Our favorite Catholic teacher blogger, the Anonymous Teacher Person tried a Death Theologians’ Society kind of activity involving role-playing, which didn’t turned out as she’d hoped.

Her entries reminded me of something I did in graduate school. It’s worth telling.

I went to Vanderbilt Divinity School – well, actually, my degree, an MA, was not from the Divinity School, but since all my classes were there (you get M.Divs and D.Mins from Divinity school and MA’s from the Graduate School.Or something) – it’s just easier to say that’s where I went. Anyway, I took a couple of classes in 19th century religion. One was on the role of women in 18th-20th century American and British religion (which ended up inspiring my thesis), and the other was on 18th and 19th century American religion.

One of the things we had to do in the latter class was, at the beginning of the semester, choose a figure from the period whose identity we would adopt. We’d spend the first part of the semester researching our figures on our own, and then for the second part of the semester, we’d spend our time presenting on our figure and interacting with each other in seminar as our chosen figure. Get it?

Now it sounds very silly, which is what we all thought of it when the project was announced at the beginning – I mean, we’re graduate students, not 5th graders, right? Well, as it turned out, it was extremely stimulating and memorable. Because, of course, it really forces you to understand your own figure, thoroughly, since you have to speak and dialogue as him or her, and it forces you to encounter the other figures of the period in a different way than if you’re just listening with your 20th century ears. Oh, and who was I? Isaac Hecker, founder of the Paulists. Others I recall were preacher Charles Finney, William Ellery Channing, and Mother Ann Lee. The last was particularly memorable – gosh, twenty years later, I still can remember "Mother Ann" – a fellow with a wispy red beard, ending his presentation by rather nervously distributing copies of an old Shaker hymn (no, not "Simple Gifts") to us and instructing us to sing. Someone – I think it was even the professor’s wife – calligraphied lovely placards with our historical names on them that we had to have out on the seminar tables during our sessions. I kept mine for a long, long time, and probably still have it in a box somewhere. I don’t think I’ve ever felt as engaged and as interested in a course as I did during that one.