Upper School History Teacher Alexander Rolnick needs to teach his ninth-grade students about the Treaty of Versailles, which can often be seen by young teens as a rather dry, uninspiring topic. It’s an important lesson about negotiation, diplomacy, and how decisions made a hundred years ago affect world relations today. To engage his students, Rolnick infuses the lesson with a first-person activity that evokes personality and emotion, and the strategy pays off.
In June 1919, World War I ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in Paris. The treaty codified peace terms between the victorious Allies and Germany and held Germany responsible for starting the war. Germany also faced harsh penalties through loss of territory, reparations payments, and demilitarization. The Treaty failed to resolve the underlying issues that led to war, and a humiliated Germany suffered economic distress and resentment. These feelings helped fuel the ultra-nationalist sentiment that led to the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, and, eventually, a second world war.
To better grasp how the resolution of WWI ultimately led to WWII, Rolnick’s students embarked on a simulation of the negotiation of the Treaty of Versailles. He assigned each table to represent one of the original Allied negotiating countries (United States, Britain, and France) and added Germany as a negotiator even though they had no representatives at the table in 1919.
Rolnick has had a few years to fine-tune the simulation. “I’ve been more intentional in recent years to debrief the emotional experience of being in the roles and the negotiation,” he said. “Part of this comes from some conferences I’ve been able to attend specifically focused on role play pedagogy, but also Tracey Tokuhama Espinoza’s session at STLinSTL last year focused on the importance of directly engaging and talking with students about their emotional states.”
He notes that students can start the activity with excitement. “Then, as disagreements about the treaty come to a head, it can be hard for them to work towards compromise, and this often leads to tension and different emotional outcomes (excitement about ‘winning’ versus frustration about ‘losing’). I’ve been finding that when I give students an opportunity to process and discuss those emotions, clarifying what actually happened historically goes better and students can move past their emotional experience of the activity into the content learning goals of the lesson with less friction,” he said.
The simulation is designed to allow students to understand more deeply the perspectives of the varying actors they represent and to see how even the allies in war had substantive disagreements about how the war should be resolved. These disagreements and the compromises they led to paved the way for future conflict. Rolnick’s ahistorical addition of Germany gave voice to German concerns that were not present during the actual treaty negotiations and allowed students to understand how the concerns of the losers of the war were not considered. The simulation also helped students to understand how complicated negotiations are, and the importance of working together to compromise.
“I was really impressed with my ninth graders this year,” said Rolnick. “Despite the focus of many of the reflections being how hard it was to agree, both of my classes ended up reaching agreements in the limited time the activity allowed for. I noticed many students being willing to compromise and sacrifice for the ultimate goal of reaching agreement despite their investment in trying to ‘win’ for their country.”
Rolnick incorporated an intentional debriefing as part of the activity. Students highlighted that they were engaged, while noting the pressure, tension, and frustration the activity created, despite knowing it was just a game without any real stakes. “Airing these feelings allowed us to consider the feelings that the actual treaty negotiators might have had, and to express them in order to move past them into the historical debrief of what actually happened,” said Rolnick.
Here are a few of the reflections submitted by our ninth-grade history students about their Treaty of Versailles negotiation activity:
- It is very hard to compromise because everyone has different views and opinions. Even though France, Britain, and America were all against Germany they all wanted something different. Different decisions would benefit different countries. Everyone wanted to benefit the most so no one would get everyone they wanted.
- It must have been very hard for each country to get EVERYTHING they wanted in the treaty. We had a hard time reaching agreement on anything and it was just a game, but for the people negotiating the treaty it was about the future of their country.
- The longer an argument or dispute goes on the more you will end up venturing from the topic and the more angry people will get. You will not win everything no matter how amazing your argument is because you can’t control others’ needs. People are selfish and are not paying attention to the bigger picture.
- The simulation led today demonstrated how stressful it can be to get your point across. This was seen well in the final moments of negotiations, as Germany (my group and I) were able to stall for 10 minutes, using their disagreement for our benefit.
- My main take away from this exercise is how demanding people can be when pride is on the line. I noticed everyone was talking over each other trying to get their point across. I realized that everyone (including me) wanted their country to come out on top. But when Germany uninvolved themselves, they ended up winning because the other countries tore each other apart.