I personally believe that role playing is a legitimate way to learn important information. Like every other teaching method it does have both positives and negatives.
I think that having the students participate in a role playing activity rather than just listening to a lecture definitely has advantages. I personally feel like students will more likely remember the information they learned during a role playing activity than a lecture. One reason is because when doing something like a debate which involves role playing it makes the students pay more attention and are more alert so they can counter-argue there opponents points. They often come prepared with facts, because generally I feel like they get really into the debate and want to win the argument. Also if done correctly I think students can have fun with role playing activities, and will take in more from the activity than just sitting bored in your desk. However, there are as well negatives to role playing.
One of the biggest concerns I have about role playing, is that students tend to get way to in to it. I like when they have passion and there is nothing wrong with wanting to win the debate if that is what you are having, but I feel like sometimes they will tend to agree with whatever point you give them. They get so caught up with defending there assigned point of view they tend to support it outside of the debate as well. It's harder to listen and really consider another persons opinion when all you think about how are you going to argue it. Plus there are some students who are not comfortable with role play and would rather just sit and listen. In role playing I feel like it is sometimes hard to tell what the main point is, and to get all the notes, there could be missing information. However in a lecture, the teacher can point out what he or she really wants you to learn, and make sure no vital points are missing. There are some things you can do in a lecture, that you can't in role play, and vice versa.
We just did a role playing activity in class the other day, where we were assigned either for or against No Child Left Behind. I think that it was very important that we got previous information about No Child Left Behind, because we had time to learn about it and do some research either supporting or against it. I believe that because we got previous information our debate was a lot more successful. I think is a great idea if teachers are looking into an activity like ours to give the students a little background information. If you give them some time to prepare the results of the activity are going to be a lot better.
During our activity I really took note of the emotions of all the students involved. They were both positive and negative. Some student were actually having fun, they really got into the debate and channelized their characters. However other student were just plane frustrated and angry. They were mad when the did not get a chance to speak, they were upset when opposing teams shot down there ideas. Sometimes when the students get really into it, they tend to be sensitive and take a attack of there role very personally.
Lastly, I was asked to reflect upon our role playing activity and answer whether or not I believe that we tend to pay more attention to high student achieving parents and more influential people in our schools, and my answer would have to be yes. I do not agree with it, but that is exactly why they are called influential people, because they have to power to influence or schools. I do not necessarily believe that it is far, but often times we think that a high achieving student is a reflecting of a high achieving parent so we tend to be more open to listen to the parents. However there are some schools, where the little guy's opinion does matter, but I think most of the times the once with high influence are the only opinions heard and therefore listened to.
