A good friend has a son (redistricted) to South Lakes. He took Latin 1 last year at Rachel Carson and the class finished through chapter 23 by the end of the school year. He placed in Latin 2 as a 9th grader at South Lakes this fall. His Latin 2 class has a majority of seniors who took Latin 1 last year and only completed work through chapter 2. (Yes, I said TWO.) The teacher from last year is no longer there (passed away over the summer.) What this has meant for this Latin 2 class is that they started over with Chapter 1 again. They are currently at chapter 12. If they keep up with this pace, then my friend's son will be where he was last year in April 09. How can he possibly be prepared for Latin 3 (in fALL 09) when he hasn't had a proper Latin 2 course?

Why has the school let this happen? Shouldn't the school have just forced the seniors to repeat Latin 1 since they needed to complete 90 percent of the Latin 1 work anyway? (And I can't even comment on what the class must have been like last year...a whole year to get through 2 chapters? What were they doing??)

How can he possibly be prepared for Latin 3 (in fALL 09) when he hasn't had a proper Latin 2 course?

Just keep him at South Lakes and it should be a problem. All Latin classes start at chapter 1, regardless of level.

concerned parent Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A good friend has a son (redistricted) to South
> Lakes. He took Latin 1 last year at Rachel Carson
> and the class finished through chapter 23 by the
> end of the school year. He placed in Latin 2 as a
> 9th grader at South Lakes this fall. His Latin 2
> class has a majority of seniors who took Latin 1
> last year and only completed work through chapter
> 2. (Yes, I said TWO.) The teacher from last year
> is no longer there (passed away over the summer.)
> What this has meant for this Latin 2 class is that
> they started over with Chapter 1 again. They are
> currently at chapter 12. If they keep up with
> this pace, then my friend's son will be where he
> was last year in April 09. How can he possibly be
> prepared for Latin 3 (in fALL 09) when he hasn't
> had a proper Latin 2 course?
>
> Why has the school let this happen? Shouldn't the
> school have just forced the seniors to repeat
> Latin 1 since they needed to complete 90 percent
> of the Latin 1 work anyway? (And I can't even
> comment on what the class must have been like last
> year...a whole year to get through 2 chapters?
> What were they doing??)

This is Gibsons problem, you need to ask him.

domino Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> How can he possibly be prepared for Latin 3 (in
> fALL 09) when he hasn't had a proper Latin 2
> course?
>
> Just keep him at South Lakes and it should be a
> problem. All Latin classes start at chapter 1,
> regardless of level.


No, I know there is a lot of good work being done at SL. That being said, this situation with THIS Latin class is unbelievable to me. This class should have started wherever Latin 2 is suppsed to start and kids who aren't prepared either fail Latin 2 or quickly move back to Latin 1 where they belong. But, I do have to wonder where these parents were last year. I know we're talking about juniors, but wouldn't you think parents would wonder why their student is still on chapter 1 after X months??

What? How can a school get away with this? Doesn't Latin 2 have a particular curriculum? How can a teacher/school just randomly decide to ignore what a course is supposed to be? Aren't there county and state requirements?

I'm having a conceptual problem with why the schools are teaching Latin in the first place.

Admitting little knowledge of the class, what is the resultant skill in Latin used for?

FairfaxTaxpayer Wrote:
>)> Admitting little knowledge of the class, what is the resultant skill in Latin used for?


Latin is a very complex language (a lot of tenses, active/passive voices, declensions), and the study of it gives you a very scholarly understanding of language in general. It's also the basis of the romance languages, and useful in the fields of science and law.

That being said, I can also see your point that it might be more worthwhile to study a language that is actually spoken.

FairfaxTaxpayer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm having a conceptual problem with why the
> schools are teaching Latin in the first place.
>
> Admitting little knowledge of the class, what is
> the resultant skill in Latin used for?


So many English and other Romance language words find their roots in Latin. I remember someone telling me (I took 3 years of Latin HS) that it would improve my verbal SAT scores, and my verbal SATs were very good. Also, my mother said: All educated people know Latin (so obviously I had little choice in the matter, but I thought it was an excellent class in any event.) And, after you take Latin other langauges are much easier to master.

Thanks. I know the sciences and law use latin-based terminology, but you're right it is a _dead_ language and even those fields don't require latin classes to succeed.

Just thinking about the schools' current budget woes, and I'd rather see them cut something with limited utility than some of the insane cuts being bandied about by our useless school board.

