Through investigative journalism and professional interviewing, we asked Northwood’s history teachers what their Roman Empire was: something that lives in their heads rent-free, 24/7.
Q: How often do you think about the Roman Empire?
Bryan Hoang: Once a year, when I have to teach the lesson that talks about the Roman Empire in APUSH.
Greg Guy: I almost had a minor in the Classics, so I used to think about the Roman Empire a lot. But now, I almost never think about the Roman Empire.
Anysia Leveratt: I don’t think about the Roman Empire, ever. In fact, I asked my husband this question, and he literally said “What’s the Roman Empire?”
Sandy Banks: I think about it at least once a day, up to ten times a day, since my daughter is currently learning about the Roman Empire and I sometimes help her with her homework.
Logan Sewell: Zero times a day.
Joey Cabrera: Maybe once every few months, and that’s only because of how long it lasted. I compare it to the U.S. and see that we’re still a baby country.
Q: What’s your Roman Empire?
Hoang: What I am going to cook for dinner. I think that’s actually the leading cause for divorce, when husbands and wives argue about what to cook for dinner.
Guy: I think a lot about rocks. I rock climb, so I think a lot about the texture of rocks and places that have different types of rocks.
Leveratt: As a woman, I think about murder everyday. I grew up in the 2000s, when sexual violence was very commonplace and normalized in society, so I think of being fearful of men a lot.
Banks: I think a lot about coins. I’ve been reading a paper a former student published about coins, so I started to pay a lot more attention to the messages that’s conveyed through coins.
Sewell: My Roman Empire is travel, I think about traveling during my breaks probably five times a day.
Cabrera: I think about the Library of Alexandria a lot, just because it was such a tragedy that so much information was lost.
