“Company, march!”
Sixth-grade teacher Christiane Bohr found out Friday that hands-on experience can be much more effective than rote learning when her students at the Waldorf School in Costa Mesa learned to march as the Romans did.
“We had been studying Rome and doing some smaller marches,” Bohr said. “The culmination of this is that we decided we would march down from the school to the beach.”
The idea came from the kids themselves, who half-jokingly said they wanted a more “realistic” educational experience.
“You could say I called their bluff,” Bohr said.
The kids soon found themselves standing in formation early Friday morning, preparing for a two-mile march to the Pacific through brush and sometimes-steep trails, and then alongside the Talbert channel.
Buckets became makeshift helmets; boogie boards became honorary shields. The kids looked around nervously at each other.
“You will not see home possibly for a couple of years,” Bohr said. “Are you ready to meet the Carthaginians in battle?”
Cheers ensued.
The kids began the hike in high spirits, excited at the chance to climb down a steep embankment, and singing a song a student wrote for the march.
“We are the soldiers — the Roman soldiers. If you don’t believe us, then try to defeat us,” they sang.
Adult standard-bearers in red tablecloth capes marched at the front and back of the young regiment.
The group stomped their feet as they marched, swords (or shovels, as it were) held high.
But they soon found themselves tired by the pace, and began asking for water, rubbing sore arms, swatting at flies and chatting.
“Company, halt!” Bohr cried.
The kids made a shaky, collective stop, giggling.
Bohr told them to hold their shovels straight down, and fix their three-by-three formation.
“No legionnaire stands like that,” Bohr chided, smiling.
They set off again through the brush and soon found themselves at the paved jogging and bike path that runs along the channel toward the sea.
“This is the Roman road leading to the Alps,” Bohr told her students. “You’re going to march at a pretty good speed, because this is the best road you’re going to see for a while.”
The kids began again, eventually running out of songs. “The Roman in the Dell” became a popular choice.
