Pat’s Polemics

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I think there have been a number of interesting points brought up in this so
far rather unwieldy discussion. I've tried to summarize as best I can.
Perhaps others can further clarify any points that they feel I haven't
captured correctly.

Pacing:

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I apologize for the recent inability to comment on Pat’s Polemics. But the problem software has been removed and replaced.

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I remember so clearly my first ACTFL, in Dallas. I met Marilyn Barrueta, David Stillman, and so many others from flteach. I have never found a better place to eat than that Wyndham hotel we were in in 1999 (right name?).

Generally, I love going to ACTFL and usually do. This year I am going to two other conferences so I'll wait until next year in Denver, closer to me. So when I read things connected to ACTFL that bother me, I will say something about them and hope no one perceives it as carping.

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http://teach.valdosta.edu/WHuitt/files/latin.html
Efficacy of Latin Studies in the Information Age
Alice K. DeVane
(thanks to Amy Rountree)

If you read over this paper, you will note several difficulties presented by the studies it cites.
One is that Latin is not teased out from foreign languages in general, so you are left with nothing peculiar to Latin in terms of benefits.
The other very serious one is that only one study, as I recall, showed a gain before and after the study of Latin; most simply said Latin students are a cut above, which can just as easily be attributed to their being the sort of people who elect Latin as to anything studying Latin did for them.

Naturally, vocabulary in English will be augmented by the study of Latin due to the large amount of words borrowed into English from Latin. It'd be the same for an Urdu speaker studying Persian and Arabic, it's the source of much of the higher level vocabulary in the language.

The higher cognitive functioning is a dilemma for me. I do not believe people learn languages by studying rules, but I also see that if Latin is presented

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This was elicited by comments on MSNBC by a host commentator, Rattigan.
Again, we have the stupid, racist, uninformed b.s. elicited by the word Ebonics. Ignorant people, too lazy to google African-American Vernacular English or just plain Black English - how hard is that? - continue to make jokes about the speech of Black people as if we were still in an episode of Amos 'n' Andy (note the " 'n' " to denote Black people's inability to speak properly as White people do. We know all White people always fully enunciate the d of 'and').

This crap will continue as long as:
#1 racism toward Blacks exists
#2 people are too lazy to read a book or even a wiki article

So it looks like we are in for a long siege - probably centuries. Even Black people join in the stupidity.

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Recently I blogged on a scene from HBO's Treme where a tour bus pulled up to a group of Black New Orleanians initiating a funeral ceremony. The mode of "funeralizing" the man was deeply African. The driver of the bus did not at first recognize what was going on and bulled his way into the gathering from the window of his bus. Once he realized it was a funeral and these people were residents of this ruined neighborhood, he showed respect and pulled away. The scene as the group watched in wonderment and bemusement as the bus trundled off was poignant.

Its poignancy lay in...

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tprs going into a whole district is something I've seen recently on a listserv for fl teachers. Then two Spanish teachers needed, tprs-ready preferred. Also, there is a listserv for teachers teaching Chinese to English-speakers wherein most of the teachers use tprs.

More and more, I think my prediction that tprs may become the dominat paradigm in fl teaching is coming true, much sooner than I thought.

What does this portend? Certainly, as a method it has matured greatly in a very short time. The originator, Blaine Ray, is still giving workshops. Some of the earliest proponents are still around (sorry if I make you sound old, guys), posting to listservs, attending conferences and giving workshops. Yet here we are, with schools and even whole districts requesting that tprs be the method used to teach fl.

Ignoring the loud sound of the gnashing of teeth,

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For years I have listened to radio talk shows, first the highly right-wing talk shows on AM radio back in the 80s and then npr with its panoply of deservedly famous interviewers. What has maddened me over all these years is the way everyone but classroom teachers is invited on the show to talk about education.

Driving me to distraction is the claim that so-and-so is a classroom teacher......... yes, who is on leave b/c he is heading a major project funded by XXX and whose funding is totally dependent on him saying just the right thing. Most often, we get administrators, usually very high up admins; we get the heads of unions, lobby groups, academics, activists, community organizers, promoters of specific methods, and even authors of books-turned-into-movies who spent one whole year in a classroom.

And all of these people are presented as classroom teachers. Yes, 35 years ago for five years of less. Not only are these people speaking for us classroom teachers - the real ones - but they claim to know more than we do. Someone who quit teaching after three years to get a Ph.D. in ed research and now heads a think-tank is not my idea of a classroom teacher.

The real sadness is that even their couple of years of experience has to be buried lest they say something that does not promote whatever they are promoting. The only time you seem to hear from classroom teachers is when they call in, and then, or so it seems to me, they are given short shrift because, after all, they are "just a teacher".

I hope someone joins me in writing a letter to npr (I hold no hope out for conservative venues) to ask them to please contact someone in their area who can give them the names of five or six real classroom teachers... five or six to offset the chance that they'll find a sycophant and suck-up who's bucking for an administrative slot. This panel could come into the studio and the first thing they could talk about was finding a sub for their classes and devising material the sub could handle.

Please join me in composing such a letter.

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