Role Playing

I believe that role playing can be a very effective way of learning. Role playing is one way of making sure that students know their topic, by forcing them to think on the fly, and possibly argue against something they agree with. Being able to see both sides of an issue, and embody either side, helps a student make more connections to the material, and learn subject matter for thoroughly.

In the area of school improvements role playing was especially effective. There are many different ways of thinking about this issue, and giving different groups of students a different lens to look through and argue from, was a way to have all students see what others may be thinking about this issue. A lecture could have given more facts, and specifics about what has been done in the area of school improvement, but could not have given the experience of seeing how certain groups of people think about and argue for or against such issues as No Child Left Behind.

I feel that, to engage in such tasks as a role playing, students need to have a grasp on the role playing topic. They need to have basic information to base their arguments on, and to formulate counter arguments. In the case of the No Child Left Behind role play, the information given in class was sufficient to carry out a role play, although a background knowledge of No Child Left Behind was certainly beneficial. We did not need to study the actual legislation to have a fruitful role play, although it might have helped, it was not necessary.

In my opinion some sort of emotional engagement is essential to the learning process. If a student has no connection to the material, and does not have any sort of emotional engagement, that student will have a harder time learning and remembering the material. With some sort of emotional engagement, students can not only remember the information, but be able to use that material to synthesize new information, create arguments, and formulate new opinions and judgments on issues.

As for the high achieving students and the influential people in the community, I think that in the past too much attention has been given to them. Because of this, I feel there has been a back lash from the government, and from many others to pay attention to 'underachieving' students. Why there has to be one group placed at such a higher priority than any other group escapes me. The high achieving students are of great importance. If focus is turned too far away from them in classrooms, they will become bored, start acting out, lose interest in school and in learning. They need to be challenged in a way that will continue their growth and learning. The low achieving students are also of great importance. No one wants to see a child get 'left behind' in the class room. They should be given the support they need to learn, and to grow so that they have the basic knowledge that our country has decided everyone needs when they graduate from high school. The problem is doing both of those things, while not forgetting about the average students, and not separating students into different groups, essentially segregating them by ability in school.