10 toga-clad individuals walked into a room. Their task: argue why they were the best Roman Emperor of all time, presenting to the great Julius Caesar (played by Mr. Jackson Yates, the Latin V/VI teacher).
As Fall term met its halfway point, the students in the Latin V/VI class were confronted with a daunting test: they were each given a Roman Emperor, and they had to explain why they were the best with robust research, effective arguments, and an art component as we had a town-hall style debate, each emperor for themselves.
Mr. Yates, a new teacher at St. Stephen’s, provided some interesting insight into the debate.
“Anyone can memorize for a test, but my goal is to make something fun and exciting for students … something that’s memorable and worthwhile,” he said after the debate, which was the culmination of over a week of independent research.
As we walked into the room on debate day, people started by presenting their art component. The theme for the course this year is propaganda and nationalism in Ancient Rome, so each Emperor had to create a piece of propaganda for themselves. This, according to Mr. Yates, was to get people to be more creative in their projects, and to think about how their Emperor thought about themselves. Tristan McCain, though, took home a gold prize here with a self-portrait as Nero, with Nero’s dying words displayed above. Many other people had thorough and well-rounded art components, all of which demonstrated an immense love of Latin and of the project.
This was only the beginning of the surprises for Mr. Yates, whose expectations were far surpassed by everyone, as competitive spirits, creative outlets, and passion for their emperors allowed people to go wild and really make it their own. Mr. Yates said, “I don’t want to be the teacher who teaches things that people will forget… and I want them to make something they can be proud of. I want people to look forward to learning.”
In the debate itself, there were many memorable moments. Some of the most notable ones were when Trajan (Will Perkins) took a moralistic argument against Caligula, who, according to Trajan’s sources, committed incest with not one, but all 3 of his sisters. Another was when Marcus Aurelius (Edison Leigh) and Antoninus Pius (Eli Yorio), both of whom could not directly attack anyone trying to undermine each other with subtle side comments. Of course, who could forget Nero ‘sleeping’ through Constatine’s (Alex Vokes) speech on the virtues of Christianity. All in all, I think everyone was surprised by the depth and thoroughness of research, the absolute enjoyment (and humor) of the debate itself, and the ingenuity of the project, which forced other people to learn in depth about all of the emperors.
For future projects in the class, Mr. Yates had this to say: “I was surprised by the level of work that people put in, and I am going to keep raising the bar … If another teacher were to try this, and this is advice I would give myself, stick to time limits and make sure there is a structure so that everyone can be involved, but, as a teacher, take a backseat, and trust that they can do it. I, ultimately, was just glad that everyone had a lot of fun embodying their emperors and arguing for which one of them was the best.”
In the end, this was a fun project for students and teacher alike; An ingenious way to make learning fun, and more about the effort and the process than the actual culmination (in terms of content), and a nice way to make Latin fun and competitive.
Fast Facts: Mr. Yates
Mr. Yates is one of the new Latin teachers here at St. Stephen’s, teaching Middle School Latin and Upper School Latin ⅚. He also serves as a dorm parent in Wycliff this year.
If you could be one leader from ancient Rome, who would you be?
I would want to humbly go up the cursus honorem (ladder of honors), because I’m just not flashy enough to be a king or emperor. Of the consuls, I would probably choose Marius, before Sulla.
Do you have a favorite emperor?
As Classicists, we typically categorize emperors as either good (Augustus, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, Antoninus Pius, etc.), bad (Caracalla [featured in the new Gladiator movie], Domitian, Nero, Caligula), or niche (like Aurelian), and I was glad to see a lot of variety. Personally, I won’t say.