S.A.T. M.D. Heals Wounds With Latin Tongue

This is just a press release by a teacher, but arguments for learning Latin are forcibly expressed.

DAVIE, FL — (MARKET WIRE) — 04/26/2005 — Michael DiSalvo (M.D. as many call him), though a psychologist by training, now considers himself a “doctor” of a different sort. “'Doctor,' many forget, means 'teacher' in Latin,” he says, with a wink of an eye. “What we really need to get these kids in shape for the New S.A.T. is a few more 'doctors.'” Michael, a resident of Broward County, believes that he has some right to speak due to recent success prepping his own students. What's the secret?

The easy answer: critical thinking. The more thought-provoking one: Latin. Though he had raised his own math scores a whopping 150 pts from college to graduate school by taking a few key classes, Michael found that the key to unlocking the verbal part of the S.A.T. was his four years of Latin. Why Latin?

Ancient philosophers had the market
on critical thinking.

“Eighty percent of the English language relates to the original Latin. If there is anything critical thinking skills allow one to do it's to get down to the roots of things. It is there one can find the keys to open up an entire new world of knowledge. But, though understanding difficult vocabulary is important, it isn't the main thing,” he says. “Latin forces you to think 'outside the box.' Once you train yourself to think out of sequence, to look for patterns, you know you have that skill that is at the heart of the entire S.A.T.” Tangible results?

“I remember the first time I really started teaching these strategies. Within two weeks I saw a dedicated student jump from a 1010 to a 1310, Verbal + Quantitative. Compared to the 30 points increase many are usually excited about, I knew I was onto something.” His proof that ancient languages are the key?

“Just look at the great philosophers. Plato, for example, who spoke Greek, had it written over the world's first college, the Academy: 'He who does not know Geometry may not enter this place.' The fact that these famous critical thinkers had a mastery of these ancient languages and subjects like Algebra and Geometry should tell us something. The careful, ordered way of thinking that was part of their life was in the very world around them, in the very languages they spoke.” His advice to those preparing for the new S.A.T.?

“Get the basics down and learn how to think. If you can take Latin, great! Give it a shot. Though you may go crazy with declining and conjugating everything in sight, you will begin to see how it all relates to the ability to think clearly. I tell my kids: learn the basics, learn the pattern, solve for the pattern. It will all come in due time with persistence and hard work if you study the principles, whether they be Math, Reading or Writing ones.” So, will this “doctor” ever stop making house calls?

“I've been able to get the big numbers when I show students these skills one-on-one. I want to try to get the same results teaching classes this summer. That's what Plato did. That is the ultimate challenge.”

Michael is the founder of A+ Tutoring/Test Preparation and can be reached at 954 547-0067 or through his Web site: http://www.APlusTutoring-TestPrep.com.

"I think, therefore I do Latin"

This is from World Peace Herald:

Analysis: Pope pushing a Latin trend
By Uwe Siemon-Netto
UPI Religious Affairs Editor
Published April 26, 2005

WASHINGTON — Pope Benedict XVI loves to chant the mass in Latin and occasionally preach in this language that had long been sidelined even in the Roman Catholic Church.

Now scholars such as David Jones, chairman of the classics department at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Mich., wonder: “Is this pontiff riding a trend — or pushing it?”

That Latin and Greek are en vogue again seems to be an international phenomenon.

“I think, therefore I do Latin,” runs an axiom popular among the brighter variety of British secondary school students. It is a play on French philosopher Réné Descartes' famous dictum, “I think, therefore I am.”

In some cities, such as Leeds, they band together for after-school classes in Latin to boost their analytical skills, according to the BBC.

The lack of Latin teachers resulting from the neglect of the classics in the postmodern pedagogy of the 1970s and 1980s does not seem to hamper the enthusiasm of today's high school students. These days college students are doubling as instructors. Moreover, the classics have gone high-tech. To make up for the woeful shortage of teachers, the Cambridge Online Latin Project provides digital resources including an “e-tutor.”

Students can send their homework. For a fee of approximately $18, the e-tutor will mark and annotate the papers.

In Germany, once a great bastion of the classics, Internet help for Latin learners has even triggered legal battles.

A 15-year old boy has caused the ire of textbook publishers by placing his own translations of the Latin classics online to be downloaded by others.

