Mom Livid After Teacher Requires Girls Be Subservient to Boys for Ancient Greece Exercise

A mom was stunned when she saw the lengths her daughter's class was going through in order to simulate ancient Greek civilization. Nico (@nicoxrette) detailed on TikTok how her daughter was expected to act as a second-rate student in relation to her male classmates as part of a large-scale group assignment.

She shared her shock and dismay at the immersive aspect of the ancient Greek way of life, which appears to impart upon students what it was like for folks to live back in the olden days of olive oil grooming and chariot races.

What's more is that her middle-school-aged daughter was expected to live like an Ancient Greek for four to five weeks.

She wrote in a caption for her video: "I will be talking to the school, the office was closed by the time my child got home from school. I’m honestly appalled. Who OK'd this?"

Commenters who replied to her video were divided over the exercise.

"How would you feel if your 13-year-old daughter came home with a paper that said they wouldn't be able to enter a classroom without a boy escort? And would be required to pick up after them every day?" the mom says at the top of her video as she speaks into the camera.

She continues, "'Cause I can tell you how I feel about it. My seventh grader's social studies class is doing a simulation of the history and culture of Ancient Greece. Which is great."

Although it turns out Mom didn't really appreciate the level of immersion in the experiment. "However, in the paper, it says that, by the way, females, to show their secondary position in Ancient Greek society, may only enter the classroom following a boy escort."

She continued, "And only they must organize the city-state, each day." Nico then clarifies that this means the girls in the class must clean up the classroom before delineating further details of the assignment.

The TikToker says that her child alerted her to the nature of the assignment. "Now, my daughter brought this directly to me upon getting home from school and told me that it made her uncomfortable and frustrated. Me being me, I would have made a big deal of this regardless."

She goes on to state that her kid's disdain for the assignment was the cherry on top and only added more fuel to the fire. "But the fact that it is upsetting and making my child uncomfortable ... It's just so unnecessary and highly inappropriate."

Nico said that the female subservience role-playing portion of the Greek simulation was a blight on an otherwise great mass project her daughter's class was engaged in. She highlighted some of the other aspects of the simulation in what sounds like an approving tone.

"They're doing so many other cool things with this simulation experience. They get Greek names, are being shown how to wear Greek clothes. They're going to be asked to act in a short drama, build temples to represent their city-states and Olympic events, and take part in intellectual discussions among other activities," she said.

The mom seemed to have difficulty wrapping her head around why this portion of the exercise was even included in the first place.

"So why was this even necessary? And how would you feel about it?" she asks her followers at the end of the clip.

One person who saw her video commented that they didn't see anything wrong with the assignment and said that it teaches young women an important lesson in women's rights and the progress that's been made over the years.

"I'm OK with it. reminds the female students how far we have come and is a warning of how far we can still fall back. Might even inspire some to fight harder for women's equity."

However, others weren't so cool with the project, with many of them stating that they felt the four-to-five-week-long Ancient Greek immersion exercise was far too long for middle school students to participate in.

"I’m a teacher who wrote my Master’s thesis about classroom simulations. They only work if the power dynamics stay equal among students," one person said.

Another replied: "Four to five weeks is insane and they need a role reversal so both get the experience if they are going to do this."

"I could see if it was ONE class period but not for four to five weeks," someone else wrote.