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6 thoughts on “End of Year Story”
Had I heard something like that from my students, I would indeed consider all the bullshit from the entire year erased. Congratulations, Dan. This is a gem.
Haha – Thanks guys! It makes my heart calm indeed, especially seeing how poorly they are doing on that traditional test. Luckily, I have at least convinced the other teachers in my district that it is time to rewrite the exams for next year.
What will be difficult, when it comes time to rewrite the tests, will be dealing with the people who think that they are already giving a comprehension based exam. We give a textbook based exam with a few reading passages. When I raised this issue previously to the other teachers up north, the response was –
“In my opinion, if the goal is to be “common” we all should be using the same texts and the vocab, etc. the kids are tested on should come from that. I don’t want the exam to turn into an NLE-like test that just barely touches on a few things…”
There is an irrational fear there that is present in all Latin (perhaps all language) programs that take themselves seriously and have found success and validation in teaching the old ways, glued to a textbook, and utterly helpless without it. The fear is that the students will find things too easy, that they will too easily understand what the passages are trying to communicate. That they “don’t really know it” unless they can parse every single bit of grammar.
The Cambridge Latin Course’s greatest sin, in my opinion, is that it convinces teachers who teach the old way that they are teaching in a much more radical and communicative way. The way most teachers use it (the “official” way, in fact – you can’t make this shit up) is glorified grammar-translation with a ton to be translated. Perhaps we can call it translation-grammar instead, since that is how it is done.
Do you guys have any advice for dealing with this slow moving storm set to hit ground zero in Fulton County GA next year? We are hopefully getting 1 more CI teacher next year, so we will only be outnumbered 8 to 3.
…the Cambridge Latin Course’s greatest sin, in my opinion, is that it convinces teachers who teach the old way that they are teaching in a much more radical and communicative way….
This is well stated, very accurate. It is a serious charge based in fact and needs to be looked at honestly. It is happening everywhere, not just in Latin. It directly tags on the question of what materials to use and that means dollars. Where profits are involved, there it gets ugly fast.
…do you guys have any advice for dealing with this slow moving storm set to hit ground zero in Fulton County GA next year?…
Slow moving storm is right! Has anyone noticed how much teachers and administrators frequently change jobs? We move from school to school a lot, and so just when we think we have something built in terms of comprehensible input, a key person arrives or leaves and messes up or helps that growth, depending on their approach. Politics raises its ugly head with every new arrival or departure. Transcience in our profession is just something to accept. In my school we just spent years as a department working with an administrator and next year he’ll be in another school. We lose in one instant that support we worked so hard at creating on a daily basis over years. We will have another AP in charge of WL next year in our high school. Y’all are looking at a balance of 8 and 3. If it were 9 and 2 it would be “those 2 TPRS freaks”. But going to 3 changes the balance. One big metro district – I just found this out today -that was tipping fast toward CI just tipped back the other way with the arrival of one person in one key position. At least three years of preparatory work in support of CI was undermined. Nothing is going to happen fast anywhere. As much as I like to kick up sand, it’s best to develop patience and work on our own teaching.
18 I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. 19 And who knows whether that person will be wise or foolish? Yet they will have control over all the fruit of my toil into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless.
Leviticus 2:18-19 (NIV)
When looked at from a particular perspective, all our effort can seem meaningless, but it is not meaningless to the students with whom we interact. (Or, as the story goes: Two people were walking along the beach. One of them kept stopping to throw starfish that had washed onto the beach back into the water. His companion said, “Why bother, it won’t make any difference in the long run anyway.” He replied, “It makes a difference to the starfish.” We make a difference to our students.)
We can also look at these changes this way: if I have changed my administrator’s ideas about language acquisition while he or she was at my school, then that administrator will take those ideas to the new assignment. The new administrator is one more person to educate who will later take these ideas to his new assignment, so my influence is actually multiplied.
What I hear you saying, Robert, and I agree completely, is that we cannot know the results of the work we are doing, and we don’t need to know – we just need to keep on doing it. Thank you for that reminder.