By: Harry Shontz
Social Studies Teacher
The Leffell School

“Well, what do we do now,” asked one of my seniors, as a class full of bewildered twelfth graders stared back at me. I had just explained the rules to “Monumental Consequence” (formerly known as Bomb the Church) to my class on the second day of the semester. None of them had ever played a Reacting to the Past game before, and all they knew of the pedagogy was from my syllabus (which they likely did not read). I had given them role sheets the day before, but not even I was prepared for what would happen after I responded to that first question. I looked back at this student and said to the class, “I don’t know, but in five minutes you need to vote on whether or not you are going to bomb this church, or send in an army to try and save it.” We maintained eye contact for a few seconds, with my department chair watching the first real day of this new class, and immediately, like clockwork, all thirteen students and two playing teachers (friends of the program—Columbia University alumni) leapt up and started strategizing, debating, and gaming.

This senior course–a three game sequence class called Gaming the Government: Reacting to the Past in World History–was not our school’s first go with Reacting, but the course was designed and proposed long before any Leffell students role-played history in their classes. I learned about Reacting to the Past from my cousin (Barnard, Class of 2009), who would tell me stories of her classes while I was in high school. I loved history and I loved the reality show Survivor; this seemed to be the perfect blend of both and I knew I wanted to use this in my classroom when I became a teacher. After years in my early career of trying to break into the RTTP community, I temporarily put the idea on hold… until COVID hit. 

When our school was preparing to return in person for the Fall of 2020, I knew that my students were going to need something different. In addition, I had been teaching the same ninth grade World Civilizations course (Neolithic Revolution through French Revolution) for four years, so I needed something new as well. I started to reach out to professors that alluded to using RTTP in their courses on their faculty pages. As it was rather new that high school teachers were being brought into the community, most professors were giving the same answers: “we do not think that it is appropriate for the high school classroom.” Eventually, as the school year was quickly approaching, I received a response from a professor saying: “I do not know if it would work in high school, but I am not a high school teacher, and I am happy to help answer any questions you may have.” Over the next nine months, my ninth grade colleague and I continued to converse over email and zoom meetings, as we got ready to launch Confucianism and the Succession Crisis of 1587 in May of 2021. 

Thursday, April 29th: “He gave us 8 pages and called it a game…”

In our last zoom meeting with our RTTP advisor, my colleague and I were told, “You’ve done enough work. You need to launch the ship, and the rest will play out.” With that in mind, we distributed eight pages of the Confucian Analects to our ninth graders. I couched the distribution of this “long” reading with the notion that this would ultimately lead to a game that we would be playing in class for the next three weeks, and that we had spent the entire year planning its roll out. That may have been a bit of an exaggeration, but we wanted to increase their buy-in as much as possible. Apparently, in this ever connected world of social media, students were snapchatting one another with the “absurd length” of the reading assignment, and my ridiculous assertions that this would somehow lead to a game.

Monday, May 3rd: The First of the Second Guessings

The first day of setup progressed like any other week in our class that year. I lectured about the Ming Dynasty, I retaught them the Mandate of Heaven and Confucius’s “Five Relationships” (both topics from earlier in the year), and learned that none of them had started the reading for the following day. All typical. I was then asked by what seemed like 17,000 freshmen, “how is this any different from what we normally do?” Contrary to all of the prep work that I had done, this was apparently not a game (I really wish someone had told me). The teenagers were definitely correct in their assertions, and I did not know what I was talking about (obviously). Clearly none of this is true, but I began to wonder if they would actually take the bait? Will they buy into all the hype? 

