I have been hanging out with a performing didaskolos.

I am going to be doing my performing didaskolos thing in Brighton on 23rd March.

You should all come.

I will tell you about the Jobbler Bird, the Blackbird that can't quite do his job, Roger the Wise (not the Brave as was previously thought), Cassandra whom you should all know about, the Three Little Pigs, possibly a tale about a lovely man, and much more besides.

Marlborough Theatre, 23rd March, Brighton.

I would come if I were you.

Half-term was not very half-hearted at all.

I have been berated for my (I think rather measured) enthusiasm for Kavanagh QC. I do not pretend to be a TV expert – I don't own one. My television experience is limited to snatched titbits on other people's sofas. However, KQC did the job one Thursday afternoon in a turbulent half-term and that is all I have to say on the matter.

However, regarding the turbulent half-term, allow me to say a lot more. Actually, I am going to say three things more, one of which might be true, none of which might be true, or all of which might be true. You will never know although you will at least now know what a tricolon is, if you were wondering.

1.) A sorry, downtrodden teacher walked the streets of London one grey day, thinking life was an unfortunate affair. As if by magic, a man in a disgusting shirt stood in her way and said, 'Give me your money.' However, as the teacher started to cry whilst reaching for her wallet, not wanting to be raped, pillaged or murdered, the man in the disgusting shirt said he was sorry and that the teacher needn't worry, he could ask someone else. This induced the teacher to cry further. The man ended up offering a tissue which was quite mangled. The teacher declined. The man got very angry and said, 'I was just trying to be nice.' The teacher, who had recovered somewhat by this stage, said that he had a funny way of showing it.

2.) A sometime poet went to see a play. She ended up sitting next to a man who had drunk and was drinking and would go on to drink far too much later in the evening although that is another story. His writhing at the very bad theatre before him caused the sometime poet to wring her hands and wonder what to do. He said, in the interval, 'You know, you are allowed to laugh.' The sometime poet, who generally writes very sad stuff, took this as a compliment – the attention I think, rather than the information proffered – and lightened up. The second half saw much guffawing from both the sometime poet and the drunk stranger who became stranger the more drunk he became, and this guffawing proved to be infectious. Before they realised, the whole of the upper circle was in fits of laughter and an usher, who looked a little like a rabbit, had to tell the perpetrators of the crime to leave. However, they said they were sorry and asked to stay until the end. Lucky they did as, in the final scene of the production, two of the actors attempted to get under a shower that dripped only three drops. This induced such laughter that the sometime poet's stomach muscles have now been sorted for the next six months.

3.) 'White or brown bread?' The waitress shot the words at the two of them in no uncertain terms. The morning was already pretty trying, what with Oxford Street being Oxford street and there being people at every turn. And not just any people. Oh no. Some were dressed in long red coats with military badges adorning their chests and, although morbidly obese and very conspicuous, still managed to sneak in and out of coffee shops when no one was looking. The two decided to throw in the towel and instead of attempting to bury their giggles in the napkins that were piled on a plate before them, decided to simply laugh in the waitress's face. 'She probably gets it all the time,' he said. 'What makes you think that?' she said. 'Well she didn't bat an eyelid.' The girl batted her eyelids and thought what a nice man he was, even though he laughed in people's faces. Like her.

I have been writing songs this week. It has been fun. I have decided to change profession. Or at least lean someway further into the artist's territory than I have been doing. All this crusader for Latin rubbish won't get me anywhere. One only had to listen to Woman's Hour this morning to realise it is all a non-starter. Mr Matthew Engel put his money on the table with the forward-thinking-educationalist's patois – Go Arabic and Mandarin, Throw Latin in the rubbish bin etc etc. I concurred. If you want to be a big business man/economist/diplomat/politician, Latin is not going to stand you in much stead. Not really.

I know, I know. We learn languages far better if we have been through the rigours of the ablative absolute and can work out that impecunious means poor. But what if we were taught modern languages properly? There are indirect objects and past passive participles aplenty in French, Italian, German etc. Or, shock horreur, we could always be given a good drilling in English to start off with. So if we bypass that much cited defence by throwing grammatical nitty gritty into our learning of modern languages, with what, pray, are we left?

