Pimping the Pantheon

My vestigial teacher calendar notified me that it's National Mythology Exam season, so I though I'd re-share my favorite study too. I present, "Pimping the Pantheon." Enjoy! 

The National Mythology Exam is coming up in two weeks, and my Latin classes are knee-deep in Roman and Greek gods. We've been reviewing the stories, symbols, family trees, and domains, so today, it was time to test the kids to see how much they have learned.

I rolled my laptop up to the front of the room and projected this painting up on the white board:

This is the The Gods of Olympus, by Guilio Romano (1499-1546), a trompe l'oiel ceiling from the Sala dei Giganti that represents the gods and other immortals of Olympus. I blew the painting up so it covered most of the whiteboard, handed each one of the kids a marker, and told them to get to it: Identify all the gods.

I don't know what it is about markers and whiteboards, but my students go a little crazy. They circled and labeled and argued and voted...and watching them...it was the most fun I've had all week.

One of my goals is to get the students to the point where they can identify the gods by their symbols - trident, hat, armor, owl, whatever. And today, they did really well. The seventh grade found (going counter-clockwise from Zeus at 6:00 with his thunderbolts that look like wheat sheaves): Artemis, Demeter, Heracles, Dionysus, Hermes, Hephaestus, Apollo, Pan, Athena, (they missed Hestia; she's too ambiguous to identify here),  Persephone, Poseidon, Cronos, Rhea, Hades, Ares, Eros, and Aphrodite.

I then put up Saturn, by Goya.

I knew they would know this one, and they did. Some had learned about Goya in their art history class (thank you Crossroads, for having an art history class). Here, Saturn, or Cronos, is eating up his children so they can't overthrow him just as he overthrew his father. Too bad he missed one; that will come back to bite him in the ass.

Next, I put up a more challenging scene. Before moving on to this one, I reminded them of the various ways to "read" a painting - left to right if it's telling a story, or, in the case of this painting, which tells two stories, from the center out in opposing directions. 

Starting from the center, you have the first man, as modeled by Promethius, who is on the right talking to the lady with the red sash. I had given them the clue that this was a painting to be divided in two, so they quickly identified Promethius' brother, Epimethius, on the left. Back to Promethius. He's being counseled by Athena, who passes her wisdom (remember that later on when I point out an owl in another painting) on to Promethius, who then shares it with mankind. If you look up to the right, you can see Athena flying off with Promethius in the next phase of the story, and he's clutching the fire that he's acquired from Helios (see that vague shape of a chariot with horses in the cloud on the right?) hidden in a fennel stalk. That ember in a fennel stalk is the precursor of the olympic torch, by the way. I love that tidbit. Down in the right corner is mankind suffering from the torments that Pandora let loose out of her jar (see the little jar over to the left of the statue, on the ground in front of the bench?). Back over to the left. Epimethius is shaping a man out of clay in to match the model Promethius made, and there's mankind suffering again in the left corner. Oh, and that monkey guy in the tree? That's Epimethius after Zeus got mad and punished Promethius and Epimethius. I'd take the monkey transformation of Epimethius any day of the week over Promethius' punishment: eternity (well, it would have been, but he got rescued) chained to a rock while eagles (Zeus' bird) eats his liver out every day. Yeah, I have dibs on the prehensile tail.

Next, an easy one:

Yep, that's Hades taking Persephone off to the underworld in his chariot. There are some fun clues in this one, including his bident under his foot and a shadowy Cerberus in the chariot and that nymph trying to stop the chariot, but the kids didn't need it. I also mentioned that while this painting is called The Rape of Persephone, it's really more of the "seizing" of Persephone, which is appropriate, as "rapere" in Latin, which is the root of "rape" is actually to seize. 

Another hard one. I told them to be silent, look carefully, and put the pieces of the puzzle together. 

 Hints: look at what people are holding and remember that the most important people are in the center and in the foreground. The guy with the crown - that's a bident he's holding. The guy on the right has a lyre, and note the wings on the guy next to the woman. And those three biddies on the left in the front? The one of on the right has a spindle with thread in her hand.

