Hannibal is not yet at the gates...

but there are reports of elephants in the Alps.

Disturbing news arrived from the county administration office today. In anticipation of a very tight budget for the 2009-2010 school year, the topic of class size has been discussed. The report suggests that, unless a class has a minimum of 20 students, the class will not make. The report specifically mentioned that even a combination of level IV and AP classes in world languages may not reach the magic number of 20. The alternative seems to be Adventa and VirtualVirginia. In other words, students will be offered the opportunity to take advanced level classes online or sign up for something else.

This unofficial announcement leaves me a bit stunned and numb. I feel like I've been kicked in the stomach. Am I to teach at three different schools next year? Will I have a combo III/IV/AP in the same room?

It is (hopefully) too early to speculate and give in to a suggested threat. I'll wait a little more before I panic but, just in case, I will read up on how to survive elephants on the battlefield.

The Wheel in the Sky

I was listening to the local classic rock station driving to the first teacher workday this morning and when I turned onto the street on which the school is located, I heard these lyrics:

Oh, the wheel in the sky keeps on turning
Ooh, I don`t know where I`ll be tomorrow
Wheel in the sky keeps me yearning
Ooh, I don`t know, I don`t know

This song by Journey is not perhaps the most appropriate song (Google the lyrics) but the first line which Steve Perry kept singing was fitting. Each year is a new beginning. The graduating seniors have been replaced by the eager, tentative, incoming freshmen, and the retiring teachers have been replaced by eager, tentative, incoming rookies. Everyone gets a new, fresh start and the wheels keep on turning.

Cheering for Compositions

Composition, the translation of English into Latin, has long been a chore for students learning Latin. I've always enjoyed the mental exercise and find it to be a useful teaching activity. What other assignment requires students to apply everything they've practiced and learned in one, neat, little package? My students, though, can find it tedious and even frustrating. I'm sure that I'm not the only teacher who has this experience!

I do have a game we play occasionally to make composition more interesting and exciting... turn it into a competition!

This is what I do:

1) Divide the students into three teams. You can do this randomly or assign them by ability to get a good combination on each team.

2) Divide your blackboard/whiteboard into three sections; assign each team to a section. Keep the sections close together so that you can see all three at the same time.

3) Announce that each team will be translating the same sentence into Latin and the first team that gets the sentence completely correct will win the point or get credit. Here's the catch: each team puts their sentence on the board but the teacher can only say, "There are no correct sentences on the board" until one of them is completely correct. The teacher can offer no assistance or even tell the teams where the problems are -- that is the job of each team to determine.

4) Continue assigning sentences from a list or an exercise in the textbook as time and tolerance will allow. The team with the most points at the end of the game will receive credit, extra credit, or some other reward.

Suggestions:

A) Only one person from a team at the board at a time. This allows the teacher to see the whole board and determine which sentence is correct first. Students have to "tag team" to get to the board. A team shouting at a member on the board often leads to confusion or frustration. Have the team member return to the group's huddle.

B) Don't assign the sentences for homework ahead of time. One diligent student can dominate the team and the whole game.

C) Don't worry about teams "copying" the sentences from other teams on the board. This is part of the learning process. Also, savvy teams have been known to leave an obvious error which can lead another team astray but can be easily corrected to catch the win.

D) Encourage the members of each team to work together to figure out the sentence. When the pressure is on and there are three incorrect sentences on the board, the suggestion or idea of everyone on the team can make the difference between winning or losing.

E) You can make more than three teams if you have enough board space and you feel comfortable looking at multiple sentences at the same time.

I have found no other technique which makes translating into Latin so exciting. To hear students cheer when they have translated a sentence correctly is truly music to a Latin teacher's ears!

I'll Do It Tomorrow...

The poet Martial writes in Epigram V.58:

Cras te victurum, cras dicis, Postume, semper:
dic mihi, cras istud, Postume, quando venit?
Quam longe cras istud! ubi est? aut unde petendum?
Numquid apud Parthos Armeniosque latet?
Iam cras istud habet Priami vel Nestoris annos.
Cras istud quanti, dic mihi, possit emi?
Cras vives? Hodie iam vivere, Postume, serum est:
ille sapit quisquis, Postume, vixit heri.