I wonder how many students actually take latin classes in FCPS?

I took 7 years of Latin - all middle school and highschool and a 300 level class in college. It helped tremendously.

Ah, how well do I remember my two years of Latin, over twenty years ago. We'd spend the day conjugating nouns (amo, amas, amat, amabius, amoobius, amoobaloobadingdong) and declining verbs (agricola, agricolae, agricolae, agricolum, banananana-fo-riculum, agricolo, agricoloboingboing) and then translating into Latin sentences like "The farmer's slave is beautiful," "Caesar sent ten legions into Gaul," "Brutus is an asshole."

Yeah, you really knew you were in for something special when after the first couple of weeks, you've learned the words for slave, farmer, chariot, sword, fight, and whatnot. "Yeah, this is going to be even more applicable than algebra to my life," you'd think to yourself.

What did I learn from Latin? How has it affected me? I learned that the abbreviation "i.e." means "id est." And in my English class I learned that you always italicize foreign words and phrases. Ergo (another Latin thing I learned), many years later I was embroiled in a physical altercation with a copyeditor who insisted upon unitalicising my use of "i.e."

Thanks, dead language!

I took Latin from grades 8-12. I do believe it helped my vocabulary as we spent a lot of time on derivations. However, I can't remember how to conjugate/decline a single word (I think you got it backwards Howie - conjugate verbs, decline nouns).

If the seniors had been forced to repeat Latin 1, would they have met their graduation requirements? If not, I'm not sure I disagree with what the school did. However, those seniors should have been in a separate class.

concerned parent Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A good friend has a son (redistricted) to South
> Lakes. He took Latin 1 last year at Rachel Carson
> and the class finished through chapter 23 by the
> end of the school year. He placed in Latin 2 as a
> 9th grader at South Lakes this fall. His Latin 2
> class has a majority of seniors who took Latin 1
> last year and only completed work through chapter
> 2. (Yes, I said TWO.) The teacher from last year
> is no longer there (passed away over the summer.)
> What this has meant for this Latin 2 class is that
> they started over with Chapter 1 again. They are
> currently at chapter 12. If they keep up with
> this pace, then my friend's son will be where he
> was last year in April 09. How can he possibly be
> prepared for Latin 3 (in fALL 09) when he hasn't
> had a proper Latin 2 course?
>
> Why has the school let this happen? Shouldn't the
> school have just forced the seniors to repeat
> Latin 1 since they needed to complete 90 percent
> of the Latin 1 work anyway? (And I can't even
> comment on what the class must have been like last
> year...a whole year to get through 2 chapters?
> What were they doing??)



So has anyone actually talked to the principal about this problem? Or are you just gabbing on the board hoping all us mucks can help?

Taxpayer-

Do you what "stratification" means? Do you know what "stratosphere" means?

If you break it down in latin you would know.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/08/2008 12:45PM by Lurker..

This is the only Ridiculous Latin I know of...

I hear that quid pro quo is now the status quo.

I am the parent of two students who took Latin under the late, beloved Mr. Cave and one of whom is taking Latin 3 this year. There is much about SL that I detest, as anyone who has followed my postings on this forum can attest. After dealing with that place for 12 years, I will be happy to get my youngest out of there in 18 months and be shuck of it. However, Mr. Cave was one of an extremely few reasons to stay. My children miss him and so do I.

Mr. Cave did not slavishly grind through the book, chapter after chapter. He moved around with a great deal of material flowing from outside the book, derived from his own lesson plan developed over decades of teaching Latin. The kids learned a great of Latin vocabulary as well as the classical antecedents of Western civilization. Each of my children came away with a love for learning and a love of words and their origins.

My child who is currently taking Latin and others were fearful that the new teacher's approach would be more pedestrian than Mr. Cave's and that they would be penalized for Mr. Cave's innovation. They seriously considered dropping the class. If they had, there would be no upper level Latin classes at SL. The current teacher knows she will have to transition those who learned under Mr. Cave into her her approach. So far this transition is proceeding with success.

What the kids have found out is that Mr. Cave taught them more about Latin than they realized or than was covered by the book.

BTW, there is no SOL in Latin, so the curriculum is not standardized.

A close friend teaches Latin at GMU and his approach is similar to Mr. Cave's.

As for moving the seniors down to Latn I, it would devastate their transcript and penalize them by preventing them from satisfying the two years of foreign language requirement at many colleges and the four year requirement at many others (2 years each of two different languages).

