Historical Agents of Change Make Appearances at Wayland High

Anne Boleyn visited Friday morning.

So did Thomas Jefferson, Meriwether Lewis, the French Revolution, Pocahontas, a couple of Leonardo da Vincis (that's right, there were at least two in attendance) and numerous other people, events and ideas of historical significance.

They, along with parents, teachers and Wayland Public Schools administrators, were part of Friday’s Agents of Change Festival, an elaborate class project history teacher David Gavron annually conducts with the sophomores in his College Old World/New World History class.

“Sophomore history students spend the year looking at agents that have changed the world, whether it be a person or an event,” Gavron explained, adding that he brought the project with him from his previous teaching position at Masconomet Regional High School in Topsfield, Mass. “The students for this semester chose anything – person, place, idea, invention – that they felt had an impact on changing whatever scope of the world they wanted to deal with.”

Leading up to Friday’s festival, students completed research papers addressing why their particular subjects should be considered an agent of change. “Their job has been to work on a paper that’s proving why they’re particular agent of change is so important – so significant,” Gavron said.

Then, the playacting began.

The second part of the project, Friday’s Agents of Change Festival, required students to dress as their particular agents, study up on the agent’s biography and historical period, and then spend the first two class periods of the day embodying the agent and responding to the queries of the festival’s guests.

“For the people it’s pretty easy, but if you’re a thing – like the Black Death – they have to be a little more creative,” Gavron said. “I try to leave it to them as much as possible because their creativity shows there.”

Student Angela Wang said she spent the week leading up to the festival trying to perfect the accent of her agent of change, Anne Boleyn.

“I thought she was an interesting person,” Wang said. “She legalized divorce.”

She also, of course, lost her head as the second of Henry VIII wives, but during her life, she gave birth to Elizabeth I, prompted the creation of the Protestant church and changed the fashion of the era, Wang explained.

The Black Box Theater at WHS teemed with historical figures, some pausing long enough to enjoy a doughnut from Dunkin' Donuts, chatting with as many individuals as would listen.

JheRod Straker, looking every bit the pope he set out to imitate, explained that Pope Alexander VI’s death was celebrated for five generations because of his gross misuse of power and corruption of the papal office.

“Not all change is positive,” Straker said, explaining that the actions exhibited and crimes committed by Pope Alexander forever changed the face of the world and, arguably, the Catholic Church – for better or for worse.

This year, Gavron had only one College Old World/New World History class, but next year he will have two sections, which means more agents of change and more opportunity for festival guests to interact with those agents.

Getting the public to interact with students is important to Gavron, who wants students to learn how to think "under pressure," but also wants taxpayers to see the learning that their taxes fund.

“I want the public to see what goes on in school,” Gavron said.