Via Facilis

I was having dinner at this restaurant down the street last night.
Having a drink at the bar.
A saturday night sort of deal.
I started speaking to these people about...Latin.
What a surprise.
I know, I thought that, too.

The guy says to me, "Why Latin?"

And I say to him, well, ever see that comic strip "Cathy"?
One time she's saying hello to her dog.
And her dog thinks to itself, "I love you anyway, even if you have a one dimensional nose."

That's what someone who studies Latin CAGSE's way gets for themselves.
A dog's nose?
Something that.
It is the linguistic equivalent.
When you take Latin and truly study it inside out, outside in, you are developing your linguistic sensibility, sensitivity.
You can sense things in English that before were just, well, words on a page.
Suddenly, instead of looking at just a two dimensional piece of paper on which are written two dimensional letters making up words, the words begin to speak in a way you never heard them before.
They leap off the page.
Each word has a story to tell.
Meaning to establish.
Do you get this just from studying English?
No. Most folks who study and teach English are enamored of ideas, plots, themes, symbols.

They miss the fundamental lesson that Latin offers:
you want to understand those ideas, plots, themes, symbols, you had best understand the bare bones, the nuts and bolts, the manner in which meaning is established.
Then, and only then, will the ideas, plots, themes, symbols have real meaning.

Until then, it's just a breath of hot air.
Or two.

God help us all.
Harvard has come up with its first new ph.d. program in something like eighty years.
School Administration.
To save the schools, or give them a jump start toward innovativeness.

Oh, this is rich.
Absolutely brilliant.
Not.

It's funny because everybody thinks that Admnistrators are the key to successful and meaningful revamping of our schools.

Just ask the Administrators - they couldn't agree more.

But keep in mind as well that it is Administrators who have helped to get us into this mess.

It is Administrators who make the decisions.
Like getting rid of language study.
Like calling the acquisition of foundational linguistics the appalling title of "Language Arts".
Like setting standards which are so low, they play handball against the curb.
Like making meetings a priority.
Like allowing ETS ridiculous power through the proliferation of SATs which basically show nothing.

Administrators are the ones who end up hampering, hamstringing, and crippling the excellent teachers.

Who make those excellent teachers dry up like a soft contact lens that's been left out of its container.

Teachers get sapped.
They lose heart.
Or, worse, they end up complying with the ridiculous demands of Administrators who think that schools are a "business" or should be "productive" or "efficient" without understanding what they really mean by such buzz words.

Yet it is not the Administrators who make the difference.
Not that they don't make decisions that influence situations with long reaching effects.
Take Bob Watson.
He was the Yankees general manager who hired this old has-been who never seemed to do anything right.
His name?
Joe Torre.
And Joe Torre became a hell of a Manager for the Yankees.

But.

It is the excellent teachers that make things happen in the classroom.
It is the excellent teachers who get their students to engage their minds, develop critical thinking, and a real awareness of how they learn.
It is excellent teachers who are the pioneers.

Schools are not and should not be the playground for CEO wannabes.
Look at where such folks got the world economy over the last year.
Their administration, their chief executive officers, made serious blunders that screwed the world.
And what are these fine fettled Executive Officer types?
They are Administrators.

So I say to you, Harvard -

Are you out of your mind?

Maybe I am.

After all, I'm the one addressing an Institution and expecting an answer.

I actually do have one question.
Who remembers Bob Watson?
Nobody.
He did his job, and was duly forgotten.
As is fitting.

drg