“I try to strive to have my students understand that there is joy in learning,” said Hackley’s new classics teacher, Benjamin Driver.

Mr. Driver joined the Hackley faculty this year as a middle and upper school Latin teacher. Teaching students from grades 7 to 12, Mr. Driver hopes for all his students to experience the joy in learning and literature, no matter where they are in their Latin journey.

Mr. Driver didn’t always know he wanted to study classics. Throughout high school, he studied French. And in college, while taking a course on medieval French, he noticed references to ancient texts. Mr. Driver became particularly interested in ancient texts, and his undergraduate advisor recommended that he take a course in Roman history. The next year, he began to study classics as a sophomore and continued throughout the rest of college.

Outside of the classroom, Mr. Driver is navigating being a new parent to his 14-month-old daughter. In his free time, he enjoys being outdoors, staying active, and reading. A new hobby he has gotten back into is playing video games. As a child, he played video games, and he has recently rediscovered action role-playing games.

Some of his favorite games are Horizon Zero Dawn and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and he has recently gotten into Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. He is really into games created by Final Fantasy, a Japanese anthology media franchise, because he finds their stories interesting. The reason he is into Action Role-playing games is because of the stories behind them.

“When playing some of them, like God of War, I often get diverted, though, to reading literature instead. I remember with that one, I’d turn the game on, but would find myself after maybe half an hour reading the Prose Edda because I was curious about the mythology behind the game. In the end, for me, it’s all about excellent narration of fantastic stories across all media,” Mr. Driver said.

Mr. Driver’s love for literature is what got him interested in Latin. In teaching classics here at Hackley, Mr. Driver hopes for his students to: “See the joy of learning, see the joy of literature. Literature can teach us about ourselves and the world, which is why it’s called the humanities. It can teach us about how to be a human by looking at other human experiences.”

One of the reasons Mr. Driver chose Hackley was that he was impressed by the interest in learning that students had. As the year continues, he hopes to continue to help students find the “joy in learning.”