Are you dead yet? - Help me kill students!

[lollardfish]

When I go interview at Willamette, I need to teach a 1 hour class. I'm going to do it on the Black Death, but first I want to play a game with the students. I call it, "If you were alive back then, would you be dead!" Better title suggestions gladly accepted.

I ask all the students to stand up, then I ask them questions about their lives, and tell them if they are dead or alive had they lived in the Middle Ages and make them sit down. This time it'll be for 1300, when actually nascent medical developments had improved certain things, like midwifery, to some extent. I try to end up with a few women and a few men left at the end, so I can kill some of the women in childbirth and some of the men in battle, and then tell the remaining ones that they could live to be 90!

It's unscientific. It's not based in hard medieval population data. It's an icebreaker. I need more questions though, and so I turn to you.

I ask:

1 - Who had a very serious childhood illness, so serious you've been told about it by your folks? Mumps, measles, bad chickenpox, etc. I kill about 25% off, but not too many. A nice chunk of people though.
2 - Who has broken a leg or an arm? I kill a few off from infection.
3 - Who has had appendicitis? I kill myself off (age 12! Oh, the humanity!)
4 - Who's been in a serious accident (car, bike, whatever)?
5 - Who has had a bad case of the flu lately?

I'd like a few more questions. Any advice?

Comments

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Is "Who was born prematurely" too intrusive?

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Probably. There are rules about such things. I might reference it and then not ask though.

[chirosinger.livejournal.com]

Type 1 diabetes (childhood onset) would kill off quite a few folks. A deep cut or puncture wound will kill off a few folks (infection/tetnus). Pneumonia would get a bunch.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I can talk about cutting grain. Hold the sickle in your right hand, hold the grain in your left, cut ... ack, I sliced myself!

[creidylad.livejournal.com]

Also, any childhood bacterial infection could have become meningitis.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

It's so easy to kill people!

Mostly controllable now:

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

Asthma,
Diabetes,
Dysentery,
Pneumonia,
Food-poisoning,
Food allergies
Insect allergies

Re: Mostly controllable now:

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

mmmm. Allergies are a good one. I'm looking for evocative questions that can get me a kill without getting too many.

[kalikanzara.livejournal.com]

I was going to post in faver of inheritable traits/birth defects, such as pyloric stenosis, but that is probably covered under illness.

I'm guessing you could kill some percentage of people who'd had major dental work.

Some percentage of those who have glasses or contacts may be more prone to accidental death due to vision impairments, maybe? That's probably a stretch.

Would there be any reasons for infanticide in 1300? I think that's probably too late for the practice.

I'm not sure exactly when the witch hunting craze caught on, but there are documented trials in the 1300s. You could just ask if anyone had ever been accused of having the evil eye.

Pregnancy complications and childbirth should kill a slice, and w/o birth control I figure that would mean there would have been more pregnancies.

You could get creative with travel hazards and just kill 10% of anyone who had travelled more than 500 miles to get to the college.

Oh, and looking at my user icon...

[kalikanzara.livejournal.com]

Get some of them with unwarned severe weather.

[jmanna.livejournal.com]

What about something like SIDS. Pick a random fourth of the class and tell them they didn't survive the first year for unknown reasons.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Too many dead too fast, alas. I have to resist the urge to kill too quickly, I've found.

WHEEL! OF! DEATH!

[jbru.livejournal.com]

You could kill a percentage who self-identify as religious on the theory they'd be sent crusading or on pilgrimage.

A percentage who have done manual labor due to accidents.

A chunk that went to the bathroom before class because they got cholera or dysentary.

I'd kill 25% off right off the bat because they were probably all immunized agasin't childhood diseases.

Sounds fun!

Re: WHEEL! OF! DEATH!

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

If you kill off too many too fast, you miss some of the end points. And I need at least a half dozen standing at the end so I can throw the plague bacterium at them.

[jmanna.livejournal.com]

You could declare a few wealthier and kill them from lead poisoning or syphalis(sp) (rampant in the nobility of many european/English courts though that might have been later).

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Syphlis is a new world disease. The Europeans give the native americans smallpox. The native americans give the europeans syphlis.

[rani23.livejournal.com]

Here's a somewhat tricky one -- any of them mothers or have ever had sex? Birth control wasn't terribly good and many women died in childbirth.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

I can't ask that. I'll bring in childbirth though when I get to the ones who make it to adulthood.

[chirosinger.livejournal.com]

And all of this to get your new stuffed toy? What a great scheme!

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

tax deductable!

[jadiana.livejournal.com]

There might be some ideas here:

http://www.hyw.com/Books/History/Health.htm

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I'm not a big fan of that essay. Lack of nuance.

[jadiana.livejournal.com]

*shrugs* I was just trying to help.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

And I thank you for it! :)

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

Anyone born by C-section? (Both my kids were...)

You might consider bringing in some dice (especially since it's likely several of your students have been RPG gamers) and for those people who have had a serious chidlhood illness, assign them a certain roll they need to make to survive (for instance, if you only have the common 6-sided die, give 'em a 1 or 2 in 6 chance of dying...)

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Interesting idea. One of the charms is that it doesn't take props. But a pair of dice is fun, so long as I only do it at the end. Otherwise I lose too much time. I've a lot to accomplish in an hour (engage the students, impress the faculty, deal with the material, tie it into their material, etc ....)

The icebreaker can't take more than 5 min or so.

[sidhebear.livejournal.com]

How about wiping out a percentage of the people who have "had food poisoning more than twice in your life" or "had food poisoning in the last three years" to simulate the "vermin" effect.

[sidhebear.livejournal.com]

jbru beat me to the bathroom idea i had. :)

[mizzlaurajean.livejournal.com]

Starvation kills.

[mizzlaurajean.livejournal.com]

Plus starving can effect a few or a lot depending on extenuating circumstances.

[mizzlaurajean.livejournal.com]

It would probably kill too many but it's likely most of them weren't breast feed long enough to give them a chance in hell of surviving till the age of 2.

[zinzinzinnia.livejournal.com]

Everyone took mine. :(

Sibling rivalry? ;)

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

Hah! I love it. That goes on the maybe list (it all depends on how many I kill off with the first bunch of questions. The goal is to have 5-6 standing)

[madtruk.livejournal.com]

Bathing daily-

Anyone waking up and rushing to class may have splashed water and run, not removing the layers of dust mites, bed bugs, and assorted decay from their bodies-also; ticks, fleas and all the other yum-yums that feast on the body carrying, oddly enough, the Black Death.

[hunnythistle.livejournal.com]

What about students who had chronic ear and throat infections as a child, and anyone who has had their tonsils out?

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

That's a good choice.

B