So I'm teaching sixth graders about ancient Greece. Okay, there's the geometry thing, the astronomy thing, the democracy thing, the art and architecture thing, myths, the alphabet thing, and oh yes, the Olympics where men wrestled in the nude. ("Ick!!" say the kids. I agree, totally.)

Then there were the drunken dinner parties where the only women allowed were "indecent" women, the slavery, the pederasty, the fathers choosing to leave undesired babies on hillsides to die of exposure (although sometimes these babies were picked up by families who adopted or enslaved them), the total oppression of women throughout most of the land, and the ruthless Spartans who trained as soldiers from age seven on and were rewarded for lying, cheating and stealing.

Excuse me, why do we put the these people up on pedestals?