During this past Electives Week, Kate and I were lucky enough to take eleven of our students on our very own Oli Odyssey to Greece! As someone who teaches ancient Greek history and literature, it was an incredible experience to take students to Greece and make the myths and stories come alive. I loved watching students’ faces as we stood where Agamemnon stood on the Bronze Age hillfort of Mycenae and looked to where Troy lay in the distance, seeing students run in the original Olympic Stadium at Olympia, and clapping right along with them at the Epidaurus Theater, where Greek tragedies and comedies were performed thousands of years ago. These are the experiences that make history real. Teaching history is, of course, a passion of mine, but teaching it in the classroom does not compare to having students experience it for themselves. This trip highlighted for me exactly why it is so important to take students out of their comfort zone and show them the wider world.

The Bronze Age hillfort at Mycenae, AKA the wider world:

Travel is all about expecting the unexpected. It teaches us all to be resilient and live in the moment, because you never know what is around the corner. We sure didn’t anticipate the wind at the Temple of Poseidon, but we leaned into it and had a blast!

We did not expect to fall in love with so many cats and dogs in Greece either. Here is one of the dogs that greeted us at the Epidaurus Theater.

Oh, I guess you would want to see the theater too. If you zoom in, you can see students Katherine and Asher at the bottom center.

Sure, I can have students read ancient Greek plays, and Kate can explain how sound waves travel in a theater, but getting to walk into an ancient theater that can hold 15,000 people and clap to see how the acoustics work for themselves? Nothing compares to that. Our students will hold onto that memory forever.

I said dogs and cats earlier, so now I have to show a cat. Here is Hailey befriending a cat named “Noise” outside our hotel in Delphi.

Oh right, here is the Delphi sanctuary complex, the reason we visited.

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This is the site where people from all over Greece flocked to hear the prophecies of the oracle of Apollo. Everyone heeded these predictions—kings would even consult the oracle before heading into battle. This huge complex had a temple dedicated to Apollo, a theater, a stadium, and more. Delphi was vitally important in the ancient world, but if students only experienced it in a book, they wouldn’t understand it in the same way as they did after hiking to the top of the complex and looking down at this view:

And now the island of Hydra. Did you know that cars are not permitted on the island, so donkeys and mules are used to transport goods around the island instead?

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And maybe our beach day was a bit colder than we bargained for, but students learned to persevere and adapt. If we hadn’t stayed, we wouldn’t have learned all about the gelatinous plankton that washed up on shore.

These are just a few snapshots of what made our trip so special. The students unlocked new parts of themselves that they were only able to access by going somewhere new and unexpected. As our school plans for next year, we are hoping to offer a different travel opportunity during each Electives Week. In the fall, Jorge and Kate are planning a trip to Mexico, where students will learn how to shop, cook, and explore—all in Spanish. In the winter, Kenzie and Nico are going to shred the slopes on their third consecutive ski trip. In the spring, Joshua and I would love to take students to Ireland on an agriculture and history trip, where students will work on farms and tour historic sites along the way.

Adventure calls—will you say yes?

– Written by Julie Polcrack, Dean of Academics & Humanities Teacher