The venerable Lorna Robinson, founder of the Iris Project, did mutter something about 'learning for learning's sake'. Hurrah. That washes. But it is not quite the same as 'Latin for Latin's sake' is it, which is the only thing that will stand up in the court of appeal (I watched Kavanagh QC yesterday for the first time. Quite good I thought). Time on the curriculum comes at a high price and it isn't enough to say Latin is a good mental exercise. The stuff we learn must be, whilst good for the learning process itself, also on a need to know basis.

Now I have something to stick in your vocational pipes, young men of the non-existent education revolution. How about a little food for making? Yes, that's right. Not food for thought but food for making. I sense a stunned silence in the great halls of 'BEST PRACTICE, NEXT PRACTICE POPPYCOCK MINISTRY FOR EDUCATION'. Creativity? What are you talking about, over-privileged, unqualified teacher of a superfluous subject? Creativity?

Allow me to wipe the spittle from my brow and elucidate. It is quite hard to get 14 years olds to make things. Now some of them don't want to and never will (I am not advocating a one size fits all education system. Let me deal with one thing at a time). But others do want to and will want to and everyone will need to make things in whatever job they might do. Or at least should, even if it is a system to deal with an order for 11 capuccini when there are only 4 espresso spouts ('bring in Robbie Williams – he'll drink the surplus' might be one option). And you can't make things out of nothing. You can't say to 14 year olds 'make me a poem' when they don't have anywhere to go from. They need more than the odd book on the curriculum – two books for two English GCSEs !!!!! – and there is no art in modern languages. Not a glimmer of literature, not a tinkle of Debussy.

I know of a certain school that is looking into incorporating Classical Civilisations into Key Stage 3 English. And it would not just be bookish, rather story-telling with music, drama, visual arts etc. What better way of recognising the value of the pallet of ideas the Classics affords and using it to boost creativity? That is the stuff that dreams are made of surely. If they can ensure that other bodies of literature are incorporated – Arabian Nights as well as Greek Myths for example – then we are really getting somewhere.

But the oldest support for Latin really does still stand. You know, the one that says that we are so entrenched in the Classical world that we can't escape it and therefore we must seek to understand it, or children at least have a right to be taught a little about it. In listening to Front Row last night, not only did we hear about a big Golden Banana's design that is such that the foundations will not destroy any of the Roman remains in its environs (it is being constructed on Camulodunum) but Orpheus also popped up. They are all over the place, our Classical friends, and to deny that would be like saying 'education, education, education' is a tricolon.

Oh half term.

You are oh so half hearted.

But I love you with both halves of my heart.

I have been silent because I am on holiday and therefore am busier than ever. What with matters of the heart, pissing off my neighbour by playing guitar VERY QUIETLY (at 3am), and writing brilliant songs about Roger the Brave, life runs faster than Myspace.

I'm sure web sociologists must have done some research on the Myspace honeymoon period. Is it dependent on age? Do 15 year olds honeymoon for 2 years whereas us saddos who shouldn't really be here in the first place last only a month or so? Presumably gleaning results is also disproportionate since anyone above the age of 16 really is above all that..............

We shall see.

I have always known that city life can cause premature aging but Friday night saw me hurtle into middle-age and back again before Big Ben had chimed his chime.

Last week I witnessed some old school friends being friends and was envious. As if by magic, 3 days later, some old school friends of my own emailed and I jumped at the chance of a bit of Wellensian nostalgia. That and a big gay night out – there was a tinselline fairy stalking the Bishop's Moat back in the 90s I am sure, flash-wanding all and sundry into homosexuality. I seem to be one of the few to have escaped its spell.

But, what horrors lay in store. Climbing the steps out of Leicester Square tube, I was bombarded from behind by a crescendo of adolescent voices shouting 'charming' and 'turn me on'. I think it was a new version of the 'bollocks' game – does anyone else know that one? People have to shout out 'bollocks' at increasing decibels until someone chickens out. I think. The rules aren't clear. There didn't seem to be much daring in this Leicester Square version however. There was something to it at the back of the history classroom. But here it had turned into 'see how many people I can annoy and make feel slightly sick' – the sound of a 17 year old boy with nail varnish and acne trilling in a falsetto 'turn me on' in my ear, did, unsurprisingly, have that effect.

I laboured on. Next were a couple of women, one about 40, the other about 30. They were very cheesy. Big blonde hair, big red nails, big legs (small skirts), big heels (big calves) and big voices. 'You're a bit cheesy' said one of two men, passing by. 'WHAT DO YOO MEAN? WOT R YOO SAYING? ThERE's NUFFIN CHEESY about USS. SHeEs My DOORTER. HOW DarE YOO.' And they sauntered (not exactly but let it pass) off.

