Christy Bening works to bring a dead language to life in her classroom at the Columbus Academy. As she helps her students prepare for a Latin test, she connects Roman mythology to Harry Potter.
“Salazar Slytherin and all those guys are based on Sisyphus,” she said, standing beside her classroom’s walls graffitied with Latin phrases. “Voldemort, why? Because he wants to cheat death.”
While they review, the class discusses Hercules and a Netflix show modeled after Greek mythology. These pop culture connections get students excited to learn about the Trojan War, Bening said. She wants to cultivate that enthusiasm, so that some students continue studying Latin in college…