Cody Stafford Teaches the Progressive Challenge to the Founding
Through the MAHG program, Cody Stafford learned how to help students gain a deep understanding of key historical concepts, even during a fast-paced APUSH course.
Choosing What to Teach
American history is rich and detailed, but time in the classroom is limited. Even if one covered it all, simply 鈥渃overing content doesn鈥檛 really help students learn anything,鈥 says Cody Stafford, a history teacher at Unionville High School in Pennsylvania. Deciding what to emphasize, Stafford asks, 鈥淲hich topics will most help students understand why Americans think the way we do, why our government does things the way it does, and why it鈥檚 structured as it is? For me, the Founding period and the Progressive era are the two ideological giants in the room that students really need to understand.鈥
Unionville, in a western suburb of Philadelphia, ranks highly on measures of school effectiveness. Stafford鈥檚 courses are challenging. In his AP US history class, he uses primary documents daily and spends several weeks teaching the writing skills students need to perform well on the AP exam. He gives particular attention to the Founders鈥 effort to shape a limited republican government and the Progressive effort to expand government鈥檚 role.
鈥淲e spend a lot of time looking at the Declaration, the Constitution and key Federalist papers, as well as a couple of Anti-Federalist papers, which we read all the way through.鈥 This helps students grasp the understanding of government that informs American history through the Civil War. Later, Stafford鈥檚 students read progressive political theory鈥攕uch as the essays of Woodrow Wilson鈥攚hich helps them understand the entire 20th century. 鈥淚f you understand the Progressive Era, you understand FDR and the New Deal, and you understand LBJ and the Great Society. You understand how these American leaders saw the role of government.鈥
How the Progressives Understood Government
As an undergraduate, Stafford concentrated in European history. 鈥淚 had never taken a course in American history that went past the Civil War. I knew nothing about the Progressive Era鈥攗ntil I came to Ashland,鈥 to study in the Master of American History and Government program (MAHG). 鈥淭aking the Progressive Era course really changed the way that I think about US history.鈥
Stafford had taught the Progressive Era as a reform movement arising in response to the unregulated business growth that followed the Civil War. It fit into a pattern of alternating laissez-faire and reformist tendencies in American politics. In MAHG, however, he came to see that the progressives introduced a completely new understanding of the role of government.
鈥淭he founders saw government itself as the only threat to citizens鈥 natural rights. The progressives saw a new threat in business corporations.鈥 Their economic might, and their status as individual persons under the law, gave them power over workers鈥 lives. 鈥淭he only institution that could control big business was government. So they wanted to give government power to regulate those businesses.鈥
The progressives also felt 鈥渁n overwhelming zeal for democracy鈥 that reshaped American politics in the 20th century. Changes in electoral practices that made government more immediately responsive to the popular will would, they felt, restrain government from using its new powers unfairly. 鈥淏ut to the founders, 鈥榙emocracy鈥 was not necessarily a good thing. They created a republic, believing that the people making decisions needed to be in a position to make those decisions鈥濃攅quipped with education, political experience and a reputation for wise decision-making.
Progressives reforms, such as the introduction of referenda and the 17th Amendment鈥檚 revision of the system for electing senators, eventuated in our current system of primary elections. This has encouraged the election of political newcomers, mavericks, and extremists.
鈥淎fter the McGovern-Fraser Commission, if you’re a moderate, you鈥檙e out of luck鈥攜ou’re not going to be running on your party鈥檚 ticket. The polarization we see today is a direct result of the primary system,鈥 Stafford says. 鈥淚 don’t know the answer to that. Do you tell people they don’t get to vote in primaries? Do you go back to the system where party bosses pick the candidates? Once you give democracy to people, you can鈥檛 take it back.鈥
Students Recreate the 1912 Election
Along with a clearer grasp of this discontinuity in Americans鈥 understanding of government鈥檚 role, Stafford also gained a new teaching approach from MAHG. During a course on US history after World War II taught by Professor John Moser, Stafford played a history game called Reacting to the Past (RTTP). In these games, students assume the roles, motives and opinions of key players in a pivotal moment of history. They recreate the event in a structured but open-ended way, sometimes leading to surprising outcomes. Moser鈥檚 post-war history course involved two RTTP games鈥攐ne on the Yalta Conference and the other on the 1968 Democratic Party Convention.
