November 8th

I had been planning for the parents of my students to come in on my last day in the classroom as a way to celebrate our own version of Saturnalia. One can see the reversal of roles in the fact that the students would be the ones teaching their parents, while I stood back, nervous and excited. However, what would they be doing? Obviously, theater had to be a key component. 

After what I had planned to be a brief introduction to ancient theater, I then tasked them to make theater masks for their characters in the plays we’d be performing. Almost all of the students were beyond excited for the prospect of getting to perform. This wasn’t shocking, as after their time in the courtroom, I figured that most of them would love the chance to perform yet again. For the timid students, we compromised on their smaller parts, as well as give the emcee role to the most nervous. 

I told them that, while they were allowed to make their masks look however they liked, that they should be sure that the audience would be able to tell their rough features from the back. Playing an old man? Give your mask some stern browns and a beard. Playing a nymph? Give your character leaf-like hair. 

I figured they would just use their own imaginations to create their masks. When I was younger, I always imagined what the Greek gods looked like based on people I knew. Of course, by this point, I shouldn’t have been imagining they’d take the easy way out. 

“Could I get out my computer?” A few students approached me all at once to ask the question, much like how me and my brother would approach our parents together to try to convince them to give us what we wanted. 

“Why do you need it?” I replied.

“We want to do research.”

“On what?”

“Our characters!” One threw his hands up as if I was being ridiculous for even asking.

“Yeah! I don’t know what an Athenian citizen looks like!” Another said. 

“Does Zeus have a crown?” A third asked. “I know you said that there weren’t kings anymore ‘cause of democracy, but he’s the leader of all of the gods!”

Impressed by the thorough nature of their inquiries, as well as a twinge of embarrassment that I hadn’t managed to answer those questions for them yet, I told them: absolutely yes! As long as they were using appropriate sources, I would love to see what their research yielded. 

In between the next few days of lessons, they were allowed time to continue with their projects. 

“Well, I think that Hephaestus would have to be strong, right? To carry all his tools and make all of those inventions? So I made my mask look like my dad, because he’s strong and smart!” This was reported to me by Mrs. Lawson, with the accompanying picture:

Then I received another text, with another explanation: “I know that Artmeis isn’t the goddess of beauty, but in some of the myths I was reading at home, people still thought she was really pretty. So I thought that she should have some blush on!” 

Already impressed, this continued on for every single student, each one wanting to explain to me the choices that they’d made for their mask. I was fascinated by their choices. They weren’t just basing them off of pictures that they’d found on the internet, but they wanted to make sure that I understood that they had thought about the characters very deeply. And, when the characters weren’t named mythological figures, they still managed to put some deep thought into who they were depicting and why. 

Students playing citizens wanted to represent themselves in the faces of the characters they were playing, but it didn’t stop there. They labored over props, costumes, and intricate backdrops. When I offered to bring in props for them, they objected unanimously. They wanted to do more research into the subjects they were portraying, actively acting to collect notes on what ancient clothing looked like, what weapons were used, and what would be depicted on the average soldier’s shield. 

And with this, they really didn’t need me anymore. The spark was lit. They were now able to facilitate their own learning through the sheer power of their own excitement to succeed.