For while Cesar's De Bellum Gallicum clearly does not benefit from copyright protection, abbreviated schoolbook versions of such texts do. And so one publisher is suing him for copyright infringements and causing his company severe economic harm.

Moreover, the publisher accused him of “advanced criminal energy” — and threatened to have him dragged before a criminal court.

Meanwhile in the United States, the revival of Latin and Greek proceeds along more genteel lines. Christian schools, which are rapidly growing in numbers, strongly emphasize instruction in these languages said Robert Benne, director of the Center for Religion and society in Salem, Va., who serves on the board of one of these institutions.

But secular schools, too, are taken a renewed interest in Latin, according to Hillsdale's Jones, who is impressed by the skills of some of their graduates in that language.

Gone are the days when nobody in the academy wanted to hear anything about the ancient world, says Jones, who attributes the new fascination with Latin and Greek to the conservative renewal of the last 20 years.

This interest has accelerated at such a rate over the last decade that “we at Hillsdale are teaching double and triple overloads to meet the need.” Every year some 100 freshmen — more than a quarter of the first-year students — take Latin, and some Greek as well.

The situation is similar at many other small liberal arts schools, such as St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn., where professors observe a growing awareness among students that classics are essential for critical analysis.

Many Hillsdale graduates with a facility to read Latin and Greek move on to pursue advanced degrees in the German or French classical traditions, or to enter seminary, Jones says.

Others immerse themselves in these languages for the same reasons their forebears did — simply to obtain a well-rounded education.

Meanwhile back in Rome, the new German pope will doubtless continue to promote Latin as part of “a reform of the reform,” as he said when he was just plain Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, meaning that he will endeavor to reverse the triviality to which the mass had descended after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.

As his predecessor, John Paul II, had written, “Sacred liturgy is the highest expression of the mysterious reality” and the “culminating point toward which the action of the Church is directed and at the same time the source from which all her strength is derived.”

Vatican II bungled the liturgical reform, states the Rev. john McCloskey, a Catholic priest with the Faith and Reason Institute in Chicago.

Since presiding at the first funeral Mass for John Paul II, Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, has shown to the world the luxuriant beauty of the old mass that has inspired some of history's greatest composers. And that mass is sung and spoken in the language kids on both sides of the Atlantic have come to appreciate once again — Latin.

Roman food and women gladiators on the London stage

I had a phone call this morning from Anna Jackson, asking if I'd like to publicise a promising-looking theatrical event in London. I'm glad to do it. Written by Deborah Cook, who has written for Eastenders, Casualty and (my favourite) The Archers, the evening is in two parts, one focussed on the preparations for a Roman dinner, and the second, inspired by the discovery of a female gladiator's skeleton in London, on the time before a gladiatorial fight to the death between two women – gladiatrices, I suppose they were called.

It's on at The Rosemary Branch Theatre, 2 Shepperton Road, London N1 3DT. Box Office 020 7704 6665. And the name? Sex, death, and a baked swan. Anna hastened to tell me the piece is more decorous than its title suggests. There is more information here.

Today's social gossip! When Linda met Will …

Lovely Linda was slightly overawed by the majesty of the Palace of Westminster. It was her first visit, and she wondered if others at the grand reception were feeling the same. They all looked so cool and self-possessed. Could it be that under those confident exteriors all the rest were feeling their hearts beating a little faster?

Linda toyed uncertainly with a canape. Suddenly she saw a face across the crowded room, a face that looked strangely familiar. Could it be …? It was almost too much to hope for! She made her way urgently through the crowd until they were face to face.

“Will!” she breathed, “is it really you?”

But enough of this fantasy! I just wanted to get your attention. The fact is that Linda Soames, who is directing this July's Summer School, was at a Classics event at the House of Commons in March, when she met Will Griffiths, the Director of the Cambridge School Classics Project. She took the opportunity to invite him to speak at the Summer School, and he agreed. Here is what Will is offering:

“ICT, print, paper and mind

– between the chalk face and the pixel face”

In this session Will Griffiths will discuss best practice use of ICT in the classroom, focussing on methods of integrating ICT into the daily teaching and learning process. He will argue for the use of electronic materials alongside traditional classroom resources and practice.

The session will be from 5 to 6 p.m. on Thursday 21st July. If you haven't booked for the Summer School yet, please visit the Summer School page on the ARLT web site where you can see the full programme and download an application form.