Towards the end of every school year, students come to school and are surprised to see that they are seated next to former presidents or famous actresses. This experience is part of the final exam for IB Topics, when students dress up as historical figures for the annual historical figure dinner. While students in other classes spend weeks completing review packets and studying, students in MaryAnne Richardson’s IB Topics class researched their figure in order to assume their personality and historical significance during the dinner.

“I dressed up as Eva Peron,” senior Carolyn Hartley said. “She was the first lady of Argentina in the late 1940s into the early 1950s. I chose to dress up as her because she was a really influential woman who was paired with one of the dictators of Latin America, Juan Peron. I thought it would be fun to dress up as a woman behind a powerful man, and she was one of the most interesting ones I found.”

Hartley chose to dress up as Peron after learning about her during Spanish Governor’s School in the summer. Besides dressing up in lavish 50’s clothing and jewelry, Hartley made references to her childhood and what she did as the First Lady of Argentina.

Senior Diego Cornejo chose to dress as comedian Bill Cosby for the dinner.

“He has a very distinct personality, and he’s not like the other black comedians who use a bunch of profanities in his comedy,” Cornejo said. “Overall, he’s a bit more clean, a model father and he’s funny. The Bill Cosby show is amazing.”

“I used the same talking style as him when he does his stand up comedy, brought in jello because he used to be the sponsor, danced around like he does in his show, and of course dressed up like him,” Cornejo said.

Students were not the only ones that dressed up for the dinner. Richardson dresses up every year as her own historical figure. She has dressed as artists, musicians, feminists, military officers and several other figures. This year, she dressed as the Greek historian Plutarch. Plutarch is known for being the “first modern biographer.”

“[Some ideas] are better than others, it really depends on the kids,” Richardson said. “Success depends on the types of questions posed and how interested the students are in moving away from the biographical information and towards the discussion.”

Richardson started using a historical dinner party as the final during her second year as an IB Topics teacher.

“I found out the first year that the students were exhausted after the IB exam, especially because it is five and a half hours,” Richardson said. “To make kids write another exam was too much and for graduating seniors, it wasn’t the best way to continue learning.”

To prepare for the exam, Richardson chooses a thought-provoking article or Ted Talk that the students have to discuss as their historical figure. This year’s topic of discussion was a “Ted Talk” by Daniel Kahneman about the nature of happiness and the difference between experiencing and remembering oneself. Planning the dinner was difficult this year because of the limited time period between IB exams and SOLs. Food is provided for the students to eat while they interact as their historical figures.

“I’m a big fan of [the Topics dinner],” Hartley said. “It’s much less stressful than trying to cram a whole year’s worth of information. It also lets us learn about important people from different time periods who we may not have had the chance to talk about or study in class. Having a bunch of historical figures in class was a lot of fun and really brought history to life.”
“The best thing about the dinner is that it’s a unique interaction every time we have it because the combination of historical figures is different,” Richardson said. “It’s one of the best traditions of the IB curriculum.”