Paranoia and the Reign of Terror

             Recently in Socials 9 we were studying the French Revolution. When we got the Reign of Terror, I wanted to help my students understand the paranoia everyone felt during the this time because no one knew who was associated with the aristocracy or the Committee of Public Safety (group who tracked down people who they believed did not support the revolution or were accused of hoarding bread, arrested them and guillotined them).  To introduce this part of the Revolution, I decided to play a game which would allow the students to feel that same paranoia.
       First, I had my students draw pieces of white folded up paper from a box and then they had to open it in secret. Most students had a blank piece of paper, but 5 had a piece of paper with a small red dot in the middle (no one knew how many red dots there were, in fact, I told them there was only 3 just for fun). The object of the game for the students with white pieces of paper was to make as big of an alliance as possible with other students without allowing a student with a red dot in it. The trick was they could not outright ask a kid what was on their paper. They could ask other questions though and had to gauge their answers to determine if they were "guilty" of having a dot. The object of the game for the red dot people was to get themselves into an alliance by pretending they had a white piece of paper. It was a very interesting game and the students had a lot of fun. They ostracized kids and when I asked them why it was often answers like "they just look guilty" or "they smiled." The red dot kids almost always win though.

Afterwards, I discussed how they felt during the game and how exactly they judged who was guilty and innocent. We linked it to the revolution and then modern examples of judging people by their appearance and how we really can never know what someone is thinking. They kids like the game so much they insisted we play it at the beginning of each class for three days. I love using simulations to illustrate points/concepts in history because it always sticks with kids when you can get them to empathize with a historical figure. I have also used this game in SS11 to talk about the red scare and McCarthyism.