Via Facilis

Here's the situation.

Your kid has the opportunity of taking one of the following languages:

French, Spanish, German, Latin, Mandarin

Which one is best?

Hmmm, you think.
Well, if we go by what everybody else thinks, the answer is obvious.
(this requires us to be followers and easily persuaded by others, no matter how well thought out their reasoning is)

Mandarin, right? (linguistic flavor of the month and all that....and no, I don't judge books by their cover, unless the cover says "New York Times Best Seller", in which case, I run very fast and far in the other direction.)

If we go by perceived usefulness, then the answer is:
Spanish.

Right?

(Begging the question, what the heck do we mean by "usefulness"?)

If we go by Classical Education (What is "Classical Education"? What are "The Classics" or "Classics", for that matter?), the answer is:
Latin

I mean, hey, it's the root of 60 per cent of our words in English, so it'll help with SATs, etc. (as if the SATs are the be all and end all of an academic's existence - not)

or French (nobody speaks that any more - welllll, that's just a little off, as in wrong)
or German (might as well just speak English, right? uh, no)

Actually, the answer is:
none of the above.

You don't make this choice by language.

The learning of a language is automatically advantageous, regardless of what that language is.

The answer is,

In which is the the teacher superior?

Latin can be mistaught.
So can any language.
If the teacher is awful, or even so-so, your kid is in a lose-lose situation, no matter how interesting the subject matter may potentially be.

It will be an automatic turn off.

If the teacher is excellent, your kid is in a much better position to learn something tangible and real.

So, as I say above,

Caveant Parentes

Let The Parents Beware

An Open Later to Parents re: After School Latin at All Saints Academy, Newport, RI

Over the last twenty-four years, I have been teaching Latin and Greek to students of every level from fourth grade through graduate school. Three years ago, I founded CAGSE, a company which has been getting Latin into schools, and teaching it, in the UK. Five schools in the London area use our program to help their students meet government standard literacy requirements. To get a better idea of what CAGSE does, I encourage you to explore our website at www.cagse.com. Most recently, I decided to bring this program to schools in the United States, with Newport, RI and the surrounding area as the focal point.

I’ve written my own text books, and developed my own pedagogical tools whereby students of any age and perceived capability can readily learn Latin. When students work with CAGSE’s Latin, they are asked to grapple with the building blocks of Indo-European. In doing this, they begin constructing a door through which they can readily access English as well. Learning Latin also puts students in a good position to pick up any European language: the Romance languages as well as the rest, which, like Latin, are inflected: word endings play a significant role in establishing the syntax, and therefore the meaning, of a sentence. Working with the basics, in turn, helps students develop their language skill to the point where any language they look at, whether or not it is Indo-European, is accessible.

I would like to meet with you regarding the offer of my Latin course to your children in an after-school program. Not because six out of every ten words in the English language are Latinate, or that your students’ SSAT scores will go up. We go deeper than that. CAGSE’s Latin program has students working with every part of every word to determine what role each has in the formation of linguistic meaning. The fact of the matter is that your students’ linguistic competence, not merely their dictionary knowledge, will both deepen and broaden as they work with the nuts and bolts of a language which is integral in the development of their own.

I look forward to meeting with you.

Very Sincerely Yours,

Dr. Richard Gilder III
CAGSE
(845) 309 5808 (cell)

Six Week Program
$180 per student

Each class as a group is unique. What we cover will vary. We go as fast as the class goes. There is no constraint upon the students one way or the other.

A Sample Syllabus
Week 1 – Learn Latin Greetings and numbers I-X
Who were the Romans?
When were the Romans?
What would have happened if Remus had prevailed?

Week 2 – Revisit Week 1
New Material
Build Up English Parts of Speech – Focus on Noun
Noun in English vs. Noun in Latin
English Building Blocks manipulatives
Latin Building Blocks

Week 3 – Revisit Weeks 1-2
Build Up English Parts of Speech
Work with the Verb in Latin and in English
English Building Blocks
Latin Building Blocks

Week 4 – Revisit Weeks 1-3
Build Up English Parts of Speech
Noun and Verb together in Latin and English
How does the English sentence establish meaning?
How does Latin establish meaning?

Week 5 - Revisit Weeks 1-4
Build Up English Parts of Speech
Prepositions in English
Prepositions in Latin

Week 6 – Revisit Weeks 1-5