Via Facilis

My early twenties were the most difficult years of my life. I was fresh out of college. I had no direction, no desire to do much of anything. Everything I did, thought, wrote, saw, or heard had a pointlessness that I could neither get beyond nor ignore. I had originally thought that I wanted to become a professor of Religion. I went to Harvard Divinity School right after college. It was the natural, knee-jerk thing to do, as I had been going to school for sixteen years straight.

It became apparent that Div school wasn't going to work. I became ensorcelled by Greek and Latin, but I found at Harvard that the shepherds had become too much like the sheep. The sheep didn't care much about language mastery, just about "religion." It didn't matter that the texts upon which that religion was based were written in those languages.

I spent a year at the Div school, then withdrew. I applied to be a special student at the Yard in Classics, but was summarily rejected. No surprise, really. The true shock came when I was told by the secretary of the head of Harvard's Classics department - the secretary, mind you, not even the head, himself - that it was a bit late and I was a tad old to be getting into Classics. At another time and place, I would have told her what I thought of both the assessment and its author. But it wasn't.

Yeah, I was "too old".
An ancient 22.
Over the hill, but not picking up speed.

As an aside, St. Ignatius Loyola didn't start studying Latin until he was 33. All the lowly Loyola did was to found the Society of Jesus and play a key role in the Catholic Counter Reformation.

(I did eventually get my ph.d. at the University of Pennsylvania.
At the tender age of 34.)

It was just as well. I was riding on intellectual empty. I had been going to school for too long: grade school, high school, college, grad school.

Seventeen years straight.
It was definitely time for a break.

I still wasn't listening.

I began a Classics M.A. at Boston College. Prof. Emily Vermeule was good enough to recommend me for a spot there. But it was not to be.
A month into the term, I'd had it.
I took that euphemistically named "leave of absence" from the program at B.C.

I remember walking down Massachusetts Avenue in Allston where I was living, thinking, My God, what have I done? I might never go back to academia again.

It was terrifying.
It was the right thing to do.
I had to do something else.
Something completely...Other.

So I did.

I volunteered for the Boston Chapter of NOW, and then worked for Carla Johnston, the only woman who was running for Congress in the 8th congressional district. Tip O'Neill was finally stepping down.

Alas, Carla didn't win.
She didn't even have a prayer.
How could she?
There was a Kennedy in the race, even if his ego and his understanding of the world were inversely proportionate to one another - heavy on the ego.

As I said, I was living in Boston, specifically in Allston.
And it was here that I learned an amazing lesson.
From a plant.

My apartment was pretty nice, aside from (or next to) the roaches. With it came a plant which the previous owner had thoughtfully left for me. Or had simply forgotten.

I had no idea what to do with a plant.
I'd never really had one.
Still, I couldn't bring myself to throw it out.
So I just let it sit there, a soon to be no longer living memorial to my directionless existence.
The plant's leaves died, and so, seemingly, did it.
I could relate.

Then one day, I decided, What the heck, I'll water the plant.
Yes, it needed it. But I think I needed it more.
And besides, I had nothing to lose.
And everything.

A few days went by, a week, a month.
I kept up my daily ministrations.
I even got a spray bottle so I could keep its leaves moist.
And the plant - an English Ivy, I think - came back to life.
And began to grow.
And grow. And grow.

When I finally left Boston for my first teaching job, the plant was lush, its vines tumbling over the sides of its pot to the floor seven feet below, an emerald cascade.

I had never felt such an enormous sense of accomplishment.
But it was more than that.
I myself was pivotal in the turn around of this plant's life.
I mattered.

And in the simple act of giving this living thing the chance to grow, I had done the same thing for myself.

I did not then fathom the plant's gift to me. Nor did I see how great a role it played in my quest for the meaning of meaning. I didn't even know I was on a quest.

That plant may not have been key in my becoming a teacher. But it was instrumental in my staying one.

As I said. I didn't know then.
Now I do.

"Give and thou shalt receive."

"Good judgment comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgment."
Murphy's Law

"Mistakes are the only things you can truly call your own."
- Billy Joel

A dual mantra for all who teach and learn.

Mistakes are invaluable sources of learning for their makers.
No matter how embarrassing, or how humiliating, or how annoying.
Provided you heed their lesson.

Mistakes don't just happen. They are made. We make them.
You make them.
Students make them.
I make them.

