War, Water Bottles, and Winston Churchill—Western Civ in Action
What can a five-gallon bottle teach a student about Greek history? You might be surprised!
First, start with “the fact that a pint is a pound all the world around,” as history teacher Mike Laggart (C’73) reminded the sophomores in his Western Civilization class recently. In other words, a five-gallon bottle of water weighs 40 pounds—pretty heavy, as the students found when they took turns picking up the bottle.
Next, after some quick Internet research and calculations, the students figured out that 40 pounds was the average combined weight of the shield, greaves, and helmets that the ancient Greeks wore when going into battle. In addition to providing protection, the shields were an important element of the “intimidation marches” and phalanx formations the Greeks perfected in order to give the impression of much larger numbers and force than they really had.
A firm believer in experiential learning, Laggart had his students make their own shields and march in phalanx formation one morning. Even with just 14 students banging on their mainly cardboard and wooden shields and marching in step around the Upper School, the thunderous reverberations were impressive! (Turn down the volume on your computer when you watch the accompanying video, below!) By the end of the exercise, the sophomores had a better appreciation for how the Greek city-states, although vastly outnumbered, were eventually able to defeat the Persian Empire. They also learned that many of these ancient war tactics were studied and used by the militaries of Europe and the United States well into modern times.
In the words of statesman and historian Winston Churchill—who, the students learn early on, is one of their teacher’s all-time heroes—“The farther backward you look, the farther forward you are likely to see.” Therefore, while this survey course covers a vast array of historical “events” (from pre-history through the Cold War!), Laggart’s goal is that each student leave his class not only with a solid grasp of important events but also “with the ability to read, write, and evaluate sources like an historian.”
“History is really detective work,” says Laggart, who served as an officer and detective in the Los Angeles Police Department for 25 years. He later taught forensics and civics to college students and has since been teaching high school history for almost four years. “When researching a topic, the historian is searching for the truth,” he comments. “Just like any good criminal investigator, you have to evaluate every source to determine if it has a slant or bias.”
In a world where “spin doctoring” is so commonplace, “It becomes crucial for our students to develop the character and good sense to navigate through the spin with their eye on uncovering the truth,” Laggart concludes.
And he doesn’t shy away from using creative techniques to get his students to do this—including competitive sessions of Devil Duck Jeopardy (thanks to a student’s gift of a little rubber duck with devil horns) and reenactments of the Battle of the Bulge using remote-controlled tanks. The experiential highlight this year will be the honors class weekend trip, along with the juniors, to the World War I Museum in Kansas City, accompanied by Laggart and other Social Studies and English Department faculty.
“I like history,” says one honors student. “Mr. Laggart makes it so much fun—even though he makes us work really hard!”