Comments on: I love BoJo; I hate the Balls

By: Mike Paterson

Mike Paterson — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 09:24:40 +0000

Having just returned from a brief trip to Zimbabwe, I was surprised and delighted that they still teach Latin in some government schools there. So a country whose culture owes nothing to the language, values it more highly than a country whose culture owes it plenty. A sad (from our PoV) truism is that some of our former colonies value a decent education more highly than we do.

Incidentally – slight tangent – I also very much enjoyed having a smoke and a beer entirely unmolested. The irony.

By: OD

OD — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 17:46:09 +0000

So true! All I remember from doing latin for one year is learning non stop about caecilius. Caecilius this, Caecilius that and how he meets syphax the slave dealer. Heck, the only Latin I remember is: ‘Caecilius est in via.’ Which I’m not even sure what it means.

All our teacher used to do was teach us only from the interactive whiteboard and this is probably why I lost interest in the subject and chose German rather than Latin. We were taught just half of Unit one CLC in one year.

Now I do Classical Civilisation which I think is a great thing to study.

By: delcatto

delcatto — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:02:04 +0000

Open University to learn Latin.

By: David Gillies

David Gillies — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:43:09 +0000

We did a fairly broad-brush set of texts. I remember getting Alcibiades and the mutilation of the Herms as the unseen for my scholarship exam to public school (aced it), but we got the lot: Virgil, Tacitus, Pliny, Cicero, you name it. Of course that was thirty years ago so no doubt the curriculum has changed beyond recognition.

By: knirirr

knirirr — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:19:33 +0000

Unfortunately so – even at decent schools.

By: FCAblog » In praise of Latin

FCAblog » In praise of Latin — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:41:30 +0000

[...] is unhappy with Ed Balls. Balls has deemed that Latin is useless in schools. In response, the delightful Boris [...]

By: bellagerens

bellagerens — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:15:43 +0000

Word. Schools can actually be quite soul-killing institutions.

By: knirirr

knirirr — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:25:31 +0000

I’m not sure if some proper ancient literature would have helped, as I don’t recall being presented with any. I’m quite prepared to believe you, though. I suspect that a lot of the problem was that the teaching was in a school, and I found that that tended to spoil whatever subject was being presented.

By: Katy Newton

Katy Newton — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 11:21:46 +0000

Perhaps the first step is to find a disinterested wealthy person to pay for you to qualify as a teacher…

By: bellagerens

bellagerens — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 10:42:48 +0000

In my more unrealistic daydreams, I imagine founding a school with massive endowments from uninterested wealthy people. By interview only, I and my like-minded colleagues will select students for their liveliness, curiosity, and thirst for knowledge. The endowment will allow us to ignore things like fees and enrolment and offer places to such children regardless of their ability to pay. Then we will give them a thoroughly humanist education and satisfy the areas of academic exploration they wish to pursue. We will ignore the national curriculum entirely, set our own exams, and when the students leave my school they will be fascinating people who can do anything they put their minds to.

Then when I wake from my daydream, I remember that I would never be permitted to start such a school, even if I could find disinterested rich people to endow it, because I haven’t got a teaching qualification. *sigh*