Without noticing an inner monologue had begun in my head…. and the voice was not my own. What are all these people doing, do they have no shame, don't they want to gather around a piano and sing songs, what happened to preserving modesty, why all the noise, why is everyone so loud and bright and awful?

Oh god.

I had become my father.

In 20 minutes of London I had aged 25 years. Panic ensued. I ducked into HMV. I looked at the titles of Arvo Part pieces (festina lente etc) and began to feel a little better. Latin is good for the soul.

By the time my friend had arrived I was back in my mid-twenties and ready to have a groovy time. We gaggled our own noisy way to Popstarz and all was well. But he is persistent, my father, and he began to grind his organ yet again mid-set (CSS – tres cool (too cool for me) Brazilian band). I couldn't hear the words. Is this just my problem? If I can't hear the words I just don't get it. I heard one I think. 'car'… possibly … but that whilst crammed between cigarettes and a disgusting 40 year old man's beer gut, nestling neatly into the small of my back ALL THE WAY THROUGH … I threw in the towel. I was fifty and there was no way out.

Or so I thought. Just when my age was getting settled into post-menopausal stability, a lovely Spanish/Italian boy who was mooning and heart-broken in the corner said he thought I was 18. Daddy was dispelled into the night, all was forgiven and I spun into the safety of youthful denial .... I'm gonna live forever ....

Against my better judgement I am going to mention the dreaded Big Brother. Against better judgement on two counts:
1.) I was going to follow on from the last excellent book review with another, thus giving this blog a continuity others can only dream of.
2.) I haven't really watched enough of it to be in a position to comment.
But I cannot resist. Those of you desperate for my thoughts on 'arbor alma' by Shel Silverstein will have to wait.

I was driving down the black runway of the A1 this evening, shivering from a fever and wanting to be tucked up in bed with Margaret Atwood, when I was momentarily filled with great mirth and merriment and my foray into the great outdoors seemed worth it. Andy Duncan, the chief executive of Channel Four was holding forth about the recent Shilpa/Jade fiasco in an interview on Radio Four. I need not go into any detail. That would be insulting your intelligence. Let me simply tell you what he said (roughly – I didn't write it down, I was driving):

'We are in no sense rubbing our hands in glee at the ratings. I'd have much rather had a quiet series with lower ratings.'

I nearly ended up in a field somewhere between Welwyn and Stevenage (probably the worst place in the world). Now I know my sense of humour is slightly idiosyncratic – stories about fathers finding their long lost daughters in which the Latin is littered with relative clauses…. get it…… relatives about relatives – but please tell me that is funny. I should perhaps expect nothing more from a man who managed to convince everyone that something that is not butter and actually evil margarine but tastes a bit like butter (according at least to people dressed as cows if memory serves) is really great. But that really is the funniest thing I have heard all year.

Amo, amas, amat... and all that.

This is, my dear readers, my fifteenth post. That is fifteen since the rocky roller coaster started at stop number one in Harry Mount County. I wonder whether I might fall in love with him. He has taken up residence in my bedroom since Boxing Day so I should probably give him some attention.

I should add that I am a tragic Latin lover who can find not only the Amores of Ovid pretty exciting, but also the inner id of the future passive participle. So if he gets it all right and good in his book, I will fall head over heels. Perfect timing for Valentine's Day.


I shall tackle it in the way I tell my A-level students to tackle unseens.

1.) Read the title, read the intro, read any vocabulary etc. Take any helpful hints on board as they will probably unlock many doors.

So, amo amas amat - good so far although our paradigm in the modern classroom tends to be paro, paras, parat. I should probably take points off. He is obviously out of touch with Latin as she is taught nowadays. But the '..and all that' does give a slightly frivolous tone so perhaps we should reserve judgement.

2.) Scan the whole thing from start to finish. There may be something at the end that will let you in on the whole story.....

What an excellent teacher I am. If everyone had me they would all whistle their way through their paper ones. Look! On the back cover there is written HUMOUR/REFERENCE. Now it is surreptitiously nestling above the barcode - a cunning ploy to separate the careful readers from the skimmers - but they can't fool me. There I was thinking it was going to be a book for teachers and students, to be used as a classroom textbook or some such..... Some lazy readers might have slipped up there. But not me. Oh no.

3.) Read the sentences in full and allow the undercurrent of structure and meaning to emerge before you struggle with ablatives, subjunctives and the like.

