reflections on first semester

Well, this has been quite a year.

First, I have the zero hour class of middle schoolers--bright group, no complaint. I have 2 other Latin 1 classes with 28 kids or something.

My split level 2-3 plus one Latin 4 has been a challenge. I suppose I have gotten farther than last year, and this considering our semester isn't over yet.

I'm a bit frustrated because I really and truly thought I'd be farther along. I'm not the kind to say GO HOME AND MEMORIZE IT, TEST TOMORROW. I figure if I don't take the time to teach Latin 1 right then the rest will be a disaster.

But I've been reflecting upon how I teach. First, I know that I have a fair amount of success while keeping students well within the reading philosophy. I truly believe in the reading philosophy. But perhaps I'm just a diehard on the subject because I felt I was a grammar student who could never read Latin.

I can recognize my own knee-jerk reactions. I know that's what part of this is. I know what I was like as a student, how frustrated, how hard I worked, how very little I got accomplished, really. So what that I was an A student? So what that the only B I ever got in Latin was in composition? Can I sight read with ease? Can I pick up Cicero or anyone and enjoy him first time through? Most assuredly Willy Shakespeare with his "smalle Latin" had more than I.

And so I try to instill in my students the skills that I lacked, and to a great extent I think I do a good job of this. HOWEVER...however...am I sacrificing the precision in forms? How many students, after all, would I lose if I went to an all grammar approach? Half of them. Most of them?

Maybe not.

And it's not like I don't demand precision in translations, etc. I do. I just mean I don't assign tons of conjugate and decline stuff. In fact, I don't teach students to decline until we have all 5 cases. I do my model sentences that just focus on the cases in use IN THE CONTEXT OF A SENTENCE to help students get a grip on the whole inflectional thing.

St Andrews has a "permanent section" that is all about grammar that students have and add to and have to keep each year. Maybe that's what I need. I've been thinking about that a lot.

And as far being behind or not, well, we still have a couple of weeks after break. But, yeah, I can see that I'll start skipping vocab quizzes and such. Maybe. Or just hitting them quickly. Grades sure plummet when I do that. But we can't handhold forever.

I'm not as hard a teacher or as demanding a teacher as I'd like to be, that much I do know. But there's a real juggling act between being the teacher you WANT to be, the parent you WANT to be, and the teacher and parent you CAN be. Add to that the daughter you want to be. My elderly father has been ailing this year and I missed several weekends of grading because I was in San Antonio addressing his needs. And my younger son has developmental delays and is far more needy when it comes to doing homework than my elder son ever was. Most nights are spent working on homework with him and sometimes I never get to my stuff. Don't even ask how far behind I am with grading.

But the kids are learning, they are enjoying class, and that's something, eh? It's not like they are doing fluff projects or simple vocab quizzes. My quizzes in context do require that they are learning to pay attention to details. And I'm starting to see people fall off grade-wise. Next year they won't have practice quizzes, which definitely are another form of hand-holding. Hmmmm....maybe I should set up a quia survey to find out just how students think they are doing, what they think works, what they think they need to do, etc. Might be interesting.

With Latin 2 & 3 this year, I've noticed there are some students that truly do try to see the vocab item in context, and there are others that simply memorize the quia version of the quiz. Yeah, yeah, I'm a wimp; I do preview the vocab items. I was thinking that I should add in at least 2 versions of each vocab item--TOO MUCH to memorize if I did so, with the idea that it would add a little variety in what they see. The problem I see happening is that the student who has not *used* the vocab quizzes in the right way to develop both vocabulary AND a sense of morphology--that vocab items are never in isolation--start to sink like stones as the grammar gets more and more difficult. Then they totally CHOKE on tests.

Certainly the Latin 2's and 3's are weaker in general than last year's Latin 2/3 split. Those kids were determined to continue Latin. Anyway.

I suppose... I suppose I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing: LEARNING.

Teaching isn't easy. Teaching is fun, though. Hard work, but fun. The day we did "in arena" in class and I had kids acting out the Latin. That was fun. Or days when we read and such....

I love it. And I suppose that it is because I love it that I'm so determined to do it well. And I'm not sure sometimes that I do. My heart and soul is in it, but I'm still not able to do all that I want to do. But I am a daughter and a mother too. I'm a willow, I can bend.

And so we do our best, think of how to improve on things, and carry on.