As to why study Latin, given the abject failure of the English curricula in FCPS during the "whole language" tyranny of the last 20 years, it was the one choice available to help students understand the prefixes, suffixes and roots of the majority of English vocabulary which derives from Latin. This is also true for grammar and syntax. FCPS's English curricula has almost totally abandon the teaching of the parts of speech, grammar and syntax. Diagramming sentences is practically forbidden. Latin is one antidote to that glaring deficiency.

The other reason to study Latin was the turn over and incompetence of the Spanish teachers at SL over the last decade. One of my kids had 4 different Spanish 2 teachers in one year. And yup, you guessed it, Spanish 3 was a total disaster.

Mr. Cave was still teaching Latin into his 70s. He taught all 4 years of Latin. We knew there would be stability in Latin.

Other than Mandarin, Hindi and Spanish, you could cut out the whole of foreign languages in public schools as far as I'm concerned, especially in grammar school. English is the language of commerce, diplomacy and science around the world and that's not changing in my children's life time.

Italian is nice but spoken by fewer people than many Chinese dialects. German is spoken on what continent other than Europe? The Japanese immersion program is a great way for the cluster of Japanese-American families in the Fox Mill area to maintain and perpetuate their "separateness" from the "guyging" (phonetic spelling). If mastery of French has great snob appeal, buy the disk from Rosette Stone.

I'd rather all high school kids had a class in accounting and finance which will have far more meaning in most of their lives than any foreign language, trigonometry or calculus.

BTW, no accounting classes at SL this year. Not enough kids signed up.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 12/08/2008 06:13PM by Thomas More.

Latin: It's so easy even a CAVEman can teach it.

Hey, if this Mr Cave guy croaking is going to save us some retirement bucks, I'm all for it!

BBler Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> concerned parent Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > A good friend has a son (redistricted) to South
> > Lakes. He took Latin 1 last year at Rachel
> Carson
> > and the class finished through chapter 23 by
> the
> > end of the school year. He placed in Latin 2 as
> a
> > 9th grader at South Lakes this fall. His Latin
> 2
> > class has a majority of seniors who took Latin
> 1
> > last year and only completed work through
> chapter
> > 2. (Yes, I said TWO.) The teacher from last
> year
> > is no longer there (passed away over the
> summer.)
> > What this has meant for this Latin 2 class is
> that
> > they started over with Chapter 1 again. They
> are
> > currently at chapter 12. If they keep up with
> > this pace, then my friend's son will be where
> he
> > was last year in April 09. How can he possibly
> be
> > prepared for Latin 3 (in fALL 09) when he
> hasn't
> > had a proper Latin 2 course?
> >
> > Why has the school let this happen? Shouldn't
> the
> > school have just forced the seniors to repeat
> > Latin 1 since they needed to complete 90
> percent
> > of the Latin 1 work anyway? (And I can't even
> > comment on what the class must have been like
> last
> > year...a whole year to get through 2 chapters?
> > What were they doing??)
>
>
>
> So has anyone actually talked to the principal
> about this problem? Or are you just gabbing on
> the board hoping all us mucks can help?


Not me. This is not about my kid but a friend's child. It would be odd to call Bruce Butler and complain about a situation related to a child that isn't mine. But, I have encouraged my friend to speak up. If it were MY child, the current situation would no longer exist. We would be insist the school find an answer PDQ.