Mistakes can be of (non-)fact, of (il)logic, of (non-)recognition, of (mis)understanding. Some are born of incomplete thinking, others of thinking too much. Whatever their ilk, mistakes remind us of our humanity. They can open the door to humility, and thence to deeper and broader thinking, learning, understanding.

Particularly potent is the realization that a problem, an idea, a concept was so obvious that you had never really thought about it.

And suddenly it comes into focus. The veil of self-hypnosis falls away.
You truly see for the first time. You recognize the existence of something. Now you can act on that recognition.

Here's a mistake that I made.
Fortunately, it taught me well.

The worst lecture I ever gave resulted in one of the best lessons I ever learned.
The lecture was on supplementary participles in Ancient Greek, a concept that had come to me quickly, completely, intuitively when I had learned the language.

In other words, it was a concept I had never given a second thought.
Or any thought.
Sure, I got it.
A car gets gasoline, too.
But does it understand it?
How like a car I was.

And so I ran into trouble.
Barreled into it headlong.

Not surprisingly, a number of the students had no comprehension of what I was talking about. They could not distinguish between the supplementary participle I was introducing to them and another class of verbal adjectives they had already met called circumstantial participles.

Circumstantial participles act as their own clauses. Supplementary participles at first glance may seem to have a similar function. But they don't. Some verbs in ancient Greek require the participial equivalent of a complementary infinitive to fully complete their sense. That counterpart is called a supplementary participle.

I couldn't explain it to them.
I was trapped in my own universe.
I told them "I don't understand what it is you don't understand."

A good line to use in appropriate situations.
This wasn't one of them.

Eventually, I got beyond my annoyance and chagrin at what I thought was the non-responsiveness of my students.
I realized my mistake. But how to classify it? Classification leads to understanding the source of the mistake.
Projection?
I had thought that the difference between the participles was patent.
It wasn't simply that I had not anticipated that the students would have any difficulty with supplementary participles. In fact, that possibility had not so much as crossed my mind.
So no, it wasn't really projection.
It was...what?

A nothingness.
A black hole.
A blind-spot.

These are the most difficult mistakes to recognize, precisely because they reveal themselves only indirectly. You cannot see a black hole, but you know it's there by the effect is has on the environment around it.

So now what?
Fix the problem.
Understand that your own leap of thought, your own intuition, can be the very thing that blocks you from clearly demonstrating a concept to your students.

They aren't the ones who don't get it.

You are.

As was I.

Fourteen months ago, I wrote the following entry for this blog regarding the years right after college graduation - years I would never want to experience again. Still.

"...I was living in Boston, specifically in Allston.
And it was here that I learned an amazing lesson.
From a plant.

My apartment was pretty nice, aside from (or next to) the roaches. With it came a plant which the previous owner had thoughtfully left for me. Or had simply forgotten.

I had no idea what to do with a plant.
I'd never really had one.
Still, I couldn't bring myself to throw it out.
So I just let it sit there, a soon to be no longer living memorial to my directionless existence.
The plant's leaves died, and so, seemingly, did it.
I could relate.

Then one day, I decided, What the heck, I'll water the plant.
Yes, it needed it. But I think I needed it more.
And besides, I had nothing to lose.
And everything.

A few days went by, a week, a month.
I kept up my daily ministrations.
I even got a spray bottle so I could keep its leaves moist.
And the plant - an English Ivy, I think - came back to life.
And began to grow.
And grow. And grow.

When I finally left Boston for my first teaching job, the plant was lush, its vines tumbling over the sides of its pot to the floor seven feet below, an emerald cascade.

I had never felt such an enormous sense of accomplishment.
But it was more than that.
I myself was pivotal in the turn around of this plant's life.
I mattered.

And in the simple act of giving this living thing the chance to grow, I had done the same thing for myself.

I did not then fathom the plant's gift to me. Nor did I see how great a role it played in my quest for the meaning of meaning. I didn't even know I was on a quest.

That plant may not have been key in my becoming a teacher. But it was instrumental in my staying one.

As I said. I didn't know then.
Now I do."

So, yes. Now I will say this, quoting my buddy Marcus Tullius Cicero (it's up to you readers to figure out how it applies to what follows):

"Qui ipse sibi sapiens prodesse non quit, nequiquam sapit."

Translation:

"The wise man who cannot help himself is wise in vain."

Now.
One thing I neglected to mention in that story:

I didn't just leave Boston.

I also left the plant.

That always bothered me.
The leaving the plant part, that is.
(Leaving Boston was easy.
I'm a Yankee fan, for goodness sake.)

