Role play and practical demonstration: some definitions

1. Role Play

Let's make it clear from the beginning what Role Play is not . It is not an opportunity to present a few individuals in a class with a long and complex play script. This invariably results in pupils bumbling through the script destroying structure and meaning of the piece. Meanwhile the vast majority of the class form a theoretically passive (but certainly not silent) majority. Such ‘Role Play' is the death of motivation.

To me Role Play must:

• involve the vast majority of the class
• be performable with no rehearsal
• be short and sharp
• centre on succinct speaking parts
• use language accessible to the whole class

Role Play involves pupils adopting the role of a person in the past and provides pupils with enough information through card or briefing to enable them to adopt the attitudes or re-live the experiences of that character. The interaction of one pupil's role with that of another can give real insight into the attitudes of both characters. For example a bigoted supporter of Moseley may re-examine his own attitudes if faced in debate with a Marxist of diametrically opposed views; a merchant of the 16 th century may re-examine his own status when confronted by the aloof self assurance of an aristocrat.

Role play's particular strength then, is address of KSU 2c ‘ the experiences and range of ideas, beliefs and attitudes of men, women and children in the past'

As a bonus attitudes brought to the fore by Role Play can also provide a real appreciation of context. How incomprehensible is Chamberlain's policy of appeasement - unless pupils have an understanding of the desperate desire for peace of both politicians and population of a Britain and France scarred by the experiences of the Great War? How hard is it for pupils to appreciate why the US army struggled so in Vietnam without the insight a simple Role Play can give to the impossibility of the task the ordinary ‘Grunt' faced?

2. Practical Demonstration

Practical Demonstration involves physical movement of pupils and/or objects to concretise a first or second order concept in a pupil's mind, or to provide a context giving meaning to later study. For example, the steam engine demonstration below both gives a pupil a sound grasp of the working and continuous power of a steam engine and can also give context to later study of the dangers of working in a mill. The ‘Atomic Egg' demonstration given below provides both a strong conceptual grasp of the power of nuclear explosion relative to conventional explosives, whilst simultaneously providing a context for the decisions taken in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Concept and Context are then, the strengths of Practical Demonstration.

It is also important to remember that pupils find these techniques fun and in many ways that is the greatest asset of all. Even GCSE and A level pupils are young people with a lively sense of fun and KS3 pupils are, for all their posturing, still children at heart with all the sense of imagination, awe and wonder that childhood brings. Once they smile with you they are with you.