TELEPHONE MESSAGES - LIKE HISTORY

I can help you understand how history becomes history by playing a game called, Telephone."

Before the advent of recording devices, accuracy in reporting and memorializing events was a haphazard affair. Even today, with all the capacity for accuracy, glitches enter the game. Witnesses standing in different places see the events from the angle of their positions, figuratively and literally. And now I’ll explain the game of telephone. Try playing it with history students for their edification, and their education.

Kids (or adults) sit in a circle. A short message is written on a card and handed to the first child who whispers the message into the ear of the child who is sitting next to him. That child then whispers the message into the ear of the one next to him, and so forth. The last child in the circle then tells the group what message he heard – which is obviously going to be very, very, hilariously different from the message sent. Going back around the circle, each participant tells what he heard. Finally, the original message is read.

Often, the generally accepted versions of historical events are the messages told by the last participants in the circle (or the one who lived to tell the tale), believe it or not. And hopefully, there was no intentional revisionism in the transmissions. Ha! Ha!