Thomas More Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I am the parent of two students who took Latin
> under the late, beloved Mr. Cave and one of whom
> is taking Latin 3 this year. There is much about
> SL that I detest, as anyone who has followed my
> postings on this forum can attest. After dealing
> with that place for 12 years, I will be happy to
> get my youngest out of there in 18 months and be
> shuck of it. However, Mr. Cave was one of an
> extremely few reasons to stay. My children miss
> him and so do I.
>
> Mr. Cave did not slavishly grind through the book,
> chapter after chapter. He moved around with a
> great deal of material flowing from outside the
> book, derived from his own lesson plan developed
> over decades of teaching Latin. The kids learned
> a great of Latin vocabulary as well as the
> classical antecedents of Western civilization.
> Each of my children came away with a love for
> learning and a love of words and their origins.
>
> My child who is currently taking Latin and others
> were fearful that the new teacher's approach would
> be more pedestrian than Mr. Cave's and that they
> would be penalized for Mr. Cave's innovation. They
> seriously considered dropping the class. If they
> had, there would be no upper level Latin classes
> at SL. The current teacher knows she will have to
> transition those who learned under Mr. Cave into
> her her approach. So far this transition is
> proceeding with success.
>
> What the kids have found out is that Mr. Cave
> taught them more about Latin than they realized or
> than was covered by the book.
>
> BTW, there is no SOL in Latin, so the curriculum
> is not standardized.
>
> A close friend teaches Latin at GMU and his
> approach is similar to Mr. Cave's.
>
> As for moving the seniors down to Latn I, it would
> devastate their transcript and penalize them by
> preventing them from satisfying the two years of
> foreign language requirement at many colleges and
> the four year requirement at many others (2 years
> each of two different languages).
>
> As to why study Latin, given the abject failure of
> the English curricula in FCPS during the "whole
> language" tyranny of the last 20 years, it was the
> one choice available to help students understand
> the prefixes, suffixes and roots of the majority
> of English vocabulary which derives from Latin.
> This is also true for grammar and syntax. FCPS's
> English curricula has almost totally abandon the
> teaching of the parts of speech, grammar and
> syntax. Diagramming sentences is practically
> forbidden. Latin is one antidote to that glaring
> deficiency.
>
> The other reason to study Latin was the turn over
> and incompetence of the Spanish teachers at SL
> over the last decade. One of my kids had 4
> different Spanish 2 teachers in one year. And yup,
> you guessed it, Spanish 3 was a total disaster.
>
> Mr. Cave was still teaching Latin into his 70s. He
> taught all 4 years of Latin. We knew there would
> be stability in Latin.
>
> Other than Mandarin, Hindi and Spanish, you could
> cut out the whole of foreign languages in public
> schools as far as I'm concerned, especially in
> grammar school. English is the language of
> commerce, diplomacy and science around the world
> and that's not changing in my children's life
> time.
>
> Italian is nice but spoken by fewer people than
> many Chinese dialects. German is spoken on what
> continent other than Europe? The Japanese
> immersion program is a great way for the cluster
> of Japanese-American families in the Fox Mill area
> to maintain and perpetuate their "separateness"
> from the "guyging" (phonetic spelling). If
> mastery of French has great snob appeal, buy the
> disk from Rosette Stone.
>
> I'd rather all high school kids had a class in
> accounting and finance which will have far more
> meaning in most of their lives than any foreign
> language, trigonometry or calculus.
>
> BTW, no accounting classes at SL this year. Not
> enough kids signed up.


While I can appreciate your affection for the late Mr. Cave (I loved my Latin teacher in high school too), it sounds like he let his students down...or he let down the future students who would be joining his students in coming years. What response do you say to my friend's son who got through chapter 23 in the FCPS Latin 1 program and had to start from scratch this year? As a teacher in FCPS he had an obligation to teach to the program. While I also have very fond memories of teachers who went off the regular path, he still needed to keep up with the program too. Getting through just chapter 2 is not acceptable. Other students--who had different teachers for Latin 1--are being penalized. I wouldn't call following the curriculum pedestrian...it's responsible. I think your affection for this teacher should not cloud your view of his classroom performance. Just because there is no Latin SOL does not mean this teacher didn't have a responsibility to his students to prepare them for Latin2 and 3 in ANY FCPS classroom.

I learned more about English grammar in Latin class than I did in English class. Basically every teacher seemed to assume Someone Else had taught that stuff, only in 11th grade did one of my English teachers decide to cover English grammar.

Thomas More Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> German is spoken on what continent other than Europe?

Its my understanding that German was quite popular in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay in the 1940s to 1960s....

Dude, I feel your pain. I was pissed when my Sanskrit 3 class was canceled at NVCC.

So if I follow all the threads, Latin is a good language to keep teaching because we can't teach English correctly.

First, thank you Mrs Norris (my 8th grade English teacher). I cursed you at the time, but you spent an entire year diagramming sentences and teaching us to think and write.

Second, rather than correct the deficiencies in English instruction by teaching a dead language shouldn't we simply teach English properly?

Oh yeah, it's FCPS. Why teach something in one class when two will do?

