Elements of Historical Role Playing

Rationale

Information alone rarely makes people change their minds or prompts new insights, but personal experience often does. Role-playing, like any good inquiry approach, transforms content under study from abstract information into direct or vicarious experience. The primary purpose of role-playing exercises is to get students to look at materials in a new light and from new perspective. In taking up a historical role, a student tries to abandon their present-day world view and become immersed in the assigned role in a past time and place.

Taking the role of "other" helps up remove cultural blinders and develop empathy and greater understanding of those different from us. Taking the role of other, like in our role plays, aids in developing a more mature world view and in developing intercultural competencies [IC]. These competencies include

• Awareness of & empathy for others within their own cultural and personal contexts;
• Bridging cultural gaps--effective, appropriate interactions with culturally different others;
• Emotional intelligence--identify, manage, communicate, and apply emotions effectively and appropriately;
• Open-mindedness; genuine interest in other cultures, times, and places;
• Avoiding ethnocentrism and "chroncentrism"--imposing our present-day values and views on past times.

How does a role plays differ from a historical case study? Students find themselves in the role-play. In a case study, students read about situations and characters, but view them from an outsiders perspective. In a case study, students place themselves in another's shoes. Taking the role of another adds immediacy of the experience that makes for more powerful learning. Students creatively tap into both the affective domain, imagining emotions and values of the past time, as well as in the cognitive domain where they critique and analyze those past views and experiences.

Parameters & Practices

Exercise your "historical imagination"--try to place yourself in the past world of the historical actor. "The historical imagination includes empathy, the ability to identify with the time and place of the actors under study, to try to see their world through their eyes. We do not uncritically accept actions and attitudes we would ordinarily condemn; rather we try to understand why people believed and behaved as they did. The British intellectual R. G. Collingwood argued "a historian must imagine himself in the shoes of a historical figure (he must imagine himself into the past or engage in an extreme form of empathy) and only then can she gain full insight into the event in question."

Use the first person pronoun "I." This helps you become the historical figure.

Use the present tense (is, are) not the past (was, were) which generates a sense of immediacy and closeness to the historical figure's world, as presented through the documents.

Engage in a willing suspension of disbelief. Don't worry about anachronism, defined as

• something or someone that is not in its correct historical or chronological time, especially a thing or person that belongs to an earlier time. example: The sword is an anachronism in modern warfare.
• an error in chronology in which a person, object, event, etc., is assigned a date or period other than the correct one. example: To assign Michelangelo to the 14th century is an anachronism.

. We may use documents dating to after your roleplaying time--just go with the flow.

Be aware of and receptive to conflicting viewpoints in the past. In some cases, you will engage in historical debates that have two or more viewpoints involved.

Have fun. Be creative! Lots of students enjoy LARP (live action role playing) and fantasy games in which they explore other worlds and universes. Explore the historical past with similar gusto.