Historical Thinking through Classroom Simulation: 1919 Paris Peace Conference

For almost one hundred years, educators have used model deliberative bodies (e.g., Model United Nations) as a pedagogical tool to teach students about the complexities of diplomatic negotiations. We argue that this type of classroom simulation activity may also serve to illustrate specific historical realities and, more broadly, provide a model of student-centered instruction focused on investigation and decision making. Employed in social studies classrooms, this tool has the potential to foster historical thinking and empathy by calling on students to engage in the act of deliberation as experienced by contemporary actors of a particular negotiating body. The lesson activity we outline in this article charges students to wrestle with the multiplicity of complex dilemmas and conflicting claims that characterized the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. Assuming the role of actual delegates, students not only discuss pertinent issues but also deliberate. That is to say, just like the representatives who convened at the meeting, the students will not have the luxury of merely reflecting on and talking about key geopolitical questions. They will have to reach concrete decisions for a world finding itself in a terrifying, yet hopeful, flux.