Author Archives: magistrak

mad craziness in the classroom

My first class in public high school had been sitting out in the hallway for two months, unsupervised, until I was hired.  They  gave me a mentor. She collected four hundred and fifty dollars for this task, which was automatically withdrawn from my paycheck.  An eighty something year old former first grade teacher was assigned to a high school Latin teacher to offer advice on teaching skills.  She made sure that I told the students to keep their book bags out of the aisles.

One day I asked my Latin I class if they knew the story of Romulus and Remus, the legendary founders of Rome.  A very shy boy tentatively raised his hand.  My mentor, at the back of the room, shot up her hand.

“Oh, oh, I know this!”

“Um, that’s nice, but I was checking to see what the students remembered”.

I pointed to the boy. As he was on his third or fourth word, she shouted,

“Romulus and Remus were twins and were set adrift in the river and the she wolf saved them!”

I looked at my student. He looked at me and shrugged his shoulders with a “ what the hell?”  expression on his face.

In an upper level class I was discussing the possibility of offering an advanced placement poetry class. There were six students in the class. Suddenly my mentor piped up from the back of the room,

“Yep, that Bill Gates, he started Microsoft from a garage and now he’s the richest man in the world.”

I looked down at my students. They were all sitting bolt upright, hands on desks, eyes wide open fixed on me and carefully averted away from my mentor. Lips tightly, tightly compressed.  I started up again on Latin epic poetry.

“Yep, that Bill Gates, he started out in a garage and now he’s the richest man in the world. He sure showed those Harvard boys a thing or two.”

She beamed at me. Non sequitur. Latin for it does not follow. Although non compos mentis fit also. I started to laugh.

Biting my tongue  until I tasted blood, I switched to digging my nails into my palm. Why did my students have so much more facial control than I had? It was almost like they planned this.

Eventually her tenure of supervision was over and I was left to muddle through on my own.  She graciously offered to come in anytime to help me out because she had enjoyed herself so much.

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Getting hired

“I’m as confused as a cow on astro turf.”     –former student

Maybe 14 years ago I started teaching in a private school. ( or maybe 12. I ran out of fingers)  One of my former high school teachers told me that at 7 years of teaching, your comfort level in the classroom kicks in.

“That’s great. I’ve been teaching for five years now.”

“Private school doesn’t count.”

“What do you  mean it doesn’t count?”

“Doesn’t count.”

“To whom?”

“You’ll see.”

I was recruited from a private  high school. A local public high school called my principal and asked for me. Standing in his office, the competition, so to speak, offered me a job.   I have never really been interviewed for a job teaching Latin, and I’ve taught at six schools. I was the only person who ever applied for the position at any of them. One superintendent reportedly said,

“If she’s breathing, hire her.”

Actually, I was offered a job at a high school not even in my state. I asked the principal,

“Don’t you want to know anything about me?”

He said, “Why, is there something you want to tell me?”

“Well, don’t you want to know if, umm,  I’m qualified?”

I could be in there teaching anything at all. Who would know otherwise? Occasionally I tell the kids that.

“You know, I could just be making this all up as I go along. There isn’t anyone around who knows or remembers enough Latin to know the difference.”

They sort of laugh nervously.  Is she kidding?

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Recruitment speech

Sometimes I have trouble rationalizing why people should take Latin. This is my compelling recruitment speech.

REASONS TO TAKE LATIN:

1.

2. I’m thinking, I’m thinking. Don’t rush me.

3. We have a secret handshake.

4.you don’t have to talk through your nose like in French. Really, does that sound romantic to you?

5. you don’t sound like you’re clearing your throat getting ready to spit like in German.

6. I have nothing against Spanish. Some of my best friends are Spanish teachers, but does that mean you have to take a class with them?

7. You learn a lot of big English words that you will spell incorrectly.

THE DARK SIDE OF LATIN

1. Latin is boot camp for grammar. It’s like the book, ” Everything you never wanted to know about grammar and had no intention of asking.”

2. No one speaks it anymore. On the other  hand, no one is around to laugh at your accent.

3. Did I mention you learn a lot of grammar?

4. Your Latin teacher has a short term memory loss problem.

5. People frequently say things like, “LATIN???? What are your taking THAT for?”

and when you don’t have a snappy comeback you feel inadequate.

Every student who reads this says the same thing.

“We have a secret handshake?”

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Heard in the classroom

Zeus is the best god.  Next to Jesus.

In other words, you gotta grab  ’em by the genitives and twist them till they conjugate.

You called Africa? You mean the continent has a telephone?

Please take the desk off your head.

Latin. It’s almost like a foreign language.

If you don’t have a teacher’s edition, how do you know what this says?

It doesn’t say in the rules that you can’t cheat.

 

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