Ignorance of our history is disastrous to a nation, says Collins

A Guardian report today – yes, with its fair share of spin; Guardian readers evidently cannot be trusted to make up their own minds whether the following sentences are 'blatant' or not – trails a speech to be made today by the Conservative shadow education secretary.
Political commentators give the Conservatives no chance of forming the [...]

Updates on how ARLT is helping

Another star to add to the galaxy coming to the ARLT Summer School this July. Professor Stephen Harrison (Corpus Christi, Oxford) has agreed to come and talk on Aeneid 10 (A Level Set Book from Sept 2005).
That's in addition to Prof Jonathan Powell, Dr Lene Rubenstein, Dr Nick Lowe, CA News editor Dr Jenny [...]

Weasel words about the Secretary of State for Education

Almost every post on this blog so far has been positive, helpful (I hope) and often practical. So pardon this rant.
Regular listeners to news broadcasts, and newpaper readers, can't fail to notice how vogue words come and go. 'Parameters' came, had its day, and has gone. Good riddance. It was seldom used correctly in any [...]

Background reading for Cambridge Latin Book 2

Do you set homework/prep?

The Head of St John’s School and Community College in Marlborough, not too far from me, has abolished homework, according to today's Times.
Dr Hazlewood was reported as saying last night: “Homework, like the national curriculum, is a dinosaur. It is repetitious, generates marking that is often just a load of ticks and causes conflict at [...]

Grammar lessons are wrong for writers?

These article what I read in todays guardian must seem to you and I to be a load of poppycock. It's writer do know proper grammar and if its good enough for he why cant the rest learn to.
And what does the research say about the claim of Latin teachers that learning our language gives [...]

British University Classics Departments

The Times has a list of UK universities with Classics departments, and some indicators of how demanding and successful they are. The link is here, for reference.
The Guardian's rather fuller table is here.

The day this ARLT blog had over 1000 page views

Just a little whoop of joy! Yesterday, 16th January, was the first day that ARLT blog had more than 1000 page views. There were 1014 to be exact, by 721 different people, or 'distinct hosts served', as the statistics page tells me. Just to think that I was delighted back in July, my first full [...]

if we're really good, she'll let us start learning some of the Greek alphabet!

Here's the first part of a piece in Lancaster Online – that's Lancaster PA, by the way. The article is followed by comments from an internet discussion, including this:

” It is a shame the local public schools don't see the value of Latin. It is the root of all the Romance languages plus many [...]

Good news for school parties visiting Athens – the museum is reopening.

Greek archeology museum set to reopen
Last Updated Fri, 14 Jan 2005 15:16:52 EST
CBC Arts
ATHENS – The National Archaeological Museum of Athens, Greece's main venue for its collection of ancient antiquities, is set to fully reopen this spring. The museum was damaged in a 1999 earthquake.
Restoration work, which had allowed the museum to partially reopen during [...]