And I offer this translation:

You always say that you will live tomorrow, Postumus, tomorrow!
Tell me, that tomorrow of yours, Postumus, when does it come?
How far away that tomorrow is! Where is it? Where must we look for it?
Does it hide out among the Parthians and Armenians?
That tomorrow of yours is already as old as Priam or Nestor.
Tell me, how much will that tomorrow of yours cost?
Will you live tomorrow? Postumus, it is already too late to live today:
He is wise whoever lived yesterday, Postumus!

This poem has come up in class at a very interesting time. It is the end of the marking period and I have just spent a very unpleasant weekend grading papers, tests, essays, and make-up work. When I say that I spent the weekend, I mean, literally, the whole weekend.

The first part of the problem comes from my own procrastination. I let the papers pile up and then they become a chore. When they become a chore, they are avoided. When they are avoided, they hang over my head and make me more anxious than any sword of Damocles.

The second part of the problem I attribute to overextending myself and saying "yes" to far too many things when I am already taxed. We moved to block scheduling this year and that means three 90-minute shows a day, each show different, interesting, and, I hope, productive.

Finally, I am beginning to realize that the third part of the problem is that I am requiring too much graded work from my students. There are quizzes on vocabulary, grammar, syntax, translations, culture, history, mythology, and then tests, benchmark tests, and exams. I also require prepared translations and exercises and even the occasional poster or project. Those who are marginal students are quickly overwhelmed and become discouraged. In frustration they come to hate the study of Latin, regret their decision of taking it, and refuse to go on.

My realization, some twenty years after I started teaching: not everything requires work, not all work requires a grade, and not every grade needs to be recorded. As a young teacher fresh out of college I would have considered this blasphemy. Now, as an experienced teacher in the middle of my career, I realize that this is the approach that will allow me to see the wisdom of Martial's words.

National Latin Teacher Recruitment Week 2006

I took the first few minutes of my classes these past two days and spoke to my students about the desperate need for teachers -- good teachers. As expected, I was met with surprise, amusement, silent stares, nods, and even agreement. Some students seemed very receptive and a few concurred even though they didn't want their peers to know.

My approach began with the need for teachers in general, how in our district (Spotsylvania County, Virginia) most of our new teachers come from Pennsylvania, New York, and, this year, Michigan. A few were even recruited in the Philippines! I talked about the need for math teachers, science teachers, and then launched into the crying need for Latin teachers. Most did not know this was to become a conversation about becoming Latin teachers until the Trojan horse was inside the gates and standing on the citadel.

I talked about how I had entered college with a notion to become a math and computer science major, how I had signed up for Latin as my "fun class" and because I wasn't ready to give up four years of hard and fun work in high school, how I had failed 5-hour freshman calculus (dashing all realistic expectations of becoming the next Bill Gates), and finally how my Latin professor, more than twenty years before NLTRW became fashionable, had announced to the class that someone someday was going to look at our college transcript, see that we had taken Latin, and ask us to teach. He had planted a seed that day and the rest was history.

I would like to think that my words perhaps have planted a seed which one day might sprout and grow. My advice to my students was basically to keep the possibility of becoming a teacher in the backs of their open minds. I admitted to them that if anyone had told me in high school or entering college that I was going to be a teacher, and a Latin teacher at that, I would have laughed and brushed it off as a complete impossibility... My, my, my, how things do change!

I am extremely proud to know that I do have two extremely enthusiastic and knowledgeable young ladies who will graduate in June and go off to college with plans to major in Latin and become Latin teachers! Unfortunately, I cannot take credit for their decisions. They came to me last year when our new school opened already planning to teach Latin! They have been true gems and have set the exemplary tone for their peers both in class, club, and certamen. They will be sorely missed when they walk across that stage and grab their sheepskin with a huge grin. I will be wiping away the tears!

My parting shot to my students these past two days is that I get to play with Latin, something I love, every single day... I get to hang out with the coolest people in the world (the 2006 version of the American teenager)... and, on top of it all, I get paid to do it! What better job is there in the world?