Via Facilis

Epiphanies, wakenings, and other revelatory experiences are good grist for the mental mill. But there is other grist to be ground. The topic today: Grammar and Latin.

In workshops I've given at NYSAIS (New York State Association of Independent Schools), in sessions I've taken part in at CAAS (Classical Association of the Atlantic States) and CAES (Classical Association of the Empire State), the discussion invariably moves to the most basic problem that students have in learning Latin:

Students today, at least in the United States, have no idea how their own language works. English and its grammar are a mystery to them.

How did this happen? And what can and should we do about it?

The notion that grammar is boring, and is therefore an impediment to the learning of English, made its insidious way into the minds of those who teach English and subjects of a similar ilk. Teachers of ancient and modern languages were not immune to this seductive yet foundationally debilitating assessment. They could, the thinking went, spend more time on "what really matters."

The unstated belief: grammar does not facilitate students' learning; it obstructs it.

In addition, students of modern languages are (and rightly so) held accountable for their speaking as well as their reading and writing. The difficulty with such an approach is that the emphasis tends to become the speaking of the language.

That is fine and good for people who have an excellent ear and who can speak a language very well. Yet jettisoned, or at least shunted to one side, is the understanding of what they are saying and how they are saying it. The understanding is implicitly there, else intelligible conversations wouldn't (and couldn't) occur. But the deliberate, active comprehension, the scientific approach to language, seems to fall by the wayside when speaking comes into the fore.

Meanwhile, a shift in the focus of Latin from the close reading of the language to the studying of its culture and history aided and abetted this trend to underestimate the value of a strong understanding of grammar. Classical Studies, its culture, its history, could be learned apart from the language.

Yet the fallacy of this thinking is the tacit premise that culture and history, on the one hand, and language, on the other, are mutually exclusive. Ironically, all this cultural and historical information comes from a close reading of Latin texts.

The linguistic manner in which the information is framed is also cultural. In other words, culture and history cannot be spliced away from the language which supplied the venue for, and the meaning of, their existence. The three are inseparable, symbiotic, linked.

Students nowadays have an excellent knowledge base of Roman culture and history. Yet they cannot read effectively. Their understanding of their own language, English, is virtually nil.

How could they possible hope to learn another language when they have such little active understanding of their own? This is the question that Latinists ask the most. Yet the "grammar problem" gets in the way.

There are so many other things that Latinists could be teaching. Why waste it on grammar? English grammar, to boot?

Answer: without it, students will not be able to read those Latin texts which provide all the cultural and historical information in the first place. They will have to rely on somebody else's translation.

The problem: every translation is an interpretation. Students will have no way to analyze this interpretation if they cannot read the text upon which it is based. To read effectively, students must understand language. To understand language, students must learn grammar. Grammar is the science of language. It gives students a framework to understand how the constuent parts of language fit together to engender meaning. It is essential to the learning of Latin.

That is the conclusion that colleagues of mine always come up with. Their complaints all have their origin in students' lack of understanding of grammar. This is why I say: Grammar Is Good. English grammar. Latin grammar. Greek grammar. Any language grammar.

It is grammar that allows students the ability to broaden and deepen their understanding of classical civilization, of classical history, of classical culture.

How? Students who know grammar are critical readers and thinkers. That is the key.

It's nice that students know history and culture. As Latinists/Hellenists/Classicists, it is incumbent upon us to create an environment wherein our students read critically, think critically, write critically.

The key: a deep awareness of language and all that comes with it.

My good friend and colleague Annette Kramer, one of the wisest and most intelligent people I am privileged to know, has taken me to task regarding my grammatical responsibilities:

"Many teachers of all age-groups believe English grammar and logic should have been taught by someone else. This is anecdotal evidence rather than scientific -- my pool of data is restricted to 50 subjects.

These teachers of classes from first grade through the last year of graduate school all agree that it's not his or her job. The system is not designed for instructors of different age levels to collaborate. I didn't interview kindergarten teachers -- but I'm guessing they would say that learning good English comes from the home.
And now a Latin teacher is passing the buck as well."

I would like to direct the attention of my learned and honorable friend to a place farther down in the same offending Grammar? No Waste! entry:

"This is why I say: Grammar Is Good. English grammar. Latin grammar. Greek grammar. Any language grammar. It is grammar that allows students the ability to broaden and deepen their understanding of classical civilization, of classical history, of classical culture. How? Students who know grammar are critical readers and thinkers. That is the key."

I was commenting on how it came to pass that English grammar went by the wayside. There are many teachers of English who of course do more than pay lip service to the learning of grammar in English. I don't just comment (or la-ment) on the fact that students don't know grammar; I address the problem in my book. Pointing fingers (both the act and the digits themselves) helps not a whit. Grammar is everyone's responsibility. In the mastery of a foreign language, and in the true understanding of one's own, grammar is essential.

Is this a good thing, or a bad thing?

I've been told recently that my Latin text (displayed to your right just ostentatiously enough along with a couple of samplings, q.v.) has no particular niche into which it nestles neat 'n nice.

Guilty as charged. It doesn't.

