Drama is often seen by student teachers as one of the
riskiest classroom strategies. Unless well-managed, drama can
quickly become noisy, chaotic and difficult to control. And yet, ask
pupils at the end of the school year what they enjoyed most or (more
significantly) what history they best remembered, and the chances
are that your risk-taking role-play is top of the list. In this
section we exploit the potential of digital video and YouTube to
view some examples of role-play conducted by students at the International School of Toulouse and
British International School of Bratislava.
For me empathy is the most important historical skill. Trying
to understand why people in the past thought and acted the way that
they did is crucial if we are to explain why events happened. In the
history classroom, dramatic role-play or event re-enactment are
techniques that allow present orientated students to step more
easily into the shoes of people in the past. This is never easy. We
have to teach our students to avoid what E.P. Thompson once called
‘the enormous condescension of posterity’. Students have to
begin to learn not to condemn those in the past for attitudes and
opinions which might offend us today.
Slave traders and defenders of child labour were not
‘stupid’ or simply ‘bad men’. Similarly students have to
learn not to abuse the powerful advantage of hindsight. We know that
the assassinations in Sarajevo in 1914 led almost inexorably to the
killing fields of Verdun and the Somme. But the vacillating European
diplomats of July 1914 did not. We need to be aware of this before
we pronounce judgement on their incompetence. (see also
Ian Luff's discussion and justification)
The following examples include
the full secondary age-range and all abilities.
Examples:
1. The Power of the Heavy Machine Gun – A practical demonstration (an activity designed to provide grasp of historical context)
2. The Rhineland Simulation – A practical demonstration with elements of Role Play (an activity designed to develop pupils' understanding of some of the issues involved in making retrospective judgements.
3. The Cuban Missile Crisis – A practical demonstration, (activity
designed to concretise key or particularly difficult concepts)
4.
The Vietnam War – role play with elements of practical demonstration (as above)
5.
The Society Game – a Role Play - (an activity to encourage appreciation of attitudes and beliefs of people in the past)
6. The New Model Army – A Role Play (The purpose of this role-play is to emphasise the difference in attitude - and hence in fighting potential - between old style armies and the New Model Army).
Examples with video from
Richard Jones-Nerzic
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Treaty
of Versailles
Year 10 and Year 12 students spend a morning debating and rewriting the treaty of 1919. |
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Abyssinia
Crisis
Year 11 students take on the role of
Cabinet ministers during the crisis of 1935. Will they
appease Mussolini?
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The
Reichstag Fire
Year 10
students conduct the trial that never happened. Were the
Nazis guilty of the Reichtag Fire |
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Child
Labour Debate
Year 9 take
on the role of supporters and opponents of child labour in
the 19th century.
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Defending
Guy Fawkes
Year 8
students play the role of Guy Fawkes' defence lawyer. They
have two minutes to defend their client. |
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Lollards
Year 7 take on
the role of Lollards seeking to reform the Catholic Chuch.
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