thoughts from CAMWS

[ginlindzey]

Right now I'm supposed to be revising a test for English.  But my thoughts float to things Latin.

I personally think everyone should get away during the spring semester to a conference, if for no other reason than to refresh yourself and THINK.

I've done a lot of thinking.  After lengthy discussions about AP Latin and its fate, I've thought about how to structure my pre-AP Latin 3 class year after next, as well as my future AP course, which I still have faith will make.

I've been having discussions with a professor friend of mine regarding the whole debate of grammar/translation vs reading, and this misconception that you don't get readers of Latin out of grammar translation.  Of course, after she left for a meeting that I would usually attend (but I needed to pack and write this test that you can all see I'm working on so hard right now, ha ha), that it's not about whether you can produce good readers at the end of either--that is, OF COURSE both methods will get you there.  The real question or perhaps the real answer, I feel but didn't think to say, is that you can often get MORE to that point of reading real Latin through the reading approach if only because it starts out more gently and not with a ton of grammar up front.

Is "how many" that important?  Sure it is.  Because if you can't keep your numbers up, you will forever have split level classes or no chance of having enough kids left to take AP.  And you can incorporate formal grammar in a reading based course.  As a teacher you can do any damn thing you like, really, it is all a matter of how well you can communicate with your students.

If I had counselors weed out my classes and only let students with a certain GPA in, then I would have the best and brightest and be able to move along at a decent rate if not faster than now, knowing that everyone will grasp concepts as I toss them out.  Some people don't want to spend time of the strugglers or have no idea that the struggles can be good at language but in a different way.

ANYWAY.

I took stock of what my Latin 2's suck at and what aspect of that is my fault or could be prevented.

I've been thinking about contracts for Latin 3 pre-AP in the future, and may even incorporate contracts next year with Latin 2s.  I'll flesh those out here another time, because I know I really need to get back to that English test.  I really shouldn't leave this room (until I have to check out) unless I've finished this English test.  I just wanted to say how important it is to take time to think about what's working and what's not, and to be around people with fresh ideas and different takes on how to approach things.

And I have my AP letter to write still.  The meeting/discussion we had on AP Thurs night was a good one; Andrew at eclassics.ning.com has posted minutes from it which are pretty accurate (I'm misquoted slightly but it's not a big deal).  What we need to do, I think, is to find that angle on why it would be valuable for them to keep the Latin Lit test.

And there are more thoughts spinning in my head, but that English test ain't gonna write itself, if you know what I mean.