Language teaching milestone, and musings on teaching what you aren't qualified for.

A Milestone, upon which I will give my two cents:

On Friday, I wrote and hit "Send" on the very last assignment for the fourth year of high school Latin, at least for this particular cohort.

I've been teaching Latin to a small group that included my oldest and H's oldest since they were about nine years old.  (I started with my oldest when he was seven; here's the proof.)  I can barely believe that after this week I won't be sending them any more assignments.

I didn't take Latin in high school or college. I majored in engineering, not classics. I was an absolute beginner when we started, just like them---with the advantage that I had plenty of experience learning one language, namely French. 

But I got a couple of kids all the way from beginner stuff through high school Latin IV, by dint of staying a few steps ahead ahead of them in homeschool curricula, and searching for things I didn't know whenever I realized I needed more information. 

And, of course, by buying books.

Behold, most of the books I used (or at least bought) over the years to teach myself and the kids (that's an aluminum meter stick in the picture for scale):

(Not shown:  books that fell apart, books I couldn't find this morning, books still in my teenager's school bag, online resources that didn't cost me anything, and a few months' subscription to https://aeneid.co/ .)

Now the money question:  Did I do an adequate job?

Did I satisfy the relevant goals and purposes of learning a foreign language in high school?  (See here for a discussion.)

Did they learn it well, compared to how they might have done in an institutional school?

Well, I wasn't able to talk either of them into taking the AP^® Latin exam, but they did sit for the National Latin Exam every year and always scored pretty close to the national "par"; a couple of times one or the other earned a certificate or a medal by scoring above average.  If either of them ever sits for a placement test for college, I'll let you know.

Their grammar work definitely interlaced with their work in English grammar and rhetoric, and their studies of literature, culture, and history interlaced with the heavily-classical program of literature study that H. designed for them.  (Ninth-grade English literature was practically all ancient authors, plus Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.).

At the advanced levels, they translated and read a lot of Caesar, read a big chunk of Vergil, and dabbled in the translation and reading of an assortment of other writers:  off the top of my head:  Horace, Catullus, Ovid, Pliny, Eutropius, probably a dozen more.  They liked some more than others.  

Both are thinking seriously about college-level language study now:

• My son has already corresponded with freshman advisors and decided that if he has to take any language in college, he'll start with a 200-level Latin class that provides a comprehensive grammar review followed by studying Ovid's Metamorphoses, which we've only dabbled in at home.  

• H's son is studying modern Italian on his own and hopes to continue.   Motivation?  A beloved uncle has married an Italian citizen and moved to Sardinia to start a family.  He's already remarked on the head start that Latin gave him for this.

Finally---I can't be sure of this, because they are kind young men who don't complain to me much---but I think they enjoyed themselves.

I definitely enjoyed myself.

+ + +

Anyway, all this is to say: There's this idea that you have to know a subject to teach a subject. Sometimes that's true; but another way is for a lead-learner to set the pace and learn alongside the other students. 

(Psst:  Eventually, the boys got better at parts of it than I did.  They spent much more time doing homework problems; I could cheat with the answer key.)

Let me be clear:  I had a lot of advantages that not everyone would have here:

• It helps to be interested in the subject.
• It helps to have experience with self-teaching.  (I do.)
• It helps to be motivated to help the kids succeed.
• It helps to be rich in resources, time, and connections, all of which I have the privilege of enjoying.  (How much do you think those books cost me, in money and time?  How many of my friends who have studied Latin or classics do you think I reached out to for a question now and again?)

I would never call it an easy way to do things.

But I'd also never call it impossible, at least not with sufficient support.  And don't forget, you always get to ask for help.

If you get a takeaway from this, here's what I suggest: Don't talk, ever, as if it's necessary to hold an external qualification in x, y, or z to help your kid learn it at home.

Don't say it about yourself, and don't say it about other people.

Seriously:  I never want to hear you say "Oh, I'm not qualified" or "Do you really think you're qualified?"

There may be obstacles, but there's no reason to add to them by giving voice, unnecessarily, to a certainty of failure that isn't certain at all.

(Behold the closeups you're going to ask me for.  Left to right:)

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Jenny]

As I read and scrolled down this post, I came to the first picture of the books and immediately clicked to enlarge it. I couldn't quite make it out and thought, "I should ask for some close-ups." I clicked back and continued on. Then...Behold, close ups!

[Penelope]

What a fabulous idea, the photos I mean :-) ... I should pull all of our Latin books out to document them (and the Greek and the Hebrew) ... I had had high school Latin (we used Wheelock) and many many years of French, but those years were well behind me when I began to teach my youngest two Latin (when they were 8 and 10). They went from Prima Latina (from Memoria Press) on through Ceasar and Virgil. It's been such a fabulous journey, teaching them. (They're 16 and 18 now)