"Burn! Burn! Kill, kill, kill!" so the Elms chanted on a recent morning as we ended our reading of Julius Caesar. Once again, I was glad that a school tour wasn't wandering by. Everyone in the class read through modified versions of Plautus's The Ghost and Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. The Ghost, is billed as a "mythological burlesque" and is the Roman version of a screwball comedy. Elizabeth has done a great job modifying it for the Elms and they've loved the non-sensical humor of it. Our version of Julius Caesar ends about midway through the third act, retaining most of the famous lines and cutting a lot of the political intrigues (which are not all that intriguing to most elementary audiences). We really had no intention of staging both plays. Perhaps we should have known better. There is a huge amount of energy around performing and, when we asked for volunteers who were willing to memorize parts and do some extra work to put on the play at our culminating event, everyone signed up. So two plays it is.
It's that kind of enthusiasm which carries a project like this into learning I could not predict at the outset. I walked into lunch a few days ago to find a dinner party in progress. Togas had been donned, lounges constructed and slaves summoned. I picked up a note addressed to "Pompey" the other day -- characters were writing back and forth to each other about the rights of the plebians. Our gym time has turned into gladiator training with spirited games of
Trigon and Pila. It's only a matter of time before someone brings in chickens for our
augur.
I do begin with objectives. In this case we wanted all children to understand or begin to understand these things:
- There
are a wide variety of human experiences – the “historical perspective” is
a construction. Sometimes you
have to search harder in the records to find it.
- Individuals see events in very different ways.
- “Never
Monkey with the Middle Class” (Williamson's (Elizabeths middle school social studies teacher's) first law)
- Life
circumstance affects one’s perspective.
- Political
systems change over time.
- Technology
enables societies to be stable and extend
- What
constitutes culture – buildings, art, clothing, food, etc.
We are learning these things in the context of Ancient Rome. Patricians, plebians, liberti, the republican system of government, the construction of roads, arches, aqueducts, religious beliefs, slavery, the baths, theater, markets, food, the military, chariot racing, the Punic wars, the rise of Caesar, the Empire, trade, and the eventual collapse of the Empire are the details which will bring these objectives to life. While I know that some of what the students learn will stay with them for many years (garum anyone?), those factual details are not nearly as important as the deeper understanding about the process of history making, governmental development, and economic forces. After all, for these children, facts will only be a mouse click away. Understanding will be far more elusive.
Comments