I find myself, without much trouble, on Chapter Sex - see what I did there? Gave it a bit of a light-hearted tone with a bit of baudy punning. I think we are well suited... And how enlightening to see some architecture thrown in. I had a lot of catching up to do at university. Some of us have fathers who love the difference between the Ionian and the Doric, some of us are taken to see Essex pargetting in Saffron Walden. No prizes for guessing which group I fall into. Although I do now know my entasis from my epistyle it is good to see a bit of wide angle action going on.

Then there, lo and behold, is a bit of gerundive (future passive participle) action. Harry doesn't quite get under the skin of Amanda or Miranda - why not just say it is the future passive ie a girl who is to be loved/admired and within the future is the sense that it is the fate of the thing and therefore lying beneath the pretty exterior is a sense of obligation... Oh Harry. I see. It is supposed to be fun and that is not fun. You are forgiven.

4.) Don't not do your homework and get distracted by boyfriends.

Too late I'm afraid. I know he is a bit horrid (see last chapter - Death to the Cambridge Latin Course) but you can't blame a woman for falling for a man who talks of 'love huntings' in Latin. I shall be criticised for not having given an in depth critique of his is, ea, ids but what the heck. Let's just have some fun. I seem to remember certain supporters of a certain Latin course explain their non-teaching of grammar with such fripperies. This is an atrocious defence for books designed for the classroom but here I am vindicated since, as I observed at the start, the book claims to be no such thing. Harrius mihi amandus est.

I had forgotten, whilst luxuriating in the paper this morning, that I was supposed to have done a follow up to yesterday's titbit re. Harrius. I apologise for the brevity. I had to prepare an amazing dinner for mother+1, which was, I must say, amazing. Nigel would have been proud. Luckily for you, the ubiquitous Mr H. Figulus and his platform 9 ¾ popped up in the last page of the magazine, helpfully returning me to the task in hand.

This is the deal. I have become disheartened of late in my quest for The Answer to the Latin Problem. I have dutifully read the requisite journals, scouring the pages for insights into modern methods, old methods, mixed methods, moron's methods. But to no avail. Teachers are surprisingly unforthcoming. Or rather we have entered a world of meta-educational theory where ABC has been usurped by G&T and 123 only exists with a KS prefix. All I find is piffle on how to survive in the classroom as an NQT, how not to worry about lesson plans, how we must team teach, how we might improve our questioning, teacher-led learning (WHAT?!), plenaries (excellent, my spell checker doesn't recognise that one) et cetera.

All of the above has its place (she says through gritted teeth) but there is a real and terrifying paucity of people examining what they are teaching and how they are teaching it. And by how I do not mean, 'ooh I use a five stage lesson model', rather, 'does it make sense to use prose composition, if so how?' or 'does anyone else out there think that purpose clauses are really the same as indirect commands and we are making life bloody difficult by pretending they are two separate constructions' or, 'is it more important to learn about the Gracchi than Cicero?' We are heralded as the new self-reflective generation of teachers and yet all we examine are the frameworks rather than the content. Eheu eheu or my favourite, alo, alas, alack.

So to the relevance of Harry Potter and the Ignorant Woman. I teach using creative prose composition ie my students write what they like (as long as it is in Latin). It is an on going research project, a great differentiator, a foolproof stealth assessment method, oh, and is also a very good way of teaching the language which, in case you've forgotten, is the main point of the whole exercise. But we have reached the point where some are trying to produce indirect statements (partly due to scio popping up in the most recent set vocabulary list). But what to do? Do I let them blithely write such marvellous concoctions as 'scio ille CLC liber malus est' and not horrify them with a brief explanation of why the accusative and infinitive is necessary? Do I put the fear of oratio obliqua into their poor, innocent souls or is it really not that important?

non scio.

Nigel (Slater) - coquus optimus
figulus - potter
scio, scire - to know, often followed by an indirect statement e.g. I know that Harry Mount's book isn't the most amazing book in the world but is quite funny and not something to get one's knickers in a twist about.
ille - adjective/pronoun meaning 'that (man)' NOT a conjunction (I know that the CLC is a bad book etc.)
oratio obliqua - indirect speech

I was dragging myself along platform 9a last night, weighed down by a projector, laptop, two beers and too much food when I overheard somebody say, 'Ooh it's like that platform 99 and a half in Harry Potter.'

I stalled.

