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It's been a difficult day. My AP students finished up their school year on Wednesday, and I am still grappling with the silence. I have been teaching for 10 years, and I have been close to classes before: my first homeroom class who I saw from Freshmen to graduation, my first Latin class, who I taught Latin I to AP, but now I said goodbye to a class that always worked hard for me, a class that brought me nothing but joy, and for whom I feel nothing but pride. I miss them, and my day seems a litt… Continue

A friend once said that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Starbucks, and Disney. He saw the developing multi-national corporate model in each business, and the fact that they would bring about a homogenization, at the expense of the individual history and culture. That's what I thought when I saw this about the Parthenon, sent by a student . What developer wouldn't love to get ahold of the Acropolis?

A recent email from the College Board: Dear Colleague: The College Board views the support of world language and culture programs as one of our highest priorities. As a not-for-profit organization, we are committed to keeping student exam fees reasonable, so we will continue to bear a considerable financial loss annually to provide schools with AP world language offerings. During the next several years, we will significantly increase our investment in support of world language and cul… Continue

It is the end of the third quarter, and my Latin III classes, having labored since February, have not gotten past the First Catilinarian I.8. Block schedules aside, lack of preparation aside, it gets frusrtrating, because the more I look at that speech, the more apparant it is that it is one of the finest written. Its internal coherence, logical flow, and rhetorical flourish display Cicero's mastery. And due to slow progress, these are things that my students will not see. At least not with me.… Continue