I wrote Via Facilis for my 7th, 8th, and 9th grade students.
Were 12-15 year olds my target learners?
Yes. And no.

I also teach graduate students at City University of New York in the Latin for Reading Knowledge program. Are they my target learners?
Yes. And no.

Who then could learn best from my text?
Anybody who wants to learn, or relearn, Latin.

What age group?
Anybody who wants to learn, or relearn, Latin.

Who is my target audience?
Anybody who wants to learn, or relearn, Latin.

(and Brutus is an honorable man)

What about the best and the brightest?
And they are...?
And the people who determine the identity of "the best and the brightest" are...?

(Rearing its head stage left, the Insidious Suggestion that only those who are most in touch with their mental processes should even hope to attempt so difficult an enterprise.)

All these beg the question:
Is Latin really that tough?

To which the response is:
Does it have to be?
Why?

And so:
To Niche or Not to Niche?
Not.

For a different perspective on what the publishing industry is missing by niche-ing, see my colleague Annette Kramer's learning lab. She's convinced - and is probably right - that although children's editors may have met virtual children, they never have met any actual ones.

"Whatever the questions about Bronx Latin, membership in a rarefied group that can decode a dead language is a source of pride that is a powerful motivator."
By Joseph Berger

First off, let me say, Bronx Latin, you rock.
And Ms. Pineiro of Bronx Latin, you rock, too.

As for you, Joseph Berger, you don't.

Berger's comment is questionable, at best. It shows that aggressive ignorance is alive, well, in fact thriving in the world - ignorance about kids, ignorance about the study and acquisition of Latin. Yeah, it's true. Kids love to know something that nobody else does. This is the nature of a kid. Know how to motivate the kid, your school works.

My blog today has to do with the insidiousness lurking in this assertion and generally in the New York Times article (by the way, "insidious" is derived from Latin, of course, particularly the Latin noun insidiae, which means "treachery, ambush"). There is the perception out there, and even in here, that Latin is only for those who are the "best" and the "brightest."

The "best" and the "brightest".
Those who fall into this category are...who?
I've never met them.
Are these the students who are able to immediately absorb information like sponges?
And do I really want to have a conversation with a sponge?

Latin is for everyone. Truly.
It is not a difficult language to learn. Truly.
Unless it is introduced that way. Truly.

"But people who have studied such schools wonder if idiosyncratic — carpers might say gimmicky — missions like teaching Latin can sustain themselves once their founders move on. " Again Berger.

My comment here - if people have studied such schools, why don't they know?
Teaching Latin is "idiosyncratic"? Thanks be to those ancient Greeks for lending a vocabulary item that writers of modern English can so readily access to make themselves look credible even smart.

Here is another entry that I read recently:
"The Rogue Classicist blogged a NY Times article on a public middle school in New York that is teaching very average students Latin (at a Bronx School...)"

At first I was taking severe umbrage at "The Rogue Classicist," mistakenly believing that it was he/she/it that was the culprit. Then I realized that the RC was simply doing his/her/its job. The tag "very average students" had nothing to do with our friendly Rogue. Rather, the source was N.S. Gill herself.

My question:
What is "a very average student"?
Am I hearing that only people of a particular background and a particular set of understanding and skills can even hope to learn Latin?

Those "very average students" are probably sitting adjacent (big, Latin word, be careful, even comes from a present participle, again, careful -- you don't want to think too hard) to the "best" and "brightest".

Oh to jugulate such (inane - dang, there goes that Latin again) ideas before they get beyond the throat!

The idea that Latin is only for those of an advanced skill set is the very plague that kills it both within the field of Classics and without. Within, there are those in the field - not unlike Ms.Gill, alas - who think that Latin is only for that aforementioned set. Without, as evidenced by Joseph Berger, there are those who think that Latin is a "gimmick" - how amusing for a language that is so arcane, it's cool for kids to know it because nobody else does.

Latin was once spoken by the entire western world.
St. Jerome had to translate the Bible into Latin.
Why?
Because that was the language everybody understood.
Hence, the Vulgate: Everybody's Bible.
Latin then evolved into five other languages still in use - some extensively - 1500 years later. Its effect on the other languages of Western Europe is vast. Six out of every ten English words owe their origin to Latin. It always amuses me that people who question the validity of Latin select words of Latinate or Greek origin to support their argument that Latin is "idiosyncratic" or "gimmicky". Ironic that their argumentation is grounded in, and takes its teeth from, the very language and mode of thinking and learning that they would debunk.

It is aggressive ignorance on the one hand, and myopic elitist snobbery, on the other, that prevents those of us who are the direct heirs of Latin - i.e., anybody associated in any way with Western Europe - from seeing that the study of Latin is not some new-fangled flummery, some educational silver (some would argue "blank") bullet, but could serve as a cornerstone of the education of a person who can think not just broadly, but deeply, and who can articulate those ideas and thoughts in a real and meaningful manner.

That's the beauty of Bronx Latin.
Bronx Latin gets it.

And why does Bronx Latin get it?

Because of Ms. Pineiro.
She has the courage, the nerve, and the drive to establish a school of such a (nowadays) remarkable ilk.

