"These Very Grim Times Demand It."
That of course is the translation of the Latin you see in the title of this blog entry.
"It" (illam) being cagse's Latin program.
These are, as I said, grim times.
We know that.
People are losing their jobs left and right.
Through no fault of their own.
Through no incompetence of their own.
I am not going to write like some people do when they say, "How could people possibly miss these problems?"
That is absurd.
Hopeless.
Helpless.
Useless.
Instead, I say this:
How will we prepare our young people so that something like this economic debacle never happens again?
Or, since "Never" is the most hubristic of adverbs,
How will we prepare them so that they will be well equipped to handle something like this?
Because it probably will happen again.
What doesn't is the absence of readiness.
Answer:
Give them the opportunity to become highly analytical of all data that comes their way at any given time.
How to do that?
Give them the opportunity to learn as deeply as possible.
To master language.
To understand its pitfalls, its blindspots, its dead-ends.
In a way, this entire crisis has to do with our oversight.
In both senses of "oversight", good and bad.
Challenge our young people to not accept what they see before them.
To not fear that their responses may not be welcome.
To assess information critically and face the ramifications of that understanding.
This is what cagse's Latin program does at a very early level.
We invite our students, require them, to grapple with language.
And language is the key.
What about numbers?
Numbers, too, are but another language.
The analysis is the same.
And so -
Let Them Learn Latin.
cagse's Latin.
Or,
Linguam Latinam Cagsiensem Cognoscant.
- drg