BTW, I don't need to spend years learning a dead language to understand the meaning and derivation of words. There's a little inexpensive book that's been around for centuries to help with that - it's called a dictionary.

concerned parent Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > What response do you say to my friend's son who got through chapter 23 in the FCPS Latin 1 program and had to start from scratch this year? As a teacher in FCPS he had an obligation to teach to the program. While I also have very fond memories of teachers who went off the regular path, he still needed to keep up with the program too. Getting through just chapter 2 is not acceptable. Other students--who had different teachers for Latin 1--are being penalized. I wouldn't call following the curriculum pedestrian...it's responsible. I think your affection for this teacher should not cloud your view of his classroom performance. Just because there is no Latin SOL does not mean this teacher didn't have a responsibility to his students to prepare them for Latin2 and 3 in ANY FCPS classroom.< <

These comment follow from several false premises.

First, Cave was the only Latin teacher for most of his tenure at SL. Thus, he was the teacher of Latin I, II, III and IV. As such he defined the "program." So there were no students of other SL teachers who would be "further ahead in the book."

Second, since when does the textbook company dictate the content of a course. A textbook is just one tool a good teacher uses to teach a subject. Slavish devotion to a commercial enterprise's notion of the course is pedestrian, unimaginative, boring and, finally, lazy. The best teachers uses the textbook as a departure point not a straight jacket.

Finally, it is the height of condescension to presume that anyone's affection clouds their judgment of a teacher's effectiveness. To the contrary, it was Mr. Cave's effectiveness that prompted the affection not the other way around. As Friedman wrote in his World is Flat book, the most important function of any teacher is to inspire in the students a love of life long learning more than the content of any specific field of knowledge.

Mr. Cave did that better than the vast majority of clock punchers, babysitters, rent seekers, incompetents and drones at SL of which there are far too many.

Latin is a dead language Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So if I follow all the threads, Latin is a good language to keep teaching because we can't teach English correctly.< <

Because FCPS can't, won't and doesn't teach English grammar or vocabulary, especially at the middle school and high school level. FCPS English teachers would rather teach literature. Grammer and vocabulary instruction is boring to the teacher who would rather teach literary analysis.

The entire English curriculum in FCPS needs to be thrown out and recast to eliminate the influence of "whole language" completely and restore fundamental competence in grammar and vocabulary.

> > First, thank you Mrs Norris (my 8th grade English teacher). I cursed you at the time, but you spent an entire year diagramming sentences and teaching us to think and write.< <

> > Second, rather than correct the deficiencies in English instruction by teaching a dead language shouldn't we simply teach English properly?< <

What I'm describing is a parent's adaptation to the failings of FCPS. You want to take on FCPS hidebound, non-responsive and corrupt organization, have fun and let me know how it comes out. We've been trying to get high school start times moved for 25 years. How's that working out?

> > Oh yeah, it's FCPS. Why teach something in one class when two will do?< <

Or we can build a new middle school when there are 2000 empty middle school seats, equal to two middle schools capacity. FCPS's priorities are completely screwed up.

> > BTW, I don't need to spend years learning a dead language to understand the meaning and derivation of words. There's a little inexpensive book that's been around for centuries to help with that - it's called a dictionary.< <

Oh the snarkiness. And you look up every unfamiliar word every time you come across one in the unabridged dictionary you carry around with you. Your upper body must be well muscled.

Do you carry Strunk and White in the other arm?

Utine dixeritis de stercori et magistri in hoc loci.

Lots of parochialism and smugness here.

For what it's worth, I did not attend FCPS, so to blame FCPS for my English instruction is a bit off.

I'll accept the conservative ideology in education if they can cast off the idea that cutting teacher pay/benefits will somehow lead to better teachers coming in. (I'm not really sure what else is being implied when folks complain about overpaid teachers.)

A deal like that Rhee is offering DC public school teachers would work out, where pay raises come in but tenure is abolished.

