Well, I agree with you absolutely... but (you knew that was coming) I'm not sure there is ever really going to be progress on this front. As long as we entrust college professors with the training of Latin teachers, and as long as "living" knowledge of Latin has (almost) nothing to do with the professional requirements and goals of college professors (they are supposed to publish papers in scholarly journals, based on reading scholarship in English and very little reading in Latin - just re-reading texts they've been re-reading over and over again since graduate school), it's going to be very hard for them to develop a curriculum which promotes that, unless they are personally very idealistic and driven to do so for their own reasons.
Even more so when they find the process of translating into English REALLY reassuring and satisfying. After all, we would be asking them to trade in something familiar, reassuring, and satisfying (translating into English), for something unfamiliar, disarming, and perhaps not satisfying at all (experiencing the Latin): how would that happen...? That's why I am very pessimistic.
I spent two years in a Classics department as a professor and finally resigned that job when it was going to be clear I could accomplish nothing: by the time my fourth semester rolled around, they had taken away all my Greek and Latin language classes, and were having me teach "classical culture" classes in English. So, at that point, there was really no reason for me to stay. They were going to make me do English in the classroom, whether I wanted to or not. I live a Latin life of sorts online now (and I also teach online), but my professional career as a Latinist was a total failure - and even now, some ten years later, I'm still quite cynical about the whole thing. But I do love Latin! And I've now got FOUR THOUSAND Aesop's fables in Latin (aesopus.pbwiki.com), spanning two thousand years of Latin fable writing. How cool is that??? So if the revolution does ever take place, I'll be ready to supply all the easy fables in Latin that anybody could ever desire! :-)
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rosecarmine
Re: I can totally relate to this!
Date: 2008-07-16 10:49 pm (UTC)Even more so when they find the process of translating into English REALLY reassuring and satisfying. After all, we would be asking them to trade in something familiar, reassuring, and satisfying (translating into English), for something unfamiliar, disarming, and perhaps not satisfying at all (experiencing the Latin): how would that happen...? That's why I am very pessimistic.
I spent two years in a Classics department as a professor and finally resigned that job when it was going to be clear I could accomplish nothing: by the time my fourth semester rolled around, they had taken away all my Greek and Latin language classes, and were having me teach "classical culture" classes in English. So, at that point, there was really no reason for me to stay. They were going to make me do English in the classroom, whether I wanted to or not. I live a Latin life of sorts online now (and I also teach online), but my professional career as a Latinist was a total failure - and even now, some ten years later, I'm still quite cynical about the whole thing. But I do love Latin! And I've now got FOUR THOUSAND Aesop's fables in Latin (aesopus.pbwiki.com), spanning two thousand years of Latin fable writing. How cool is that??? So if the revolution does ever take place, I'll be ready to supply all the easy fables in Latin that anybody could ever desire! :-)
Laura