Today, I saw a meme on Instagram that pictured a group of tiny students. They were sitting on a classroom floor in front of an interactive board. One little boy was standing up clicking a button on the screen. The text at the top of the picture said, "It's May. Teach yourself!" I admit to laughing because I understand that bone-tiredness that all teachers get as we spend these last few days of school trying to keep our sanity in rooms full of teenagers who are just as "done" as we are. Indeed, we are "worn down" like some old Roman leather shoes...
But I have a few things I want to wrap up before I walk off into the sunset:
THE ROMAN SHOE PROJECT: We finished out the year by wear-testing our shoes on different surfaces (concrete and tile) and in different conditions (wet and dry). We found that the laces of our shoes need to be really strong to withstand the wear of regular tightening and putting on/taking off. We only wore our shoes for approximately 5 hours. In just that time, some of them were falling off of feet. The bottoms of the soles got very rough with just a little wear. During our hydraulics unit that ended the year, we got our shoes a little wet as we constructed and tested aqueducts and shadufs. Wetting the leather made it stiffer. Overall, we predicted that our shoes might last a few months in all with constant wear. No wonder there were so many SUTORES (shoemakers) on sight in ancient cities and forts - Romans must have gone through a LOT of shoes.
The shoes will now go home with their makers. Some plan to hang them on their bedroom walls as mementos of the year, others are excited to show their parents, and some will be leaving them with me to serve as shoe examples for future classes.
HANDS-ON HISTORY: Now in the middle of my two-year Grosvenor Teacher Fellowship with National Geographic and Lindblad Expeditions, I've met so many amazing teachers who do super cool stuff OUTSIDE. My own experiences working on large outdoor projects with my students (like the Penelope Project and the Roman Road Project) inspired me to develop a class that meets and works outdoors entirely. Since I want the students to explore ancient cultures of Louisiana and other places in addition to the classical world, I decided to call it "Hands-On History: Wisdom of the Ancients." In this class, we'll focus on place-based learning, partnering with the Indigenous tribes of Louisiana, the Louisiana Division of Archaeology, and the newly-built South Branch of the East Baton Rouge Parish Library down the street from our school. We'll be building a school garden and composting area and exploring an oral history project about a sheep farm that inhabited the land where the library is located, among many other things. We will continue to explore archaeology and the artifacts that have stories to tell about the people who made them, used them, and owned them, whose voices have long ago faded away. I'm hoping to write a lot about our projects and all the new things I learn as I prepare.