The typical MAHG seminar involves 鈥渉eavy discussion of three hundred pages of primary documents, which I enjoy,鈥 Stafford said. But after a couple of weeks, 鈥測ou can get a little burned out.鈥 He took Moser鈥檚 class expecting a less intense experience. Instead, he found himself deeply engaged, playing the role of Winston Churchill at Yalta. He combed through the reading packet to master the positions of the other players as well as the positions and rhetoric of Churchill. He met with players on his team to devise a strategy that would divide the post-war world on terms favorable to Britain. 鈥淚t was an all-encompassing experience, and I loved it. I knew I wanted to use something like that in my classes.鈥
The right moment to introduce a RTTP game came during the pandemic year of 2020 – 2021, when, after weeks of Zoom classes, Stafford鈥檚 students were weary 鈥渙f watching me on a screen talking at them. I knew that Professor Moser had recently written a game, Progressivism at High Tide: the Election of 1912. So I reached out to him and he most graciously sent me all the materials.鈥 Reviewing them, Stafford found they covered almost every element of the APUSH curriculum pertaining to industrialization and the Progressive response. Stafford鈥檚 students played the game and 鈥渁bsolutely loved it.鈥 He worried students might not retain the lessons the game taught鈥攗ntil summer brought him his students鈥 AP scores. They scored higher on the Progressives than on any other content area on the exam.
How Historical Role-Playing Promotes Learning
This year, Stafford has used two RTTP games: one on the Constitutional Convention; and, again, the game on the 1912 election.
To win each game, a team has to achieve a more favorable outcome than historically occurred. Wilson鈥檚 1912 electoral victory was so sweeping that a team winning the game need not 鈥渨in鈥 the election, but only win significantly more votes than their party did historically. Students play so competitively that the game鈥檚 outcome can be surprising. 鈥淲oodrow Wilson鈥檚 team did not win in a single one of my classes this year,鈥 Stafford said.
Students who play RTTP games gain 鈥渁 very rich, deep historical understanding鈥 of an era by exercising key learning skills, Stafford thinks. 鈥淭hey have to read and interpret primary sources, use them in the speeches they’re giving, and make their speeches persuasive. If you鈥檙e trying to persuade somebody to do something, you need to not only understand your own position; you need to know your opponents鈥 arguments also, so you can anticipate and counter them. The amount of work students put into this is incredible. They don’t even really see it as work鈥攚hich is the way it should be when you鈥檙e learning,鈥 Stafford said.
Historical role-playing allows students to learn in way that seems 鈥渘atural to how we live,鈥 debating issues as they happen in a fictive 鈥渞eal time鈥 instead of analyzing the ideas and motives of historical third parties. Role-playing also frees students of self-consciousness. They can make a questionable point, if it鈥檚 鈥渨hat they really think their character would have said, without it reflecting personally on them. Students I haven鈥檛 heard more than a few words from all year will stand at a podium, giving passionate speeches. It really is a transformative experience.鈥
Overall, Stafford says, 鈥淢AHG was honestly the best professional experience of my life. Through summers in Ashland, I made lifelong friends with teachers who share my passion for US History and government.鈥 During the 鈥榙istanced learning鈥 period of the pandemic, Stafford鈥檚 MAHG friends helped him keep his students focused. 鈥淎 MAHG friend and I met over Zoom and made AP exam review videos together that I still post for my kids today.鈥
John Moser’s game Progressivism at High Tide: the Election of 1912, will be featured at one of our MAHG courses this summer: The Progressive Era, July 17-24. Several seats are still available. Please go to our to learn more.
For more materials on the election of 1912, see our newly-released exhibit “The Presidential Election of 1912“.
