The online simulation "Spent" gives you $1,000 a month for you and your child to live on. What choices will you make?

Tammy Pawloski of the Center of Excellence to Prepare Teachers of Children in Poverty at Francis Marion University in Florence, S.C, was the keynote speaker at the July 25 Escambia administrators conference at Booker T. Washington High School.

Pawloski encouraged the audience to go to http://playspent.org/html/ and go through the poverty simulation.

Players have lost their job, have one child and have been evicted. They are given $1,000 to live on for 30 days.

“Most middle-income people make it six days the first time through,” Pawloski said.

In the game you make choices — leave that throbbing toothache unattended; earn $50 extra helping a friend move or go see your child’s school event; let co-workers whisper untruths about you so that you don’t get labeled a “problem” and get fired; miss an old friend’s wedding; take the bus and miss a couple hours pay when your car finally dies.

Nowhere among the choices is “help with homework” or “buy your child school clothes.”