This semester, pirates sailed onto the scene with Affton High School’s new course, “Sea Scoundrels: A Global History of Piracy.” Under the instruction of Lisa Lillie, a dual credit history coordinator at St. Louis University, a handful of Affton students had the chance to spend around 15 weeks studying piracy throughout history at a college level, thanks to the MyPath program and the students’ own dedication to make it happen.
“It sprang from the students,” Affton history teacher Brian Esselman said. “It was their enthusiasm that fueled it, and then Professor Lillie brought everything that you’d expect from an outstanding university like St. Louis University.”
The idea formed after Lillie attended one of Esselman’s AP U.S. History classes — to observe the curriculum, as part of SLU’s 1818 Advanced College Credit Program — and Esselman shared her CV with his students. They were immediately intrigued by her academic specialty in piracy.
“They were completely over the moon about that,” Esselman said. “They thought it was the coolest thing in the world — which it is.”
Students stayed in contact with Lillie via email and Zoom, and they eventually proposed the idea of putting together a piracy course at AHS. The wheels started turning: how to make this dream a reality? Over time, the course developed and Lillie was given release time by SLU to teach the class.
Students learned about piracy on a global scale and across time, examining how it fit into Greek, Roman, Persian and Egyptian contexts, as well as how it looked during the global Middle Ages and beyond. They took a field trip to the rare books collection at St. Louis University to look at primary sources on maritime history. Some even earned extra credit along the way by learning how to tie ropes.
The class was created through the MyPath program, which was instituted in Affton in the 2019-20 school year. Loren Widmer, the director of student services, calls it “an incubator for student interests,” helping students become collaborators in the learning process and propelling them toward post-secondary education.
In a typical MyPath class, students create project management plans that allow them to pursue their own research. Past projects include research into deaf education, coding, teaching, home sustainability and more. The pirate class was unique in that a group of students pursued the same project together.
“(MyPath) keeps passionate students engaged with meaningful learning experiences,” Widmer said. “On top of that, it is student-led learning. Anytime you can get a student to dig deep and think about what they want out of their own education, they become a collaborator and leader, as opposed to school happening to them.”
Because the course was a few weeks shorter than the 20-week semester at AHS, Esselman says the course moved faster and students were pushed harder. Though the class doesn’t count for college credit, he believes it gave his students a taste of what college-level education will be like.
“(Lillie) gave them a rich and rewarding experience,” Esselman said. “We strive for that in our college-level classes, but I’ve never seen those three perspectives (students, faculty and professors) align so closely.”
