this video leave out?
 What would you say is the bigger story behind hunger here?
17. For homework or an in-class project, have students write a letter to the
Associated Press reporter critiquing her news story. Students might consider if
the video was misleading and what the reporter could have included to make it a
fairer and more accurate story. Students should also consider why it matters for
Western news sources to present news stories in a fair manner that does not
present human subjects (especially from Third World nations) as undignified or
less than human. Encourage students to send their letters to the Associated
Press or organize a way for them to do so.
18. Have students write short essays analyzing the images of Haitians carrying bags
of rice with US labels (images can be found in curriculum materials). Possible
prompt:
 Imagine you are the person in the images carrying the bags of imported
rice. Write your life story from that person’s perspective. To get started,
consider the following questions: Who are you? Where are you from?
Why are you carrying rice with a US flag on it? How did the rice get there,
and how do you feel about it?
Additional resources:
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Online video: “The Luckiest Nut in the World”
o 8 minute video in which “a singing peanut and his gang of shelled friends
explain that sometimes free trade is just nuts”
o A cartoon animation explaining the effects of loans, structural adjustment
and cash crops, and their impacts on poorer countries
o Shows how the World Bank’s plan for Senegal to grow nuts for export
backfired
o Link: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtlYyuJjACw>
o Link also available in curriculum materials
Online video: “Haiti Food Crisis”
o A British reporter goes to Haiti to research the food crisis in-depth,
incorporating many of the same themes from this curriculum
o Situates Haiti’s crisis in the context of the world food crisis
o Link: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSWJmq4XC2s>
o Link also available in curriculum materials
Magazine article: “Manufacturing a Food Crisis,” by Walden Bellow. Published in
The Nation, May 15, 2008.
o “How free trade is destroying Third World agriculture—and who’s fighting
back”
o Reporter Walden Bello explores the IMF and World Bank’s role in the
world food crisis
o Explores issue from perspectives of African, Latin American and Asian
countries
o Link from page to write an electronic letter to take action against Third
World exploitation by IFIs
o Link: <http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080602/bello>
o Full article available in curriculum materials