Yep, it's the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Hades, the guy with the wings, has led Eurydice down to the underworld after her death (by snake, nasty stuff), and Orpheus has descended with his lyre to sing for Hades and his wife Persephone in order to beg to get his love Eurydice back. Persephone talks Hades into it. The Fates are there on the left because they are the ones who determine human life and would have something to say about allowing Eurydice to thwart death. Clotho ("the spinner") spins the thread of human life, Lachesis ("the drawer of lots") measures it out, and Atropos ("the inevitable") cuts the thread. Even Zeus could not go against these ladies, despite the fact that he often wanted to. Back to the story. Orpheus was allowed to take Eurydice back up to the world, but he had to NOT LOOK BACK, which of course, he does, and she disappears. When the gods tell you to do something, do it. That's the moral of that story.

Another story:

This one goes left to right. The quality isn't great, so I'll just describe it. This is a panel on a wedding chest, so it's the love story (not the sad bits) of Cupid and Psyche. On the left, Psyche is born and her two sisters hold her lovingly. Once humans start worshipping her more than Venus (see the suitors and the woman in white?), it's bad news for her and her parents, so they go to the temple of Apollo (background) and they are told to leave her on a hilltop (center) and she flies through the air and lands on the ground (follow the flying lady in white) where invisible servants take her to Cupid's palace, where she's told not to peek at her husband WHICH SHE DOES and all hell breaks loose. Do people not listen?? That's him, flying away on the far right. There's a happy ending, but not in this painting. On a wedding chest. Go figure.

Another easy one:

Hunter with arrows and dog stumbles upon bathing nymphs....one of the ladies has a moon on her head...yeah, that's the story of Artemis and Actaeon. Poor bastard came upon Artemis and her nymphs bathing in her secret grotto. Big no-no. She couldn't reach her bow to shoot him (her weapon of choice), so she splashes the spring water on him and he sprouts antlers, turns into a stag, and his dogs tear him to bits. Doh.

That's by Titian, incidentally.

Here's a more obscure story:

Check out the fingers. Yep - those are branches. Eros (hiding under the woman's dress because he knows he's in BIG trouble for starting this mess) made Apollo fall in love with Daphne, a nymph. You can tell that's Apollo because of his quiver and golden bow (and glowy head with a laurel wreath). Daphne was so horrified by Apollo that she ran away, shrieking for her father to help her out, and he rose out of the river (he was a river god) and turned her into a laurel tree. Now, I am always dubious when I teach this myth - how is being a tree better than being seduced by Apollo? As a parent, I give Peneus a break; he was protecting his children the best way he knew how.

Another story, left to right:

The kids nailed this one right away because of the labyrinth on the right, but the story starts on the far left with Ariadne meeting Theseus (with her sister, Phaedra). Moving to the right, Theseus takes her lovely string to the maze, goes in, kills the Minotaur, gets out, takes Ariadne away (the three figures walking back toward the center of the painting), and takes off for Naxos, where he sadly abandons Ariadne and she married Dionysus. There's also a ship with black sails in the background - Theseus had promised his father Aegeus that he would return with white sails if he survived the Minotaur, but Theseus got so excited he forgot to change the sails. His father thought Theseus had died, and he threw himself into the sea...which is why that sea is called the Agean Sea. Sweet story. 

On to one of my favorites...

Yeah. She's naked. Get over it. That's Leda. You can tell because she's having a moment with a swan - Zeus, actually - and there are babies coming out of eggs. Zeus wanted Leda, so he went to her in the form of a swan, she got pregnant and had egg-babies, two of which were Castor and Pollux. They are often portrayed with little skull cap hats to represent fragments of the eggs on their head. I know this because I looked it up last week. You never know when these sort of facts will come in handy.  

This next one's a classic, for so many reasons.

I thought this one would be the easiest myth to identify, but it took the kids a while. Maybe it was because the women are naked, maybe it was because they are, "a little chubby," as one girl put it, but either way, I had to really lead the younger kids through this one. I point them to the guy on the right. What do you notice? Shepherd staff, sheep, sheepdog. Sitting on Mt. Ida. Right. Paris. And the other guy? Winged cap, staff in his left hand - a caduceus, to be precise - and what is that thing in the shepherd's hand? Ah. An apple. I suppose it would have been an easier ID if the apple had said "To the Fairest" on it, but once you put the whole picture together, the story is clear. Three women. One with a peacock, one with an owl and a shield bearing the face of Medusa, and the one in the center stepping forward as if she's been selected (because she's that vain). Note the figure in the sky. That's Eris, companion to Ares, who just loves to stir things up. She's the goddess of strife, and she's the one who instigated this whole apple to the fairest scenario. This is The Judgment of Paris. And those chubby ladies? I call them Rubenesque, which is handy, as this painting is by Rubens. 

