Scenes from School: It's Beginning to Look a lot like Saturnalia

Inside a Latin class where history, humor, and holiday tradition collide in a celebration of the ancient world.

By Matt Zontine, Academic Dean & English Department Chair

About This Series:  Each month, Wakefield’s Upper School Academic Dean and Middle School Advisory Dean share reflections on the life of the school — moments of discovery, collaboration, and joy that unfold beyond the traditional classroom. We’re pleased to share some of these stories here, offering a glimpse into the spirit of learning that defines Wakefield.

The ancient Roman festival of Saturn in December, which was a period of general merrymaking.

Every December for the past three years, Mrs. Daeschel has been hosting a Saturnalia celebration with her Latin students. This Roman holiday, honoring the God of the Harvest’s release from his shackles, was a six-day party of feasting, decorating, and gift-giving (sound familiar?) that began on the 17th of the month.

Daeschel recognizes that the holiday is a bit strange in that it celebrates a god that is often perceived to be evil––he did eat his children after all. Throughout the year in Rome, a statue of Saturn was bound, but near the Winter solstice, the chains would be removed, symbolizing liberation and the start of a new year. In fact, part of her reasoning for hosting this Roman fete is to point out the “absurdity of the celebration and the releasing of this ambivalent god.”

The Latin classes participated in many of the same activities as their Roman ancestors. The students were provided with dice to create their own games of chance, and they received gifts of a candle and poetry. This year, the students wrote the poems in an intentionally poor manner and shared them with other Latin scholars. Mrs. Daeschel commented that it is a “day of role reversal where the slaves could wear the hats of the freedmen.” Thus, after winning the first dice game, junior Sydney W. became the saturnaliciusprinceps for the Latin IV class, earning a crown, a pile of popcorn, and being granted deejay privileges for the day. 

Although the class I observed was atypical, Roman life plays a big part in Daeschel’s approach to Latin. She notes that the course needs to have a balance of language and culture, as the students “do not want to diagram sentences all day without meaning. You have to have meaning behind it for students to care.”

A typical class threads this needle. Mrs. Daeschel likes to start with grammar “while the students are fresh.” They worked together as a class or sometimes in smaller groups to translate texts. Next, they move on to history in the form of video, slides, or read a primary text in translation. Finally, they may write out a translation on their own or in pairs. Whatever the lesson, any observer walking by her classroom in the library will undoubtedly notice that the students are engaged and involved in the learning process.

In response to the $64,000 Question: Why do you teach Latin?, Daeschel was quick in her reply. She remarked, “In the practical sense, Latin is somewhat close to math. You are solving sentences. Understanding parts of speech, cases, etc. When students start to notice the repetition, they can solve the sentences. You have to look at the whole sentence before you make the words fit in. You have to look at the whole problem before you start.”

Moreover, she commented that “One of my favorite things about Latin is the culture. There are so many hot-button issues in the ancient world that also exist now. It gives a really safe space to talk about things that have a direct analogue to today, without people getting hurt. We get to approach these topics without a lot of baggage.”

Although my understanding of Latin is limited to what I have seen on U.S. currency or legal documents, Mrs. Daeschel certainly has convinced this reporter to support keeping this dead language alive.