Thomas More Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> concerned parent Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > > What response do you say to my friend's son
> who got through chapter 23 in the FCPS Latin 1
> program and had to start from scratch this year?
> As a teacher in FCPS he had an obligation to teach
> to the program. While I also have very fond
> memories of teachers who went off the regular
> path, he still needed to keep up with the program
> too. Getting through just chapter 2 is not
> acceptable. Other students--who had different
> teachers for Latin 1--are being penalized. I
> wouldn't call following the curriculum
> pedestrian...it's responsible. I think your
> affection for this teacher should not cloud your
> view of his classroom performance. Just because
> there is no Latin SOL does not mean this teacher
> didn't have a responsibility to his students to
> prepare them for Latin2 and 3 in ANY FCPS
> classroom.< <
>
> These comment follow from several false premises.
>
> First, Cave was the only Latin teacher for most of
> his tenure at SL. Thus, he was the teacher of
> Latin I, II, III and IV. As such he defined the
> "program." So there were no students of other SL
> teachers who would be "further ahead in the
> book."
>
> Second, since when does the textbook company
> dictate the content of a course. A textbook is
> just one tool a good teacher uses to teach a
> subject. Slavish devotion to a commercial
> enterprise's notion of the course is pedestrian,
> unimaginative, boring and, finally, lazy. The
> best teachers uses the textbook as a departure
> point not a straight jacket.
>
> Finally, it is the height of condescension to
> presume that anyone's affection clouds their
> judgment of a teacher's effectiveness. To the
> contrary, it was Mr. Cave's effectiveness that
> prompted the affection not the other way around.
> As Friedman wrote in his World is Flat book, the
> most important function of any teacher is to
> inspire in the students a love of life long
> learning more than the content of any specific
> field of knowledge.
>
> Mr. Cave did that better than the vast majority of
> clock punchers, babysitters, rent seekers,
> incompetents and drones at SL of which there are
> far too many.


I was giving you an out by suggesting that your fondness for Mr. Cave might be cloudiing your view of his program. According to my friend's son, the students from his class know nothing about Latin. He can't believe they took Latin ever. Also, it should have been clear to everyone involved--Mr. Cave, the SL administration and the students in his class--that he wouldn't be teaching forever, especially at his advanced age.. The fact that he was Latin at SL doesn't mean that he would always be Latin at SL. So, what about the students that are taking Latin now--the brand new students as well as those who were students of Mr. Cave? (They have a new teacher and are horribly behind the FCPS Latin program.) What about students who are leaps ahead in the book? Where has Mr. Cave's personal program left them? While I agree a good teacher ventures past the text book, he only got to chapter 2 (TWO!!!). And, I think the 9th graders who are taking Latin 2 should matter in this equation. (The Latin program at Rachel Carson is very popular and numerous 9th grade students from Carson are now taking Latin 2 at SL.) It's great to inspire a love of learning, but the actual learning should be going on, too.

Concerned Parent, seeing that this is not even your child, if you even have a child, it really is of no concern of yours. If the mother isn't here bitching, then why should you? If your life is so boring, that you have to be such a bore here, then maybe you should apply to teach Latin at South Lakes. And really who's to say who knows what about Latin? You really think your friend's son knows all about Latin? The Latin program at Rachel Carson is not nearly as popular as the other languages offered at the school, so stop skewing the story. The 9th grade Latin 2 kids, who should matter (according to you), maybe more than the others (as you imply) should really take this up with the instructor and the principal. And you my dear, should mind your own business and start working on your application.

Thomas More Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>...If mastery of French has great snob appeal, buy the
> disk from Rosette Stone....

French is actually quite useful, and is still commonly used in the Middle East, Central, West and North Africa, Southeast Asia, Canada, and Europe of course. French is also one of two official languages of NATO.

There are many professional, government and military opportunities opened to those students who opt to study French - no snobbery here, mon ami!

A bientot!

ETTU Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Concerned Parent, seeing that this is not even
> your child, if you even have a child, it really is
> of no concern of yours. If the mother isn't here
> bitching, then why should you? If your life is so
> boring, that you have to be such a bore here, then
> maybe you should apply to teach Latin at South
> Lakes. And really who's to say who knows what
> about Latin? You really think your friend's son
> knows all about Latin? The Latin program at
> Rachel Carson is not nearly as popular as the
> other languages offered at the school, so stop
> skewing the story. The 9th grade Latin 2 kids,
> who should matter (according to you), maybe more
> than the others (as you imply) should really take
> this up with the instructor and the principal.
> And you my dear, should mind your own business and
> start working on your application.


If I'm boring you so much, feel free not to read me. In fact, why read this topic at all? I'm a concerned parent (of children who may one day take Latin at South Lakes). I'm unhappy with what I see as a huge problem with Latin at my future high school, so it is a concern of mine. I don't appreciate renegade teaching--at least when the renegage approach leaves the students lacking. My friend's son knows enough Latin to know that the current seniors who had Mr. Cave last year are REALLY, REALLY behind. (Can you imagine if one of these students had to move and attend another school and another Latin class senior year? Geez, how foolish they would look in a normal Latin 2 class.) Also, there were 4 sections of Latin last year at Carson, which was at least 100 students in the 8th grade taking Latin. It is a popular class. More popular than Spanish? Probably not, but who said that it was. I'm not sure why you suggest that I should apply to teach Latin at SL. What a non sequitor. I guess you couldn't think of a better dig, so you decided to just sound stupid instead.

