BarcelonaIn ancient Greece, a shepherd named Narcissus, who had rejected the love of the nymph Echo, fell in love with his reflection, which he saw every day in a stream. One day, he jumped into the water to find the person who had stolen his heart and amazed him, but his obsession led him to drown. "Oysters, professor," then, the word narcissism "It comes from here, right?" the students ask Meritxell Blay, a secondary school Latin and Greek teacher and author of the book Greek myths (Inuk Books, 2024). Since mythology as such does not exist as a subject, Blay explains it to his students in the Latin and Greek classes he teaches.

"The students learn above all to ask themselves the great questions of humanity, such as where we come from and where things in the world arise: rain, fire, etc. This also helps them think, organize their thoughts and ask questions. In other words, they use reasoning, which begins reasoning, which begins." Myths are stories that oscillate between history, tradition and legend, and which serve to explain the origin of the world and of different phenomena based on stories starring, mainly, divinities and heroes.

"Now we live in a technological world where Google answers everything, but there was a time when people didn't have these answers and had to construct them. For example, if they looked at things that happened around them, like in nature, they constructed stories that tried to explain things they couldn't understand," he observes. As he explains, this allowed them to explain the origin of things, but also to create an entire imaginary world of mythical beings and creatures. "Mythology, at its core, is a story. In fact, many fairy tales and many folk tales are based on mythological stories."

Symbolism and Literalness

Antoni Heitzmann Barceló is a professor in the Catalan Language Department at the Institut Jaume Balmes in Barcelona. He teaches an elective subject in the first year of secondary school called "We Are Greeks and Romans," which explains Greco-Roman culture. "It's important to know how to go beyond the horizon of time a little. Students like it in the same way they might like medieval or ancient history. There's something that captivates teenagers, especially the younger ones, when it comes to such a distant time," he acknowledges. Although this subject is optional and, therefore, students already show some interest in choosing it, Heitzmann highly values the work they do. "Among other activities, after reading and completing the theogony, they work on their own family trees to fit the pieces together, just as we do with those of the gods. We always do this with a mythology dictionary at hand, and from each myth, we extract a series of knowledge that best suits my needs."

Contrary to what one might think, the difficulty in understanding these stories is nonexistent. "A myth is a way of explaining things. For us today, it has become literature, but in the past it had some relationship with truth, and the students understand that perfectly." Heitzmann assures that they are also able to understand that modern myths exist and that not all truth comes from science. "The relationship between a father and son can be explained through a story, like that of Oedipus, but how do you explain envy, for example, through science?" At the Institut Jaume Balmes, they also explore mythology through other subjects. Last February, they completed two projects related to myths that the first and second-year secondary school students worked on during Spanish language and music classes, in which they learned many things about the myths of Ulysses and the Minotaur.

"As a teacher, I miss a subject in primary school called mythology or Latin or Greco-Roman culture, as they introduced in England. Here, they don't really learn about it until they reach secondary school, and sometimes it's already a bit too late in the world. In secondary school, they're already a bit too old to wonder about the origin of everything," reflects Blay.

Transmission of values

Aside from questioning certain things and explaining others, myths also convey values and behaviors, as well as the consequences of certain behaviors. "Myths have a lesson, a background, a moral, a lesson learned." According to Blay, whether the actions explained in myths are punished or rewarded is very good for teaching the values they convey. "Myths, being universal and addressing a series of universal themes, allow us to see how the way we understand things has also transformed," says MacPherson. The writer and storyteller explains that she always uses the myth of Daphne and Apollo as an example: the god Apollo wants Daphne, and she must flee, but when she asks for help, she is transformed into a tree. "What would happen if we reinvented or took that myth and imagined another way of dealing with the problem? I think these stories have a strong foundation that allows us to reflect on topics like the ones this myth raises."

"Students are drawn to the way myths understood love. Or, for example, the myth of Hermaphroditus, which had two genders, male and female. All these topics related to religion are very taboo, so it's good for teenagers to talk about things that weren't taboo 3,000 years ago," Blay emphasizes. Many schools work through reading books about myths and fantasy elements that may be related, but Blay also misses the fact that there are other ways to access them beyond reading. "Before, there were series about mythology, like Xena, Warrior Princess, which hooked many of us and helped us learn about these topics. Now we have the character of Percy Jackson and Marvel superheroes, but we need more."

A transversal cultural learning

"We can find myths in museums, advertising, movies, literature... I'm sure that when students go on a trip with their parents to a museum, they'll be able to recognize Zeus with the lightning bolt or Poseidon with the trident," Blay points out. The truth is that mythology and its symbolism are found in many disciplines and areas, some of them in our everyday lives. Knowing it helps us understand the messages we constantly receive, most of them through screens. "In the video games that many children play today, we also find these heroes, these gods, who are monstrous beings with powers and who connect with their visual imagery." But also with their vocabulary: aphrodisiac, Olympic... "There's a connection with part of their vocabulary and their imagery, and then they understand where a lot of things come from." MacPherson also advocates using myths to help young people create these mental connections. "It's very important because, otherwise, we always have very one-sided thinking, and it's interesting to create this concept of a tree, of branches that touch."