During late January and early February, middle school students at Faith Lutheran learn about Greek gods. Whether or not students have learned about them before, they will know who at least some of them are before the end of the year.

Greek mythology was a religion started by the early Greeks. The religion is no longer believed by the modern day Greek citizens, but people still know about these false gods due to an author named Homer, who wrote stories of the Olympians in the novel, the Odyssey.

Every year at Faith Lutheran Middle School, students take on the role of a god, goddess, nymph, etc. and use that name as their persona throughout the unit(s).

“My character is Eurydice and she is a nymph,” said seventh grader, Maci Melvin, who is in Advanced English 7 this year.

Students learn many new and exciting lessons about these characters, as well as revisiting previously known information. While what students learn can be entertaining, it can also be quite boring.

“I don’t like all the reading that we have to do because, it can be really long and boring to do for homework,” said seventh grader, Kayana Benson.

The students learn or will learn that there are three main reasons to study Greek mythology, because lots of our modern day words come from these myths, because it is one of the most alluded to pieces of literature, and most importantly to show that the gods are weak in comparison to Jesus Christ.

“This unit ties in with Christ because all the Greek mythology characters are fake and Jesus Christ is the only real God,” said eighth grader, Zoie Abdo.

During the course of the unit students partake in many fun learning activities such as watching the movie, Clash of the Titans, and participating in a group Greek mythology mannequin challenge.

“I find this unit fun because it requires a lot of imagination,” said seventh grader, Melina Burgos.

While the seventh grade Advanced English class has already been assigned a character to portray, the English 7 class has only thought about which character they would like to take on for the unit.

“I’d want to be Hera, because I know what I want and I can be stubborn about what I want,” said Benson.

Though students may find it fun to pretend to be a Greek god, goddess, nymph, etc. they would have to realize that the Greek gods were not always perfect.

“I think that they [Greek characters] are fun because of what they do and it’s good to know who they are,” said seventh grader Lydia Bethard, who plays the Greek goddess Athena, while other students disagreed.

“I think that most of the characters are cool, but they can do weird things such as eating each other marrying their brother/sister,” said Melvin.

While it may be boring learning about Greek mythology’s history, middle school students at Faith Lutheran learn one valuable lesson, that Jesus Christ holds superior to any other god that people believe are real.