Well I hope they fix the problem before you get to high school. Again, if you really are concerned, why are you here? Now, who looks stupid (as well as sounds stupid)? No one here can do anything to solve this problem and the one person (Mr. More) who tries to kindly provide some explanation gets cynical retorts from you. So what is left to do but poke fun at you and watch you get your panties in a wad? That is mostly what this board is about. POKE

FOL Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Well I hope they fix the problem before you get to
> high school. Again, if you really are concerned,
> why are you here? Now, who looks stupid (as well
> as sounds stupid)? No one here can do anything to
> solve this problem and the one person (Mr. More)
> who tries to kindly provide some explanation gets
> cynical retorts from you. So what is left to do
> but poke fun at you and watch you get your panties
> in a wad? That is mostly what this board is
> about. POKE


What a weird response. And, thanks for being concerned about my panties. They are just fine. You must be TMore or a clone to TMore. To suggest his response was a kindly explanation just gives you away. It's too bad you think it's stupid to care about the failure of a language program at a local high school. While it's possible that no one here can do anything (what a sad thought that no one here can do anything), it does give some food for thought and a data point about a school that should be trying to do good by its recruited newcomers. I'm glad to know this information so I can make an informed choice about language at SL--or at least make sure issues are on the table and dealt with before my child gets there. Perhaps others will find this information valuable in some way. The fact that you're just here to POKE is rather pathetic. Perhaps it's time to find a better, nicer hobby.

Why is it so sad that nobody here can do anything? You can't do anything either, Ms. Thing. If you could, you would be doing it, not engaging a bunch of cretinous morons on an internet forum.

RESton Peace Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Why is it so sad that nobody here can do anything?
> You can't do anything either, Ms. Thing. If you
> could, you would be doing it, not engaging a bunch
> of cretinous morons on an internet forum.


Your right, but Concerned Parent doesn't get it -- too self-absorbed, but it is fun to watch.

Concerned parent Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > I'm unhappy with what I see as a huge problem with Latin at my future high school, so it is a concern of mine. I don't appreciate renegade teaching--at least when the renegage approach leaves the students lacking. My friend's son knows enough Latin to know that the current seniors who had Mr. Cave last year are REALLY, REALLY behind. (Can you imagine if one of these students had to move and attend another school and another Latin class senior year? Geez, how foolish they would look in a normal Latin 2 class.) Also, there were 4 sections of Latin last year at Carson, which was at least 100 students in the 8th grade taking Latin. It is a popular class.< <

Do you even realize how repulsive your condescension is?

Mr. Cave is gone. Why insult his cherished memory by calling him a renegade. He did not leave my children lacking. And I don't need your "out."

The new teacher is following the "generally accepted" lesson plan in Latin 1. She's making a transition in the upper classes that doesn't penalize Mr. Cave's students so that enough of them stay in Latin II and III to even have a class for your friend's kid to attend. If the juniors and seniors dropped out of Latin II and III, those classes would be dropped just as happened to accounting this year.

By next year, the Latin II class will be entirely on the "standard" curriculum for the rising 9th graders from Carson.

I certainly see how foolish FCPS students look when they try to write after 20 years of "whole language." That's a huge problem. The Latin courses at SL are a comparatively minor transitory problem which will be resolved to your satisfaction before your precious one shows up.

Take a deep knee bend. Then try focusing on a real problem like "Every Day" Math, "Whole Language" English or AP v. IB about which there is a parents committee meeting now and to which you've been invited to attend. Those are some issues deserving you emotional investment.

Berdhuis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > French is actually quite useful, and is still commonly used in the Middle East, Central, West and North Africa, Southeast Asia, Canada, and Europe of course. French is also one of two official languages of NATO.
>
> There are many professional, government and military opportunities opened to those students who opt to study French - no snobbery here, mon ami!
>
> A bientot!< <

So FCPS should increase class sizes by 2 kids so we can teach French in elementary school and save those parents the cost of paying for this instruction privately?

And all these elementary school French students are going into the foreign service in the Middle East, Central, West and North Africa, Southeast Asia, Canada and NATO where none of the French speaking people also speak English.

Given its limited resources, I question the allocation of FCPS personnel.

