Paranoia in the Classroom: Recreating the First Red Scare with your Students

This blog post is part of a series of posts written by my middle level/secondary social studies education students at Wichita State University. This post was written by Eric Boutz (@EDBoutz on Twitter).

The First Red Scare is one of those dark periods in United States History that sometimes gets overlooked. In high school I only remember it being mentioned in passing, and even in college I felt that the topic was barely covered. When I found out it was something that I would be covering I wanted to make sure that I did the topic justice and show that even Americans have made mistakes in their history. 

  

Following World War I and the Russian Revolution the United States went through a period known as the Red Scare. While there have been two major red scares in our history, it’s the first one that seems forgotten. During this time there was a real fear that an uprising from the working class could bring a communist revolution here in the States. This led to legalized discrimination and persecution to those who “fit the profile” of a revolutionary. A shining example of this would be the Sacco and Vanzetti case from the early 1920’s. Two Italian immigrants were arrested for murder and ultimately put to death. Even to this day, controversy still surrounds the case and its sham of a trial. After learning in depth about these events, it’s not surprising why people would want to sweep this under the table.

When I began researching this topic I wanted to find something that would really engage students and push them to think what it would be like to live during that time. I eventually came across an article called Why I Lied to my Students; the title alone was enough to pull me in. In the article the teacher, Greg Schreur, talks about a simulation he set up to create paranoia in his classroom that played on the real emotions of students and also helped them think historically. The simulation had students broken up into two groups who took on different challenges. Before beginning Schreur told his students that each group had an internal traitor who would be known as the “red”, and their job would to be sabotage the challenges. Once the class finished the challenges he allowed everyone an opportunity to determine who the “reds” were. As tempers begin to rise, Schreur revealed that there were no traitors and that they had built up their frustration and paranoia based on what someone else had told them. After reading of this lesson I knew I had to do something similar with my classes. It was exactly what I was looking for.

For me to actually use this lesson in my classes I knew I was going to have to adapt it. While I kept the original intent, I made some broad changes. My first big change was to turn this simulation into a weeklong event. While giving my PowerPoint lecture I started giving little hints that “change is coming” and “not everyone in the class is who they say they are.” I wanted to get students thinking about what was going on. This led me to asking them that very question. Once I got them talking, I told them what was up. A revolutionary has been identified in the classroom and it is their job to figure out who it is.

The first person to figure out the mystery would receive extra credit, but if we reached the end of the simulation and the revolutionary was still unknown then the class would face consequences. I told them that the revolutionary would receive extra credit if made it through the simulation anonymously. Just like with Mr. Schreur’s simulation, there was no revolutionary in the classroom. To guess the revolutionary students had to write the person’s name who they thought it was and give me a reason as to why they chose that person.  

For the next week I gave the students clues in my lectures, so those who paid close attention should have been able to pick up on what I was doing. Sometimes I would throw in a curve ball just to increase paranoia. Most of the clues ended up being fairly open to interpretation; for example the first clue I gave them was, “This person was seen acting strangely in class”. At the end of Revolution Day, which is what I had dubbed as the last day of the simulation, I gave the students one last chance to determine the identity of the mystery person. Once I had dashed all of their hopes of saving themselves from the consequence, I asked for the revolutionary to please stand. The class looked around to find that no one stood up. They then directed their frustration towards me, which was exactly what I wanted.  If the students ended this simulation frustrated I felt that it would help validate what I had done. Their frustration shows that they had become invested in the simulation and could identify with historical events not only logically, but emotionally. They were likely a little upset to find out that there was no threat all along made them, but that’s what happened during the Red Scare. I felt that the simulation served its purpose.

As a wrap up activity, I asked my students what they had learned from this experience and how this related back to the Red Scare. This led to a good discussion with the students about not believing everything you hear and they also recognized that sometimes fears can be unfounded. I also tried to get them to realize that just because someone “fits a profile” it does not mean they are guilty. In the end this ended up being a really fun simulation to do with the students, and though I duped them, I feel like they enjoyed being a part of it.