When we finished going over each painting, they begged for more, so I gave in and launched iPhoto on my computer. I found my album of photos from the Met's Greek and Roman collection, photos I had not really planned to use yet. I had a grand plan for them; last time I was there, I spent an hour taking photographs of gods and goddesses that might be identifiable by their stance, symbols, tools, clothing, and context, and they were supposed to get organized into a fancy-schmancy PowerPoint presentation. 

Oh well, whatever. I used to be OCD enough to care about this disorganization, but now...when my students plead for more, I can hardly complain about the frayed edges.

There are days I come home exhausted, ready to collapse on the couch, and then there are days like today. Days that propel me into the next day, and the next. 

And the next, which marks the start of February vacation. I plan to thank the gods by making an offering of the choices cuts of fat and meat in my backyard. 

But today? Today rocked. 

Deus Ex Machina

One of the best parts of teaching is that the personality of each new day depends on the whims, hormones, collective night's sleep, and mood of the students. Add to that the vagaries of weather, seasons, and the particular day's proximity to dances, vacations, holidays, tests, and birthdays, life as a teacher can get pretty darn unpredictable.

I thought I'd share one day - a normal day - in order to prove my point. Today was a pretty average day, with its highs, which I can share, and its unsettling and sad lows, which I can't. The full portrait, with all its confidential warts, is much more honest, if a lot less aesthetically appealing. And therein lies the rub. Teachers can't talk about the warts, and the lovely parts are so very lovely.

It's mud season in New Hampshire, and many of the dirt roads our students travel each morning are either impassable or highly treacherous. The temperature has been unusually warm, so the road crews can't even count on early morning freezes to firm up the ground they are supposed to level out. The school busses can't drive on the dirt roads, so everyone's morning commute is out of whack.

With this unseasonably warm weather comes blue skies, hot classrooms, open windows, the beginning of "Can we have class outside?" season and spring fever. The eighth grade is particularly susceptible to this fever, as they are heading off to high school next year, and for most of them, they are just so done, done, done with middle school. We are usually spared from their disdain and overt rejection until late April, but this beautiful weather promises to bring on early cases.

I watch my younger son make the bus with mere seconds to spare, tell my older son to be careful on his bike, jump in my car for the three-mile commute to school, and the day begins.

Homeroom: I share early morning organizational and attendance duties with a co-worker. Today, I had the usual tardies and exploding lockers to deal with. I teach first period, so I really need the prep time to focus and prepare my notes, but thanks to my ancillary role as organizational mentor, today's prep time is not to be.

Latin 7: We finally got to move out of the present tense and into the imperfect tense. The imperfect is characterized by the "ba" ending, so we call it the tense of the imperfect sheep. You know, the ones with burrs and mats in their fleece. As long as there's a "ba," we're good, both in the active and passive voice. I'm all about the schtick here, as the imperfect tense (ongoing actions in the past) isn't quite as cut-and-dry as the perfect tense (completed actions in the past), and they need a little schtick to keep things light. So sheep it is.

My prep period, now known as Return to Algebra I: My return to math is beginning to pay off; we are learning about factoring binominals, and I am often manage to complete my homework without gouging my eyes out with a pencil. This is real progress. This is also a post for another day. Thank you to my math-teacher readers, by the way. Your advice in email and comment forms have been most helpful, particularly where those pesky negative integers were concerned.

Latin 8: We are preparing for next week's Medusa Mythology Examination. The entire middle school takes the National Mythology Exam, but only the eighth graders take this much more difficult test. The students did a divide-and-conquer maneuver on the weighty and detailed Medusa syllabus, and each student researched their topics. They each created an outline and quiz, and present their material to the class in turn. This year's theme is "Monsters and Malicious Mortals," so the topics range from Typhon and Echidna's hideous brood to the Labors of Hercules, Perseus, Jason, and Medusa's lovely family. Did you know that her sisters, the Graiai, shared one eye and one tooth? Talk about sibling rivalry.