Tuesday, May 4th: The Last of the Second Guessings

Despite 60 minutes of me second guessing myself, there was no turning back at this point. We had done too much preparation work to abandon the project. After a surprisingly decent discussion of the Analects (they were a smart class, so they could discuss documents relatively well), I reluctantly handed each student a manila folder, each with a giant red “TOP SECRET” stamped across the front. There was a palpable silence in the classroom for the next fifteen minutes of the period as I watched each student dial through their role sheets. I had planned to individually pull aside my Wanli Emperor, my First Grand Secretary, and my Hai Rui to check in with them and to explain the details of their roles and to answer any questions. Clearly, this would not be possible; every student had questions, ideas, and strategies that they wanted to run by me. The remaining days of the saw heightened sense of anticipation among all ninth graders. They were all scheming, plotting, and planning, but despite all of their ideas, they still did not know what they were in for (honestly, though… neither did we!).

Thursday, May 6th: The Calm Before the Storm

With their first memorial topics distributed, students had the opportunity to write for the last day of the setup week. There was a clear excitement in the room, even though nobody was actually talking to one another. I had one-on-ones with each student this day, building on the strategies they had started to develop in the previous class. While the class was truly moving towards something great, though, the class was calm. Nothing had happened…yet.

Monday, May 10th: Greatness Skips a Generation

One character in Wanli–the follower of Hai Rui–plays a Confucian radical, and will stop at nothing to further and support the moral rectitude of the emperor. In one class, Hai Rui was slated to speak first; a Hai Rui who I gave to the class clown. Calling upon the Analects in ways I had not seen him do all year, he delivered a blistering memorial to the emperor about his corrupt First Grand Secretary and his unwise decisions to name his third-born as heir. This student spoke eloquently, and then he concluded his quote referencing a long term joke from our class. In studying a variety of leaders, such as Shi Huang Di and his not so successful son, and Vladimir the Great and his similarly fated child, my students came to the conclusions about the merits of the children of great leaders. With this in mind, my Hai Rui concluded his memorial by saying “Emperor Wanli, with all due respect, we have seen that greatness in history tends to skip a generation; it seems to have done so with you.” My sassy ninth grader had dropped the mic, everyone else dropped their jaws, and my students were hooked. 

Tuesday, May 11th: "Live Tribal"

As inspiring as Hai Rui may have been with his speech, it was the first in a long line of reasons behind his execution. The execution was not all that exciting–we cannot reenact everything in its entirety–but it sent a shockwave through the classroom. I dismissed the Grand Secretariat after the emperor’s responses to the memorials, and told the Grand Secretaries that they could ask me questions or go out and talk in the courtyard in the remaining 20 minutes of class. As with my seniors in their first game of Monumental Consequence, it was go-time: everyone lept up, and started congregating in different groups and alliances, as discussions continued about who they could trust, who they could work with, and who they could scapegoat. Once the dust settled, one of my students came up to me and likened the experience to a "live tribal" on the show Survivor–we had discussed the show at length; we both knew we were fans.  In Survivor, castaways vote one person out of the competition every few days at "Tribal Council." In older parts of the series (when people still watched), "tribal council" was a very formal interview experience: Jeff Probst would sit in his seat, the players in theirs, and there would be a formal back and forth to talk about the game. More recent seasons, however, have seen the introduction of “live tribal,” where players will huddle and continue to strategize and scheme in front of each other. In my opinion, it  has produced some of the most chaotic moments of reality TV competition. Everyone gets involved in these discussions because everyone has invested interest in the million dollar grand prize. This was the state of affairs in my ninth grade class that day; my students had created a "live tribal" council in the middle of the Forbidden City. I was sold on the pedagogy–as was my department chair–and with a whole week left in my first RTTP experience, I knew I was never turning back.

About the Author

Harry Shontz joined the history apartment at The Leffell School in the New York suburbs in the fall of 2016. Since the spring of 2021, he has used reacting to the past in each of his high school courses in 9th through 11th grade, in addition to all reacting 12th grade elective.

Blog Author Questionnaire

One word to describe faculty: Innovative 

Two words to describe your school: Creative opportunity

Three words to describe students: Unrivaled raw enthusiasm 

Four words to describe your favorite games: Secret factions; playing blind

Five words to describe Reacting: Freshman passionately discussing dynastic politics