We were in Kings Cross, just around the corner from where there is the trolley-in-wall cum Platform 9 3/4 sign. Should I have stopped and sent the wretched woman to go and see, and make her repeat 5 times, 'It is Platform 9 ¾ and by saying 99 and a half I completely miss the point,' or was it really not that important?

My grandfather was lovely; a magic combination of anglo-catholic priest and football referee. He used to look after my brother and me in the week. We lived so far away from our schools .. trying to move in the early nineties was a bit of a nightmare .. that we would stay at his house on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. He would make us spaghetti, or cream cheese and chive sandwiches, while we watched Bucky! Captain Bucky O'Hare,..Mutants and Aliens and Toads, beware! Brilliant. Bloody brilliant.

But the highlight of our extra parental experience was watching programmes we would never have been allowed to watch, had we been at home. My flute was neglected, declensions were left to decline autonomously and instead, my knowledge of paella (Floyd in Spain), time travel and cross-dressing (Quantum Leap), and wine (Oz and Gillian in Food and Drink) was jump-started. Actually, Quantum Leap gave me nightmares but Floyd in Spain? Inspirational. I learnt it was pretty great to get sloshed while cooking, that dinner was more than the food on the plate (normally a baked potato) and that life was fruity on the continent. The wine tasting on Food and Drink was like watching a magic show. There was always a quiz at the end and Gillian and Oz had a taste off. I can't claim I learnt much apart from the fact that there was more to wine than licking the cork when parents weren't looking but it was a start.

However, now that I am old, I discover more and more how seemingly anodyne experiences in your past can creep up and mordere te a tergo. There is always a moment when it all seems to be frighteningly relevant. I came across Oz and James May (Top Gear I think?) on telly a few weeks back, cashing in on the whole, 'I'm a boy racer, you're a wine taster, let's see what happens in a tent with some wine' scenario. It was quite compelling. And James May is dishier than a very nice dish. Sorry Oz. But you can be our arbiter bibendi if that is any consolation.

This was how it went. Oz Clarke was of the opinion that you had to learn all the details before actually tasting the wine. He had James (can I call you that James? Hi James) sniffing cow pats and grass before allowing him to sip a drop of the good stuff. James strained at the bit. He wanted to get smashed. And learn something along the way, maybe, if it was really necessary.

Now, if I'm not too much mistaken, James is the embodiment of the inductive method of language learning .. total immersion resulting in a subconscious development of an internal grammar .. Chomsky etc etc. Whereas Oz is the Wilding of the Latin world .. learn the paradigms, your vinum from your vino, before being unleashed on a few choice titbits of Caesar.

As James demonstrates, the Wilding method is all a bit boring. And a bit senseless. Sniffing cowpats is so far removed from the aim of the game (learning and therefore liking wine more, and therefore learning and therefore.... et cetera). Oz's pontificating went on for so long that Mr May ended up using a whistle that said .. shut up Oz, this no longer makes any sense to me, show me the wine. In contrast, although the James/first edition of CLC/inductive method is very pleasant and a lot of fun, you have to drink so much of the stuff to get anywhere that most of us would have to give up our day jobs. Which is what the lovely and lucky James may be able to do for a while but most of us, trying to hold down eight other subjects, would not get very far past red and white. And even he wouldn't be able to sustain the pace and, on giving up, would be faced with little more than a chisel-ended hangover. And, most importantly, I don't think it actually works. You can't learn nuances of grape variety when you're three sheets to the wind just as you can't learn present subjunctives just by boogying away through some stories.

I have decided my ideal is a mixture between the two, which is, I think, where our happy couple ended up as well. Learn a few choice rules and then see how it works with the real thing. Learn a few more and it might then start slotting into place. The James method is very attractive but I don't think I would get very far with it. In fact, when I say a mixture, I really mean 60% Oz, 40% James. And Oz would definitely be in the driving seat.

There you are Daddy. I told you all the telly would pay off in the end.



extra: Latin preposition meaning 'outside' e.g. Latin nowadays is extra curriculum. Accusative wielding preposition hence:

curriculum: neuter accusative singular. Extra curricula is the plural, NOT extra curricular which is just stupid.

paella: Spanish word for pan (Latin - patella and Italian - padella)

autonomously: with one's own rules, from the Greek: auto .. same/self and vomos .. rule.

mordere te a tergo: 'to bite you from behind' or perhaps here 'in the bum'. a or ab is an ablative wielding preposition hence tergo (like vino - see below)

arbiter bibendi: decider of the drinking

vinum/vino: nominative&accusative or dative&ablative singular of neuter nouns in 2nd declension. (Italian uses the ablative forms of words hence vino and many a Mario and Giulio rather than Marius/Giulius)

Actually I haven't. I just wanted to write that to see how it sounded. I am a well-rounded individual who only occasionally makes little Latin quips for educational purposes. I can't think of any at the moment which proves my point.