Latin 6: It's time for the sixth grade to show me that they really know the endings for the first and second declensions, so it's crunch time. I'd recount the play-by-play on the review of a, ae, ae, am, ā, a, ae, ārum, īs, ās, īs, ae, but that's about as exciting as it gets. Don't get me wrong, we have a lot of fun together, what with the mythology, togas, and our recent translation of The Three Little Pigs, but today was simply about the endings. Sometimes drilling endings is just, well, drilling endings. They really can't translate well if those endings are not right there on the tip of their tongue, so a-drilling we will go until they know the first couple of declensions.

English 7: It's Tuesday, so it's independent reading day. Monday is grammar day, Thursday is vocabulary day, and Friday is for spelling. It took me a while to submit to a regular schedule, but the students find it predictable, and it helps them remember what books to bring to class. As the students hand in their independent reading forms, I see the title of Sanjay Gupta's new novel, Monday Mornings on a particularly literature-ravenous student's list. I had thought about getting my husband that book, so I ask him, "Michael [not his real name], how was Monday Mornings? He replies with a shrug, "It was all right. It started out pretty good, but then it got all God out of the machine at the end." I squinted at him for a moment before I realized what he meant. "You mean deus ex machina? You mean like from Horace?" "Yeah - that. God out of the machine. It was like the author didn't know how to end the book so he just made up some crazy plot stuff to end it." I was beside myself with excitement. I taught this class deus ex machina back in January. The term had come up in the eighth grade when we got to the end of A Tale of Two Cities, and as I teach the same cultural literacy item in both grades, I shared it in the seventh as well. This kid not only remembered the term, he applied it in its English equivalent English to an independent reading book. Today rocks. If nothing else goes well, today rocks.

English 8: Two of my students have been begging me to let them do a Purim song and presentation for the class as the cultural literacy item, so I agreed. They dressed up - one as Queen Esther and one as England (yes, the country) - to present the history of Purim, explain the holiday's traditions, and they performed a song for the class.

Their proud parents gave me permission to include a picture.

They received a huge round of applause from their classmates.

When I'd finished cultural literacy (the poem "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the parts about the albatross around the Mariner's neck and the quote "Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink"), and the vocabulary word of the day (slough: the "slew" form and the "sluff" form, and the fun fact that the "sluff" form, as in, "snakes slough off their skins," comes from a Middle English word that actually means "the skin of a snake") we got to the real lesson of the day.

For the past five years or so, the middle school students have been begging me to give up one day during the poetry unit and dedicate it to the writing of poetry. This year, I relented, but in order to up the ante, I asked them to create an English or Italian sonnet, a villanelle, or (I said, chuckling,) a sestina. I did not really expect to get any finished poems at the end of class - in fact, I said I would not collect the poems at all. The point of the lesson was for them to get inside the form and poke around a bit. Test the fences. Kick the tires. Mix up some metaphors and construct some rhymes, no matter how slant.

Did I mention the unseasonably beautiful weather?

I allowed the eighth graders to work outside. Some handled it well, some could not focus, and I received exactly one finished poem at the end of class. Frankly, that was one more than I expected, and everyone else made some interesting progress, so that was fine. But lesson learned. I kept the seventh grade in and received eight finished poems after 40 minutes of work time. Of the eight, four were villanelle.

I won't go into a definition of the villanelle here, as Poets.org does a wonderful job here. If you don't make the jump, trust me. It's a complex and incredibly challenging poetical form. They have loved the villanelle we have read in class, but to write one, well, that's a real accomplishment.

The end of the day is - I'm so sorry, I'm tired of this expression too, but it's the only one that truly fits - like herding cats. I let my older students out of class, and then I help the youngest students re-do what they un-did that morning. The youngest students are still getting used to keeping track of the many books and folders and assignment sheets and assorted details of middle school life, that packing up is as Sisyphean a task as the morning's unpacking. Except, instead of large boulders, we roll around putrid lunch bags, orhpaned copies of Julius Caesar, and crumpled homework assignments.

When the door slams shut behind the last student, the silence is truly lovely. For the first hour, anyway. When I notice that that the middle school is too quiet without the kids, I pack up my own backpack and head home to the work of grading and planning. For whatever tomorrow might bring.