## Children Playing Blockchain

### Two different elementary school classes

Two teachers have decided to host games that simulate blockchains with their students,
rather than put in the large amount of effort required
to write legitimate curricula.

One class ends up playing the game "Proof-of-work":

- The class is collectively building a large lego tower
- A student is only allowed to add a brick to the tower after they correctly solve a
personalized sudoku
- Once they complete the sudoku they can add their brick anywhere.
They often add it to the top
so that they can claim they're a part of the tallest set of bricks
- If they add their brick to the top,
other students will pay them (in bricks)
to write their own names on it with a sharpie

If we were to visit this class, we would likely see every student
solving sudokus.

The other class plays "Proof-of-stake":

- They're also contributing bricks to a large lego tower
- If a student wants to add a brick to the tower,
they first have to put some of their bricks
into the center of the room and give each brick a unqiue number
- Each student then rolls their own die and
they add up all the numbers to get a single number for the class
- They choose the brick labeled by that number
- The student whose brick is chosen gets to place it anywhere on the tower,
but again, they almost always place it at the top
- If they add a brick to the top, other students pay them to write their names on it
in sharpie

What would we see if we visited this class instead?
Well, every student would be rolling dice.

### 1 year later

Neither of the classes have had any students move on to the next year.
This makes sense because they've only been
playing games.  The lego towers have become quite tall.

The class playing Proof-of-work has now solved all the easy sudokus
the teacher prepared for the first year and have moved on to
advanced sudokus.  They've gotten *really* good at solving them.
Some students have complained that most of their dreams are now related to
sudokus.  It's all they think about.

The class playing Proof-of-stake has a lot of notebooks filled with doodles.
The teacher hasn't provided the children with much else to do and they've become
quite bored.  Some students have upgraded their dice to fancy custom
color dice.  Other students haven't changed their dice at all,
as it makes no difference.
Interestingly, not one student has become better at rolling dice.

### Another year passes

Many students have left both classes.  The towers pierce the roof of the building.

The first class lost the students that simply couldn't keep up
with the increasingly difficult sudokus.  They ended up transferring schools
and getting a real education.
New students tried to transfer in, but without 2 years of constantly solving sudoku
under their belt, they couldn't compete with the more experienced sudoku-solvers.

The second class *also* lost a bunch of students. Rolling dice turns out to be
very boring.  However, new students were able to transfer in quite easily.
All they had to do was go out and buy some dice and some bricks
and they were set to join the game.  Admittedly, they didn't have as many bricks as
some of their more senior classmates, but they still had a shot every round of the
game to get their brick in the tower.

### The fourth year begins

The principal steps in and fires both teachers, claiming the games they've been
hosting for the past three years are no substitution for education.
Such games are for computers.