But I am determined to become a Latin bore for the sake of mankind. Oh yes. I shall be devouring every document concocted by every qualifications board, every curriculum maker, every association for Classics teaching, every association for any teaching, to come up with the answer to the Latin problem.

Let me explain. We Classics teachers are a dying breed. Nobody learns much Latin in school (I discover I am overpreparing my students for AS. Stupidly I have taught them their allotted fragment of a fragment of Cicero AND set them off on Ovid. Silly Magistra. They only have to read one author. Can someone tell me how they are supposed to deal with the 'big picture' when they get to university? Oh, I forget. In most universities they don't have to). Therefore, they are never particularly good at it (Latin, in case you had lost the thread in my anti-AS specification tirade) and as for Greek... contractions? the secrets of the middle? pah! No chance. Consequently, why are they, after wallowing in fear of the fourth principle part, going to want to teach Latin to the next wretched victims of an education that made little sense to them. No Latin teachers, no Latin.

We can, of course, take out the literature and render the whole exercise utterly meaningless.

A little joke.

Some people think the problem lies with the GCSE. Apparently Latin GCSE is a grade harder than many other subjects. I recently observed this probably reflects the fact it is widely taught on reduced timetable time. I have looked at the report. It seems I was right, in part. I can't understand all the statistics. We all know I can't count above 45,000. But I could understand this sentence:

'The GCSE examination itself may be no harder in that subject, but overall students tend to be less well prepared for it. Latin and statistics might be examples of such 'under-timetabled' subjects.'

So the problem is perhaps not the content of the examination but rather the means by which it is taught.

HOWEVER, why are we all so obsessed with GCSEs? In rushing out and demanding the GCSE be made easier we are saying to students ..

take Latin so you can do the GCSE,
get a B,
don't worry
about any
of the other reasons, they don't count and as for just doing a year properly,
don't make me laugh, what would be the point in that? silly
billy.

Surely Latin is good for a bit of nitty gritty (don't worry I'll stop) work that will give students a metalinguistic framework from which they can launch their study of other languages more efficiently. What a luxury it might be for a French teacher to be able to say, 'I don't need to explain to you what the difference is between the perfect and the imperfect'. (Pace anti-Wildingites, I am not calling for a return to the dark ages...... look.....) And throw into the pot some insight into the Ancient World which will complement history, citizenship, English, R.S., art, drama, music, and even geography (which I never like to ally myself with but needs must). A year or so in Key Stage 3 will do wonders. This is what we should push for by working carefully to ensure its relevance alongside the sacred National Curriculum rather than trying to work outside it.

Some people can then choose it for GCSE. If they get a D but enjoy it, fine, and if they get an A and have actually become Latinistuli (my word. Shoot me) along the way then we will have achieved something. And then, if they really like it and want to read some more literature and get under the skin of the Ancient World, then they choose A level. But GCSE should be stage 2. Not stage 1 pretending to be stage 2.

That is what I think. But I am pretending I am on Stage 2 when really I am on stage 1. I will continue on my quest, do my reading and get back to you. This is the story so far.

I'd ask Robert Snell to help if he weren't stuck in a barn somewhere. Whoever said I wasn't well rounded? Ovid, the Archers, what more does one need? Oh yes. Did I mention I was playing in Richmond tonight? The Britannia, Brewers Lane. 8pm. Poetry and music. A bit of Greek indeed. I'm sure you could put it down to expenses Will. Broaden your mind.

People are unable to read in some quarters so I thought I would give them a helping hand:

Re. the hardness of Latin......

"Addendum: When I say it is hard, this takes into account the fact that we study it on a highly reduced timetable. Try teaching Physics to people in two years and a lunchtime. It is primarily for this reason that my students find it something of a challenge. If they had studied it from Year 7 the playing field would be far more level. So QCA, don't get your knickers in a twist, I don't think this is your problem. I would rather see it pushing its way into the curriculum again (ah you Quixotic youngster) than the specification made less demanding. This is surely the only way we will end up having a healthy population of Classicists again (it is Mr Lister himself who talks of the lack of qualified Classics teachers out there). We are feeding ourselves to the lions if we adapt to those truncating the time spent on the subject."