Yeah, or, as we could say in Latin, Ita Vero:

She gets it, too.

For other, positive perspectives, see:
Phi Beta Con,
JesuitJoe, In Illo Tempore

"'Done what you've looked,' angrily shouted one of the salesman. He meant to say 'Look what you've done,' but the words had gotten so hopelessly mixed up that no one could make any sense at all. 'Do going to what we are!'"
- The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

So begins a chapter from Norton Juster's fabulous book about a boy with nothing to do and his travels in the Lands Beyond.

The greatest difficulty that confronts the English speaker in the learning of Latin is the manner in which the two languages establish meaning. In the English sentence (as Juster's words demonstrate so poignantly), word order plays the crucial role, with endings of words filling in any informational gaps.

In the drama of the Latin sentence, meanwhile, word ending is the protagonist, with word order playing a secondary, nuanced role. Yes, the verb in Latin prose tends to come at the end of a sentence. But very frequently you will find the verb in first position (we're talking sentence structure here, not ballet).

Ask your typical speaker of English the question:
"How does the English sentence convey meaning?"

A shoulder shrug and "I don't know" will be the response.

Direct said speaker to a book store with words of the following sort:

"And up hurry Phantom the Tollbooth Juster buy Norton by."

They point the get might.

I asked my colleague and good friend Bill Landau, Science teacher and department head extraordinaire, to jot down some of his recollections of that epiphany I had six years ago. I share here the result. "drg" refers to me.

"Not unusual that in our running conversation, drg would appear in the (any) doorway, and deliver some very thoughtful news on what “is” and what “isn’t.” A commonly threaded topic was what text was being used, how it was being used, who was using it, what its strengths and shortfalls were, and what so many had to say about text learning. Did the text become the program, that being the case, was there enough culture embedded in the text and program? Was there enough rich vocabulary? Were there enough allusions to major, classical written works? Occasionally, drg would, say – '(hardy) haaa - maybe I should write the text…maybe I should write my own text (for us).' As occasionally, perhaps more often, 'I WILL write my own text – I can do a better job of it, anyway…'

I am still privy to and pleased with updates from the good Dr…and….his students."

A ragingly successful approach in the teaching of Latin these days is interconnected readings (code name: ICR). Interconnected readings are episodes of a story that runs through the entire series of a particular Latin course. There is no doubt that ICRs are effective. Kids like them. They remember the information better, and underscore the critical role context plays in learning. They remember the cast and their characteristics.

A criticism some (publishers, adherents to other Latin introductory texts such as Ecce Romani and the Cambridge Latin Course) have had with Via Facilis is that it doesn't have ICRs. Actually, it does, beginning in Chapter 8. It is based upon the Aeneid, and stars (wonder of wonders) Aeneas, Juno, and the Fury Allecto. The goddess Venus, King Latinus, Lavinia, Amata, and Turnus also make their appearances. ("How could the critics have missed that?" Answer: They didn't. They couldn't be bothered to read that far.)

Could I have begun the ICRs in Chapter 1?
Sure.
Why didn't I?

Here's why.

In a previous entry on this blog (A New Word Order?), I explained how meaning in an English sentence is primarily established by word order. The endings of the words provide ancillary information. Latin, meanwhile, establishes meaning in roughly the reverse way: word endings provide the building blocks for syntactical understanding, word order fills in any missing information.

This difference between the languages is so critical and yet so elusive for the speaker of English that students need the opportunity to work just with the language and its myriad permutations both of noun and verb until they are relatively comfortable with the concept and role of inflection.

How to achieve this?
Sometimes, less is more.

The students will grasp the concepts of noun declension and verb conjugation a lot easier when they have less to worry about. This argues initially against connected readings. The key at this stage of a student's learning is for him or her to master the theory and syntactical import of word endings. Short pieces, connected or not, are critical. The emphasis is on form, not substance.

Because of the prerequisite of mastering morphology, students' vocabulary in the first two months of Latin is limited to a particular declension and two conjugations of verbs at most. First declension nouns and the present indicative active of first and second conjugation verbs are not enough to make a story compelling for a student. Yes, they would be reading a story. The question, however, is What Kind?
Something of the "See Spot Run" variety?
How much do the students learn from reading such a story?
Does such a story in any real way help them to learn more critically?
Does it do justice in any way, shape, or form to the type of reading and thinking students are preparing ultimately to engage in?

Would suffering through the canned version of a symphony by Rachmaninov on an elevator better prepare a listener to hear the same piece performed by the New York Philharmonic?

I want my students to be reading real Latin sooner, not later. Real Latin is not stuff that I write, much as it may amuse me to do so. It's that of Cicero, Livy, Caesar, Pliny, Seneca, Ovid, Vergil, Statius, Lucan, et alii. Do I want my students to understand the complexity of Latin? Yes.
And to do that well, they have to have a critical eye concerning their own language, English. Language and how to read it: those are my chief concerns.

Are students capable of hard, gruelling work?
Absolutely.

But they need to be in the right linguistic mindframe, else the learning process becomes a blueprint for failure.