Nagged at me.
Niggled.
Still does.

So why am I bringing this up now, you ask?
"Yes. That would be nice to know."
Fair enough.
Recently and with increasing vigor, I've been working with my education consultancy in the UK.
Coming over here every month, working with all the teachers for a week or so each time.

But somewhere in the back of my mind has been lurking the thought that I would teach again next year.

And that it would be in an independent school in the US.
And that it would be full time.
I had already spoken with various placement services, and had received phone calls regarding my availability.
I even went through an interview for a paternity leave position for April and May of this year.
It was okay.
Even good.
But it was lacking.
Or rather, I was preoccupied.
I could talk the talk, even walk the walk.
But my heart was nowhere in sight.

How could I just be a substitute teacher with this school when I have my own work to do?
My own teachers to work with?
I was offered that position.
I turned it down.
I couldn't in good conscience accept it.

cagse requires commitment.
Full Commitment.
From Everyone.
My executive director is the best there is.
But she can't do it herself.
My pro story teller is fabulous.
She can't do it all, either.
My head of Latin Programs is tremendous.
She can't do it by herself, either.

Then there are the teachers themselves.
They are hardworking, dedicated, enthusiastic.
Most of them are new to teaching.
Even those who aren't are new to my book.

'Everyone' includes me.

But I still wasn't quite getting it.
Recently, I had a phone call from the folks at Dalton School.
They wanted me to come in for an interview.
I said I would.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I could not do it.
So I cancelled.
Why?
Because I already have a job.
I also removed my name from placement services regarding further consideration for the foreseeable future from any school.

Why?
Because I finally got it.

I (still) already have a job.

And what a job it is.

The work we are doing over here is nothing short of critical.
To the UK's national curriculum, certainly.
But even more to education itself.
We have here a new, powerful mechanism which will serve as a paradigm for real teaching and learning in the form of our Latin program.

cagse can be the cutting edge, not just on it.
Can shape vibrant, energetic, thoughtful teaching and learning for decades to come.

We are Compelling.

We put the R E A L back into L E A R N i n g.

But for cagse to take wing,
it is up to me.
And so, here I fly.

So why the reference to that earlier blog?

Haven't you figured it out yet?

Simple.

I've come back for my plant.

drg

I just returned today from the annual American Philological Association meeting down in Philadelphia.

I haven't been to one of those meetings in a long time.
Twelve years, probably.

I saw my old UPenn profs - they probably don't like being called 'old'.
But they are definitely wise:
Ralph Rosen.
Joe Farrell.
Bridget Murnaghan.
The inimitable, incomparable Jim O'Donnell.

I had been hesitant, fearing to go.
To no avail.
I did, in fact, go.
And found that those fears were all in vain.

I also got to see old "classmates", fellow strugglers now making good for themselves, including Eric Casey (now of Sweet Briar College) and Nigel Nicholson (Reed College).

I've been, as some know, teaching at every level from third graders through graduate students.

And recently, the last two years, I have heavily invested/been investing/involved in my own company, both in the US and in the UK.

CAGSE, which gets Latin into schools - state schools, public schools - at an early age.

Not just into schools -
Into their curricula.

Into the life blood of the public/state schools' academic life.

My method of teaching is different from most.
I do not shy away from teaching the tough stuff.
The grammar, the syntax, the vocabulary.

Everything my teachers in the UK - that is, the teachers who teach for CAGSE - do, they do in English first.

We treat English as a case/inflected language.
We use English as a vehicle for Latin;
Then, we turn around, and use Latin as a vehicle for English.

Ultimately, it is about language acquisition.
Latin is key in that acquisition.

Because these are all keys to reading, writing, thinking effectively.
But it has to be age appropriate.
Games, singing, manipulatives are all part of the delivery mechanism.
Story-telling - a major piece.
How to breathe life into the material.
And pervading all - the credo that students are capable of whatever they aspire to.
And we foster those aspirations.

CAGSE will be coming to America in the Fall of this coming academic year.
Probably in New Orleans, but discussions are on-going.

So why did I go to the APA?
Not for the papers.
Not to see the meat market of candidates going around to various and sundry interviews.

To reconnect. As I did.

But also, to deliver a message.
To be the message.

(But people kill messengers.
Worth the risk.)

And what message is that?

This.

All around us, the world is reeling in economic mayhem.

People are looking to put their money, what little they have available, into real things.
Into The Real.

