Teaching the French Revolution

Start off your World History or European History class by getting the kids out of their seats. After they read an overview about the causes of the French Revolution, try my dramatic enactment or compose a skit of your own. As you work through the French Revolution unit, assign all the students a position (1st, 2nd, or 3rd Estate) and treat them (within reason) accordingly. For example, at first I give the nobility free cokes and chips, which normally are never allowed. I instruct the nobility to keep the goodies for themselves. When the Jacobins take over, the more educated of the third estate get the goodies, etc. If you use the skit, please give me feedback.



Mike Spinrad/San Marin High School


Name_______________________________ Date __________________


“Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” Skit

Instructions: If you were picked for a role, please come up to the front of the class. If not, please listen carefully to the skit and fill in the correct names below.

Characters
Guy Flambeau: third estate, peasant of the countryside
Ricard Poisson: third estate, cloth spinner of Paris
Cardinal Rouge: First Estate, Upper Clergy
Father Sympathique: First Estate, Lower Clergy
Baron Caniche: Second Estate
King Louis XVI: King of France
Queen Marie Antoinette: Queen of France
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Scene…a salon, Paris, 1789

Guy Flambeau: The price of wheat is so high, I can’t feed my family. We pay so much money in taxes that I might have to sell everything and beg in the streets. We third estate peasants are all ready to revolt.

Ricard Poisson: I am with you my friend. I used to believe that it was G-d’s will that we should be poor, but I have been hearing about the ideas of the philosophes. We must fight for justice!

Baron Caniche: We will crush you scum if you dare to revolt. I can have you both put in the Bastille just for speaking out against the government. You third estate people do the work and pay the taxes. We nobles have fun at the king’s court.

Cardinal Rouge: We upper clergy have it even better! We pay no taxes, own ten percent of the land of France, and I rarely even attend church services. I just like hanging out in my chateau and scheming against certain nobles like your friends, Caniche.

Father Sympathique: Your behavior is scandalous, Cardinal. I spend all the day attending to the needs of the poor.

King Louis XVI: I am the king to the whole nation, rich or poor. I am of the long running Bourbon dynasty. I have a right to rule France that was given to me by G-d. The nobles refuse to pay any taxes. If I can’t get more tax money from the peasants, I just don’t know what I will do. I think I will take a break and fix some clocks in my shop next to Versailles.

Queen Marie Antoinette: Your highness, I’ve almost finished making you a nice sweater.

Which characters support the following policies?
1. Bourbon dynasty:_______________________________________
2. Divine right to rule:_____________________________
3. Privileges of the Second Estate:____________________________________
4. Desperation of the peasants:_______________________________________
5. Third estate pays the taxes and does the work:_______________________________
6. Influence of the philosophes:__________________________
7. Attends to the needs of the poor:__________________________________
8. Is attuned only to the needs of the king:________________________________
9. Is not particularly religious:__________________________

Extra Credit: What is the difference in point of view of Guy Flambeau and Ricard Poisson? Why do they look at the situation differently?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Drama as Superior Instruction

Your students are enjoying themselves, visibly happy, engaged and attentive. They are tackling challenging subject matter--the different economic philosophies of two 19^th century Europeans-- and they are focused. They are working together, on a dramatization, and you are standing off to the side, observing the process and assessing for understanding. It’s a memorable day in your history class.

Indeed, when asked to name what I learned as a student in my high school history class, I recall role playing a United States Senator. I can tell you all about that simulation that took place 32 years ago-- the political horse trading with the President, the pressure from the party leaders, and the post mortem analysis after the simulation was complete. I do not remember anything about my textbook or even the term papers I wrote in my 1978 U.S. history class, but I have remembered my role as a senator and the lessons my teacher taught with it. I believe that the mind is hardwired to enact and remember dramatic performance.

Drama and history are a good classroom mix if you enjoy excitement, combining "right side" emoting with "left side" analyzing, student-centered learning, group work, creativity, the study of literacy, and doing what comes naturally.

Students enjoy doing a task that comes naturally to them. And role play is very natural behavior during the teen years, the time for testing and discarding societal roles. Think back to when you were seventeen. How often did you daydream that you were completely self-actualized or someone else, perhaps a famous musician, a star athlete, an adored leader, a gangster, a beautiful sex goddess, a cool, handsome rebel, the life of the party, a rich and successful entrepreneur, or an outstanding scholar? When we use drama to clarify historical ideas, we use an educational technique that melds well with the psychological processes that our students constantly use throughout the day.

Gardner (1993) and others have criticized our classrooms for emphasizing verbal-linguistic and logical-mathematical learning over other forms of human expression. Like singing, drama allows heart (emotional expression) to be combined with head (verbalization and linguistic meaning). Learning about the Battle of New Orleans through song or through the histrionic arts (drama) is fun in class, because we rarely learn through heart and head at the same time. Do you have trouble sitting still for 50 minutes? It was very hard for me when I was seventeen, near the peak in my energy level. Drama lets fidgety kids get up and move around.

What should be done with the shy student who dislikes participating in any type of public presentation or performance? These students will learn vicariously from watching others act and will usually be attentive and very interested to see how their “braver” colleagues do. On the other side of the spectrum, the student that is constantly disrupting class, looking to be the center of attention will love performing. You will transform this student’s need for public attention, usually manifested as self-defeating, immature behavior, into commendable, productive performance.

I use historical fiction to outline important historical, political, economic, philosophical, and moral questions. By fictitiously bringing together people of different places and eras I can better clarify and accentuate these historical, political, economic, philosophical, and moral questions. For example, as president, Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon had very different backgrounds and political philosophies. They both presided over very controversial administrations. As far as I know they never had a serious conversation. So I created a dialog, trying to be true to their personality and worldview. In this dialog the characters show little liking for each other, sparks fly, and the student and teacher acquire a deeper understanding of Clinton and Nixon as well as an improved awareness of the characters’ differences. The characters boldly try to convince others of the correctness of their views. If that means trying to refute a rival’s opinions, using wit and humor, so be it. I placed together controversial and adversarial characters in these skits, creating as much entertainment value and learning as possible. Secondly, I often placed historical characters in the present. Haydn for example argues with a hip-hop artist and joins my students’ world. You can do this too.