Six Athenian Classes That Have Changed the Way I Think
On the seventh day of the Athenian Wilderness Experience (AWE), I became extremely upset. I had heard so much about the life-changing power of AWE, but I didn’t seem to be experiencing any epiphanies. My whole body hurt, and I wanted more than anything to go home.
In the following days and weeks, I continued to decry the false transformation that was promised by AWE, but after a month or two, my perspective on the trip started to change. I realized how much more I appreciated the people in my life, and how much more passionate I was about music, learning, and thinking. The trip forced me to rethink my daily routine and really consider what I wanted to do with my life.
Much like a child who doesn’t notice their growth until their sleeves are an inch too short, we often fail to appreciate slow development in the moment, only noticing the lingering effects of change after it appears in the rearview mirror. Nowhere is this truer than in Athenian’s classes. In promotional materials, Athenian portrays their classes as transformational, but I’m sure no sane junior would call their Monday A-period class “transformative.” More often, students complain about the stress of grades, the intensity of the workload, and how tired they are. While those issues are worth discussing, they often obscure the genuinely powerful ideas gained from these classes.
Looking back on my four years at Athenian, I now realize how much my way of thinking has changed for the better, thanks to many incredible teachers. So in the spirit of the recent course selection, I’ve compiled a non-exhaustive list of classes that have changed the way I think.
Sawyer Thompson — Advanced Computer Science (formerly AP Computer Science)
Often it can feel like the work done in school isn’t novel. However, in AP Computer Science, one is left with the skills to solve distinctly new and personal problems. The curriculum is both immediately useful and expansive enough to give one a taste of the more advanced aspects of computer science, all while incorporating many chances for personal expression in projects. More important than any skill I learned in AP Computer Science was the problem-solving philosophy that comes with studying computer science. One leaves the class with the impression that nearly any problem can be solved if one is meticulously logical; I learned to divide problems into smaller and smaller chunks until I was left with a simple yes or no answer.
Rostislav Smirnov — Calculus Honors (formerly Calculus AB)
Calculus is vaguely philosophical. It centers on the idea of taking a simple, obvious concept and asking, “What if we took that to its logical extreme?” For instance, to find the area under a graph’s curve, one first approximates using rectangles. By observing the pattern as the number of rectangles increases, one can calculate the exact area using an infinite number of rectangles. It teaches one to see math completely differently—to take impossible problems and find the simple building blocks that make them up. Infinity becomes a tool, rather than a hindrance, and it’s a concept so powerful that it seeps into one’s everyday way of thinking. For instance, while trying to craft a complicated essay, I knew to break the question into its simplest points and organize them until they formed an entire argument, much as in calculus one assembles tiny rectangles into the area of a curve. Though math can seem removed from other classes, the process of breaking a question into its most minuscule parts is imminently applicable. In philosophy, literature, and engineering classes, which all involve large problems that cannot be solved by only looking at the primary question, this problem-solving strategy is necessary.
Kristina Merschat — Spanish III Honors and Spanish IV Honors
Despite generally having a rigorous curriculum, few classes at Athenian force students to work as hard as Spanish III and IV honors do. Though initially a bit terrifying, they truly have the potential to reveal how much one is capable of learning. Across a mere two years, the classes cover nearly all critical Spanish grammar, and along the way, students learn how to study and retain information. The first semester of Spanish IV honors ends with a test covering all fifteen tenses, eleven of which were covered in these classes—a testament to the comprehensiveness of these classes. When I finished IV honors, I could understand Spanish music which had previously been indecipherable, and figure out the meaning of most written Spanish. This class showed me that I could learn anything if I put my mind to it—a concept that is easy to understand in theory, but often not experienced. In the same way that AWE teaches how much more one is capable of physically and mentally than one previously thought, I left these classes thinking “There is more [Spanish] in me than I know.”
Jon Atkinson — Comedy
Once, while introducing an essay assignment, Jon took his notebook and slammed it on his desk. As I remember it, he yelled “I just want you guys to give a damn about what you do!” Jon’s central message—to give a damn—was one of the most important lessons I’ve ever received. He emphasized writing about what we care about and doing assignments not for the sake of a grade but for the genuine thrill of analyzing a text. I’ve learned to love writing essays because I can discover new meanings that no one has ever considered before. In his class, I moved away from the safety of the same generic topics—that society constrains the individual and that sexism and racism are bad—and tried new and wild concepts. Writing became impactful and rewarding, but most importantly, it finally became fun.
Lea Hartog — Justice For All
This class broke my heart, in the best way possible. It’s more harrowing than any literature class because it's imminent and tangible. The class covers the criminal justice system from various angles, exposing the many inequalities and inconsistencies within the system. It discusses the world as it is, without thinking about the philosophy of justice. In fact, it almost makes philosophical questions seem silly—it makes one ask, “Who cares whether people can lose the right to live if innocent people are, right now, on death row?” It’s a vital reminder to not get lost in theory, and remember our core humanity, without worrying about how we can prove that such a core humanity exists.
Gabe Del Real — The Divine Comedy
Unlike Justice for All, which is focused on the way justice exists now, in this class we questioned the nature of Justice. Beyond that, we talked about the philosophical necessity of God (given certain intuitive presuppositions), the nature of good, and what it means to know. It opened my eyes to the rich philosophical questions lying just beneath our everyday experiences and taught me how to search for answers. Not only did this class change the way I think, but it changed the way I went about my life. Though the Divine Comedy is a Catholic story, it doesn’t matter if one grew up Catholic or has never been to Church; Dante’s, Aquinas’, and Aristotle’s ways of thinking about religion, existence, and morality will change the way one considers these concepts. One will leave seeing the world differently, and be inspired to learn more about these ideas which they have only begun to uncover.