And what is The Real?
Real skills.
Understanding the nuts and bolts of language.
The beauty of it.
The art of it.
The drudgery of it.

Classics is one of the few fields that is still in The Real.
We have to teach basics.
Our students have to learn grammar, the blood and guts of language.
They have to learn paradigms and morphology - the bones of language.
And they have to be able to put it all together and see how it works in context - syntax.
And what is syntax? The nervous system of language.

People who go through a rigorous Latin/Greek study learn, above all, how to think.
Deeply.
Critically.
Flexibly.

We do this in our field better than anyone does in theirs.

My favorite oxymoron?

An English Grammarian.

Nobody ever would even attempt to make the same joke with Classics.

So what then am I saying here?

I urge folks in professional organizations to make a major commitment - not lip service, not just the award here or there to the occasional good teacher of the subject - to the study of Classics from the ground up.

The Ground Up.
Ground Zero.

And what is Ground Zero?
Primary Schooling.

A concerted, coordinated effort.

An urging of graduate students to go into teaching at any and all levels.
Especially the lower levels.

Lower does not mean "worse" or "less-qualified".

We need to think of this rather as getting in at the groundfloor.

We in Classics have always been able to see the value of the double accusative:
We teach the subject.
We teach the students.
And sometimes, when everything goes right, we teach the one to the other.

This needs to come not just from the ACL.
Not just from the JCL.
But from the APA.

Digital Portals are nice.
But what are we supposed to do, virtually walk through them?
Who besides Classicists benefit from such a thing?

But:

Who would benefit from studying Latin and Greek, taught well, from the earliest age?

Everyone.
Anyone.

So what?
Here's so what:

Because Classics has always done the gritty work, always required its students to master the basics, Classics is in the position to become The Means by which education in this country and in the world, maybe, can change for the better.

We stick to our guns.
Our students can learn real skills: reading, writing, thinking.
Whether they remain in the field or not, those skills will always be with them.

It is our Secret Weapon.

If we dare to use it.
If we dare to say, This is What We Are About.

And Classics will cease being a marginalized field.
Cease to be that living exemplar/epitome of "Ivory Tower".
Cease to be just for "The Best and Brightest" - whoever they may be.
Universities will run in the other direction before they even think of cutting a department.

We will not just become relevant.
We will define Relevance.

But directed leadership is absolutely necessary.

And then - watch how the money rolls in.

-drg

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

"Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?"

That's the name of a popular new game show.

The title actually is predicated on a misconception.

"Smarter" really doesn't mean "Possessed of Deeper Understanding".

What then does it mean?

It means, in this context anyway, "More knowledgeable".

Herein lies the flaw.
Our society is severely hampered now because we put a premium on Knowledge at the expense of Understanding.

As such, Math and Science have become key.
The Liberal Arts are in peril.
Why study History?
Why study English?
Why study Language?

China and the Far East are going to take over:
in every aspect,
in every respect,
in every suspect.

The West's Response:
We better get cracking on our Science and Math then!

Wait a second.

The Far East is ahead of us in many ways.

Including language.
The Chinese get that better than we - They Make everyone learn Chinese, Make them speak Their language, Make it Illegal to Speak Anything BUT their Language.

Including an understanding of History.
Their History is paramount.
Ours is but a drop in the bucket in comparison.

Of Life.
Of Philosophy.
Taoism.
Buddhism.
Hinduism.

And of never putting one discipline ahead of another.
To the exclusion of another.
They understand that there is a oneness about things.
That all disciplines are different facets of a oneness.

And that is where we in the West fail miserably.
We believe that Knowledge is Key.
In the Far East, where they believe the World was Created,
they already are ahead of us.
Because they're behind us.

They get what we don't.

Why?

Because we live in a society wherein Knowledge is mistaken for Understanding.
It's not just that the two are equated.
The One apparently is the Other.

The difficulty, however, is this:

Knowledge is one thing.
Understanding is something else.

We in the West believe that some types of Knowledge are MORE IMPORTANT than others.
That some types of Understanding are More Important than others.

We are in serious trouble.
We put ourselves in that predicament.
We have no one but ourselves to blame (after all, we have become experts in the Blame Game).

Here is where Education in the West Fails Miserably.

We do not see what real education is Not:

It is not a matter of knowing all the answers.

What then is Real Education a matter of?

Understanding the Question.

Teachers and schools.

My oh my, do they love to brag.

About that "Ahah" Moment.

You know that moment.

