The Ruling Classroom

An account of teacher George Muldoon's experiment with his seventh grade class at California's Mill Valley middle school in 1979. In the project, the class creates a simulation of American society, ending in corruption at the highest levels of "government", and even a "Kidgate" scandal. As soon as the kids write their own laws, and start their own businesses, problems arise: white collar crime emerges, and a group of students attempt to monopolize resources, and the gap between the "haves" and "have-nots" grows. The experimented is halted when a child writes an article in the school paper about a teacher slapping a student, and this familiar but make-believe world is brought to its end.