Every single Latin teacher should actively seek to push for more timetable time. Then the rollers will come out and everyone will be dealing with such googlies as the ablative absolute as well as the next Wykehamist. Well, nearly.

Furthermore, allow me to remind the Caeci that we are talking about GCSE. I'm not saying Latin should be a privilege for a chosen few (although the CLC do seem quite happy with this idea, plugging it as perfect for stretching G&Ts). I am on a drive to make it compulsory for Key Stage 3 in my school and pride myself in encouraging everyone to do it, particularly those who have marked themselves or (far worse) feel themselves marked out as failed linguists (at the age of 13, my god!). But if people want to PURSUE it to a higher level that is what GCSE is there for. It is not a beginner's qualification and should not be an easy B for anyone and everyone. It is an option and should require commitment.

And as for the literature being taken out of the syllabus, may I weep into my Tristia. That is the best bloody bit. As somebody said.. somewhere.. I have been blog hopping.. That would make it the same as a Modern Language. 'Latin' is something of a misnomer. As any good 'Latin' teacher knows, Latin is actually Classics (or some of it) and to take away literature would be an absolute absurdity.


If you want to know...........
Caecus-a-um - blind
in caecos - against the blind ones

There are some perspicacious types in my Year 10 English class. I set them a task. Write a duologue between someone who might use such words as perspicacious and crepuscular and someone who might not. Little did I know the subversives amongst them would triumph. My intention was that we would round up by observing which of the two they would rather be; the monosyllabic, moronic character (George Bush in one coupling) or the eloquent interlocutor. Well, considering George Bush rules the world, they unfortunately plumped for the former. Nice one Miss Leek.

However, there was one sketch in particular that did stop me in my tracks (albeit for about 2 seconds... I don't think they noticed...). We had a psychiatrist and a patient. The patient became increasingly distressed as the psychiatrist made observations in a language the patient could not understand .. reticent, cathartic, mollifying .. resulting in frustrated histrionics. Miss Leek, I was being asked, what is the point when no one can comprehend us? There is no sense in us spouting limpid, lissom, and lexica if nobody can get beyond the first letter.

We are in something of a catch 22. Do we disingenuously pander to the lowest common denominator (I think, like, that that is, like, 'like') or up the ante and push people into the unknown. And any lovers of the English GCSE specification who say, 'But it is all about audience,' that is not my point. I am talking about becoming good and clever. Should we really discourage erudition for erudition's sake? Should we baulk at sounding a bit too smart? And I'll let you in on a secret, all you elite conspiracy theorists. We who use long words don't actually do it to look clever, we do it because we are.

I really think there is a stultification process going on in the face of anti-elitism. I was terrified to read that Bob Lister (tireless advocate for Classics in schools and responsible for the PGCE at Cambridge) has called for Latin GCSE to be made easier. His point is good. People are put off. Research shows that every grade is one step harder in Latin. That means that an A in Latin is equivalent to A* in Physics.

But so bloody what? Allow us who want to to struggle away with pluperfect passive subjunctives so that we can actually read good books, write well, express ourselves more clearly and separate ourselves from the chaff (is there some etymological link to the irresistible there?). In a world where universities are finding it hard to differentiate between the quite goods and the really goods (4 As or four As) at least let us retain one qualification that stands for something. Let us disseminate the fact that it is hard rather than dilute its potency.

Everyone else can work in lists at this time of year so I will too. Television has become a catalogue of itself, newspapers are just listing the bloody news that happened last year or occasionally listing what might happen next year and don't think making it all into a quiz means we can't see that you've just made another bloody list. And I am sick (which is all my own doing) so any list will do. (For discussion of the better known 'any dream will do' I direct you here.)


List

I have been painting my house.

Gloss paint is quite annoying and toxic but is a little like the past. If you just leave it all the gaps and irregularities sort of even themselves out until there is a nice shiny mass that is fine and nothing to worry about.

The government has become very confused about the two words 'academic' and 'vocational'.

Paying money to people who have so much money that your money will mean absolutely nothing to them is nauseating. Realising that this is what you do with your money all the time does not help.

Nauseating is a very strange word that, if looked at slightly askance, might mean something like having common sense for lunch.