When a student suddenly sits bolt upright in his chair and says, "Oh my goodness. (Or, rather, since it is Y2K plus, OMG!) That's so cool!"

Teachers live for The Moment.

They speak about it like it's something almost sacred.
holy.
holy of holies.
righteous justification for all the teacher's hard work.

But here's the catch -

Students are not dumb.
Even the ones who are tagged that way.
They know what their teachers are looking for.
Particularly in terms of rewarded behavior.

Do kids, who long to belong, who at the same time entertain the diametrically opposite yearning to shine, and be in the spotlight all by themselves, lack awareness regarding adults, teachers, etc., the Guardians of those Pearly Gates of Acceptance?

No.
They know their keepers extremely well.
They are more apt to say what adults want to hear from them.
Adults are themselves needy, young teachers in particular.
We are human, after all.
We like to know we're doing our job right.

To hear students say "Ahah" is the pedagogical equivalent of the Holy Grail.
You can hear teachers all over the world, particularly the new ones, hugging themselves in celebration, whispering congratulations to themselves.

We have arrived.
Our students have had an "Ahah" Moment.

Here's the hard part.
When you've taught long enough, you realize that there are "Ahah" moments and "ahah" Moments.

False "ahahs" happen all the time.
Teachers can be very much like Pavlov's Dog when it comes to The Moment.
When they hear those two long awaited syllables, even the experienced ones, they feel like they've been touched by the Gods of Pedagogy.
Their prayers have been answered.
Their vocational choice rewarded.

Not so fast, people.

Does this mean, then, that the Ahah moment doesn't exist?
No.
It exists.
But it's more likely to happen a little bit at a time, not suddenly burst into being like some Big Bang.

And when the ahah moment does occur, it can be very humbling for the student.
In fact, the most effective moments of "ahah" are not "ahah" moments.

They are Moments of "Duh".

A "Duh" moment - when the student finally sees what has been in front of him the whole time.
It is a truly self-realized and self-actualized moment in time.

It is brought about not by the teacher, but by the student himself.
The teacher supplies the environment, yes.
But the student brings the tools to exploit that environment with him.

Here's an example of a "duh" moment.

A few years ago, I gave my 7th graders a quiz.
I decided I would not erase the board.
On the board were the answers to the very quiz those kids were taking.
The students took no notice of what was on the board.
They were intent upon the quiz itself.
They did not look around, up, to the sides, anywhere.

Finally, they handed in their quizzes.

I said to them, "Okay, folks, now look at the board."
They did so.
Realization creeped up on them.
Tapped them on the shoulder.
Shook them roughly.
At last, it happened.
Dawn.
They were floored when they realized that what they were looking at were the answers to the quiz they had just completed.

So close they could touch them.

One of the students said to me,
"You kept the answers right there all along. That's so unfair!"

All I did was direct their attention to what had been there from the beginning.
Before I had even handed out the quiz.
Yes, I provided the thing for them to see.
But I did neither the not seeing nor the seeing for them.
They had to do both for themselves.
Only in doing the one was the other so effective.

And so they felt humbled and somewhat silly, because the answers were there all the time.
They just did not see them.
Until they saw them.

That is a "Duh" moment.

Of all Learning Moments, the most effective.

An Epiphany of Greater Luminosity.

I've about had it.
Yes, I'll do it.
Explain to people why Latin, and my Latin program in particular, is critical to a school's success.
How it helps shape, build, deepen linguistic awareness.
How it helps prepare students for deeper, critical thinking and analysis.

But.

It's getting more and more difficult.
I haven't the energy to continue convincing people of the obvious.
Especially when they don't want to hear it.
When they aren't interested.
When they think they know the right answer.
And that answer does not include Latin.
I can only nod and say, fine, you know best.
I don't really mean it.
What I really mean is "your best isn't very good. or any good."
I can point out the benefits until the cows come home.
But the desire to broaden and deepen does not exist among, in particular, administrators.
All these folks can do is say how important Math and Science are.
Or Chinese.
To which I say, Man are you LIMITED.
These are the same people who tell you to"think outside the box."
These people invented the box.
And its rigid parameters.

Give me liberal arts baby.
Unfettered by tyrannical governmental positions on what our youth of today should learn.
Yeah.
That youth.
That youth that has major difficulties simply reading and writing.
If they know how to do either of those things.
Lord knows that a focus on Math and Science will hardly help with those two skills.
Amazing.
Some say "Where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise."
And when that ignorance is aggressive, and masquerades behind knowledge, well then.
'nuff said.