The Paideia Institute, a non-profit educational organization “dedicated to promoting the study and appreciation of the classical humanities, with a focus on Latin and Ancient Greek languages and literature,” has announced a new program to make “it easier for underemployed and unemployed PhDs in Classics (as well as related fields where mastery of Latin is a required component) to enter the [American] public secondary education system” as Latin teachers. The Quintilian Society, as they are calling it, plans a number of initiatives including: “making teacher training easily accessible and culturally acceptable in PhD programs; connecting PhD holders with school districts striving to maintain or begin a Latin program; and building a professional and…
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Roleplaying Ancient Philosophy: Using Reacting to the Past in the Classroom
One of the intentions of this blog is to share practices and ideas related to teaching ancient philosophy. I’ll start by sharing my own experience using roleplaying in the classroom. Reacting to the Past is a pedagogical approach in which students engage in a role-playing game that immerses them in a key historical debate relevant to the course. The game I used, The Threshold of Democracy: Athens in 403 B.C., divides students into democrats, oligarchs, and followers of Socrates, along with several unaligned roles. These characters are all debating how to structure Athenian society in the aftermath of the reign of the Thirty. They consider whether to grant amnesty to…
