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I was in a bit of a mood yesterday in part because I felt like I was arguing with a colleague whom I respect about teaching issues, which he truly knows nothing about.
There is this assumption that Level 1 & Level 2 Latin are the easiest to teach. After all, what's hard about the basic cases and tenses in the indicative? If you are going to teach secondary these courses will be your bread and butter, and if you don't understand HOW to go about teaching this level you'll never get enough students to your advanced classes so that you can read Vergil or Cicero or whomever.
I put a request for numbers out on the Cambridge list yesterday and the results were much as I expected--about 2/3 of a teacher's students were lower level, if not 3/4 or more. In fact, that's probably still not accurate. A look at one note shows about 120 kids in Levels 1 & 2 and 16 in Levels 3 & 4. This is reality. The only way you are going to get more kids into levels 3 & 4 when there are no longer requirements is to teach levels 1 & 2 so well that the students feel confident and excited about learning more.
The fact remains, though, that teaching level 1 & 2 of Latin rarely receives any attention at the university as if it is almost beneath professors. This whole discussion came up because I'm trying to get a preconference workshop accepted and am having difficulties arguing that what I have planned is "broad" enough. Trust me, it is--I just didn't mention that magic abbreviation: AP.
The thing is, I teach as if my students are all going to be taking AP Latin. I am teaching reading skills EVEN when the sentences are only 3 words long because if you start when it is easy, then the students can build on that. The end result should be that level 3 Latin becomes MUCH MORE MANAGEABLE as the sentences and stories get considerably longer and students won't run away screaming before level 4.
What we are talking about is using all the different levels of Blooms taxonomy: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. If a level 1 Latin teacher only teaches knowledge and comphrension level material, students will not be prepared to analyze longer sentences or to do basic composistion let alone write a comprehensible paper using evaluation skills in AP. The teachers who resort to doing nothing more than playing games in Level 1 Latin may have a healthy class size but if most of those students won't stay around for Level 3 then I feel that something is wrong. And, sadly, the teacher won't get to teach REAL LATIN, which is why we are here.
We are NOT here to raise SAT scores, that's just a bonus.
We are NOT here to improve written skills, that's just a bonus.
We are NOT here to increase one's attention for details, that's just a bonus.
We are hear to read the good stuff, the Latin with sweat on it, the heavy duty sci-fi scenes (sea serpents in Vergil!), the philosophy, the would-be stand up comedians.
I also WORRY about the teachers who want to do nothing more than teach level 1 Latin because they are uncomfortable reading real Latin. To me, nothing could be sadder. They've gotten comfortable with the games and lower cognitive level required work and they were never taught HOW TO TEACH THE HIGHER LEVEL COGNITIVE STUFF or how to combine lower and higher level work. They were NEVER TAUGHT HOW TO TEACH THE STUDENTS.
In fact, I personally think university programs are quite guilty of doing nothing more than covering lines most of the time. How many of you have learned the skills needed to read from left to right without hunting the verb? How many of you know what disambiguate means? These are skills that CAN BE DEVELOPED so that we ALL could be able to read Latin for the fun of it, not because a course requires it.
(I like teaching level 1 because I think I'm good at it and that I'm really teaching students to read...plus I have small children and feel I don't have the kind of time to devote to a high school program. But now that I have 4 preps and 5 classes, I'm beginning to wonder why I shouldn't teach high school? Surely I'd be just as worn out?)
heading off to school....
There is this assumption that Level 1 & Level 2 Latin are the easiest to teach. After all, what's hard about the basic cases and tenses in the indicative? If you are going to teach secondary these courses will be your bread and butter, and if you don't understand HOW to go about teaching this level you'll never get enough students to your advanced classes so that you can read Vergil or Cicero or whomever.
I put a request for numbers out on the Cambridge list yesterday and the results were much as I expected--about 2/3 of a teacher's students were lower level, if not 3/4 or more. In fact, that's probably still not accurate. A look at one note shows about 120 kids in Levels 1 & 2 and 16 in Levels 3 & 4. This is reality. The only way you are going to get more kids into levels 3 & 4 when there are no longer requirements is to teach levels 1 & 2 so well that the students feel confident and excited about learning more.
The fact remains, though, that teaching level 1 & 2 of Latin rarely receives any attention at the university as if it is almost beneath professors. This whole discussion came up because I'm trying to get a preconference workshop accepted and am having difficulties arguing that what I have planned is "broad" enough. Trust me, it is--I just didn't mention that magic abbreviation: AP.
The thing is, I teach as if my students are all going to be taking AP Latin. I am teaching reading skills EVEN when the sentences are only 3 words long because if you start when it is easy, then the students can build on that. The end result should be that level 3 Latin becomes MUCH MORE MANAGEABLE as the sentences and stories get considerably longer and students won't run away screaming before level 4.
What we are talking about is using all the different levels of Blooms taxonomy: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. If a level 1 Latin teacher only teaches knowledge and comphrension level material, students will not be prepared to analyze longer sentences or to do basic composistion let alone write a comprehensible paper using evaluation skills in AP. The teachers who resort to doing nothing more than playing games in Level 1 Latin may have a healthy class size but if most of those students won't stay around for Level 3 then I feel that something is wrong. And, sadly, the teacher won't get to teach REAL LATIN, which is why we are here.
We are NOT here to raise SAT scores, that's just a bonus.
We are NOT here to improve written skills, that's just a bonus.
We are NOT here to increase one's attention for details, that's just a bonus.
We are hear to read the good stuff, the Latin with sweat on it, the heavy duty sci-fi scenes (sea serpents in Vergil!), the philosophy, the would-be stand up comedians.
I also WORRY about the teachers who want to do nothing more than teach level 1 Latin because they are uncomfortable reading real Latin. To me, nothing could be sadder. They've gotten comfortable with the games and lower cognitive level required work and they were never taught HOW TO TEACH THE HIGHER LEVEL COGNITIVE STUFF or how to combine lower and higher level work. They were NEVER TAUGHT HOW TO TEACH THE STUDENTS.
In fact, I personally think university programs are quite guilty of doing nothing more than covering lines most of the time. How many of you have learned the skills needed to read from left to right without hunting the verb? How many of you know what disambiguate means? These are skills that CAN BE DEVELOPED so that we ALL could be able to read Latin for the fun of it, not because a course requires it.
(I like teaching level 1 because I think I'm good at it and that I'm really teaching students to read...plus I have small children and feel I don't have the kind of time to devote to a high school program. But now that I have 4 preps and 5 classes, I'm beginning to wonder why I shouldn't teach high school? Surely I'd be just as worn out?)
heading off to school....