The Latin for sick is aeger, aegra, aegrum.

A better use of aegra can be seen on Line 143, Book 14 of Ovid's Metamorphoses (English translation). I feel a little like the Sybil today as it is 2007 and thus I must be older and I also feel sick.

That is, I feel sick and am therefore miserable as is the Sybil. I know the Latin does not say that she feels sick.

Although she does in a sense as she is old and her senectus is aegra and thus she is feeling pretty sick.

Felix sit annus novus.

durus est mundus latinus.
latinus durus est.

I have been entertaining my brother. He banned me from using the internet so we came to talking. He is a research physicist in Switzerland/his own world and has not been reading my blog avidly like brothers should. He has, instead, been concentrating on very small things - nano-somethings. I can do the etymology although that doesn't really help..... However, I told him all about it. About how there are some very frightening people out there who are more trigger happy than me. Now I may say rash things to journalists and inadvertently post this and that but the whole 'shot in the back of the head' comment was surely one in the foot for you. I think all and sundry can now see the maniacal side to the CLC fan club.

I wrote a while back about how the PE departments failed us Leeks at school. I asked him what he thought might have made a difference. What became apparent was that, given half a chance, he would make very sure that people like him - quite sporty, quite competitive, quite determined, wholly unsuited to contact sports - would be nurtured, encouraged and sent down the running/cycling club. He said he always surprised his teachers in those (for some highly humiliating) bleep tests. He would be running away on his own, top of the bad-at-sport class while the cornish pasties and curly whirlies wilted around him. 'If only someone had taken me aside and given me a bit of advice, a bit of encouragement, I really think I could have been a runner.'

'But what about the curly-whirlies/cornish pasties?' I said. 'Teachers have a responsibility to them too.'

Now my brother secretly wants to be a teacher. Life takes him elsewhere for the moment but I wouldn't be surprised if I saw him interactive white boarding away in a decade from now. That and encouraging little athletic types to run round the football pitch. Quite how he would solve the problem of those who don't see the point is one for Boxing Day.

But isn't that something. How true it is that our own experiences always inform how we teach. I had a dreadful time with Latin. It was always a load of wishy hogwash, we read stories that had something very vaguely to do with the ancient world, but by the time I got to university I was hideously ignorant. I remember in my first year, my tutor asking whether I saw an illusion to the Judgement of Paris in the text we were reading. I had no idea what he was talking about. Oh dear. But subsequently I have ensured that I fill my lessons as much as I possibly can with as much 'real' literature, art history, and archaeology as I can. I have nightmares (along with Caecilius coming at me from behind with a pistol) about my students being as ill-informed as I was and this induces me to give them what I never received.

It is similar with the language. I really do appreciate the CLC approach. It certainly has its advantages. But for me it just doesn't answer the brief. In two years, students have to be able to translate fearing clauses, passive periphrastics (YES), indirect statements .. very hard .. and much else besides. I arrived two years ago at a school that used the CLC and the students were like very frightened owls scrabbling in the dark which they knew they should be able to see in but didn't for the life of them know what they were looking for. I was the same at school and indeed throughout university. I wanted it all to be clearly spelt out to me and it never was.

Furthermore, I wasn't given any practical tools to get me out of sticky situations. I was very good a coming out with lit.crit. re. word order, enjambment, tricolons etc and I also appreciated it. But faced with unseen text (more on the value of that another day) I didn't really know where to start. Which sees me return to my now maligned mantra .. find the verb, who's doing it, when. It does not mean that we must not at any cost ever read anything in any other way. I shall leave the prescriptive fundamentalism to you. But let me give them the helping hand I was never given. Decoding devices do not render the text meaningless. Quite the reverse. I love Cicero like the next man but I can't do anything with it if I can't understand it. In an ideal world, I would read it like the next homo but I can't and neither can my students. So let me deliver to my students my tips of the trade. The verb search is a tool that I give to them for moments of Latin misery. And believe you me, there can be many of those in today's harsh Latin world.



Post scriptum .. for those who are sitting there thinking, 'Oh dear. She is a silly girl. She has forgotten about the curly-whirlies etc,' I have two things to say in response.

1.) Classrooms are complex places. We must do as much as we can for everyone but I must not tell you everything as you will get very bored. I try and cater for everyone. My point is that our experiences inform. This does not mean dictate.
2.) I may not even have had that conversation with my brother, I might only have included it to make a point. Which I have made. Not that is enough.