There are any number of subjects that might be appealing to some segment of the FFX population. Is French and Italian more important than economics, accounting and finance. I, obviously, don't think so.

But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

I want a hazardous waste and ordnance handling and disposal class... I bet a ton of kids would take that, and after the terrorists strike again, we may need all the hands we can get.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/2008 09:00AM by RESton Peace.

RESton Peace Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > I want a hazardous waste and ordinance handling and disposal class... I bet a ton of kids would take that, and after the terrorists strike again, we may need all the hands we can get.< <

That's covered in jewelry making class.

Thomas More Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Concerned parent Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > > I'm unhappy with what I see as a huge problem
> with Latin at my future high school, so it is a
> concern of mine. I don't appreciate renegade
> teaching--at least when the renegage approach
> leaves the students lacking. My friend's son knows
> enough Latin to know that the current seniors who
> had Mr. Cave last year are REALLY, REALLY behind.
> (Can you imagine if one of these students had to
> move and attend another school and another Latin
> class senior year? Geez, how foolish they would
> look in a normal Latin 2 class.) Also, there were
> 4 sections of Latin last year at Carson, which was
> at least 100 students in the 8th grade taking
> Latin. It is a popular class.< <
>
> Do you even realize how repulsive your
> condescension is?
>
> Mr. Cave is gone. Why insult his cherished memory
> by calling him a renegade. He did not leave my
> children lacking. And I don't need your "out."
>
> The new teacher is following the "generally
> accepted" lesson plan in Latin 1. She's making a
> transition in the upper classes that doesn't
> penalize Mr. Cave's students so that enough of
> them stay in Latin II and III to even have a class
> for your friend's kid to attend. If the juniors
> and seniors dropped out of Latin II and III, those
> classes would be dropped just as happened to
> accounting this year.
>
> By next year, the Latin II class will be entirely
> on the "standard" curriculum for the rising 9th
> graders from Carson.
>
> I certainly see how foolish FCPS students look
> when they try to write after 20 years of "whole
> language." That's a huge problem. The Latin
> courses at SL are a comparatively minor transitory
> problem which will be resolved to your
> satisfaction before your precious one shows up.
>
> Take a deep knee bend. Then try focusing on a real
> problem like "Every Day" Math, "Whole Language"
> English or AP v. IB about which there is a parents
> committee meeting now and to which you've been
> invited to attend. Those are some issues deserving
> you emotional investment.


Sorry, I think you are an idiot. I have read your posts before and had thought you had some interesting and insightful things to say, but HERE you are an idiot. I didn't know Mr. Cave, so I am not invested in his memory (as you are). I personally think you are hoodwinked to think he didn't do your children a disservice, but they are your children and if you don't care about their Latin education, I certainly don't care. But, I do care about what will wait for my precious ones. Mr. Cave left a mess and no amount of affection for him will change that (and if you think this is condescension, then you should reread your comments on how innovative and inspiring Mr. Cave was last year. Yuck, what drivel.) I am aware of other academic committees at the school and they seem to be doing good work. This is not good work and if other parents are like you no wonder situations like this happen. Next thing you know the Eng Lit class will spend a whole year on Moby Dick and you'll just scratch your head and wonder why.

> Sorry, I think you are an idiot. I have read your
> posts before and had thought you had some
> interesting and insightful things to say, but HERE
> you are an idiot. I didn't know Mr. Cave, so I am
> not invested in his memory (as you are). I
> personally think you are hoodwinked to think he
> didn't do your children a disservice, but they are
> your children and if you don't care about their
> Latin education, I certainly don't care. But, I do
> care about what will wait for my precious ones.
> Mr. Cave left a mess and no amount of affection
> for him will change that (and if you think this is
> condescension, then you should reread your
> comments on how innovative and inspiring Mr. Cave
> was last year. Yuck, what drivel.) I am aware of
> other academic committees at the school and they
> seem to be doing good work. This is not good work
> and if other parents are like you no wonder
> situations like this happen. Next thing you know
> the Eng Lit class will spend a whole year on Moby
> Dick and you'll just scratch your head and wonder
> why.


Oh Dearie me, Mr. More, I really meant idiota. See how much I need the Latin classes to improve. I can't even "speak" Latin correctly on this board! I am so sorry, I must be suffering from delirium.

Mr. Cave wasn't a renegade; he was a MAV'RICK.

Concerned parent Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sorry, I think you are an idiot.

There you go proving my point about your repulsive condescension for me again.

> I have read your posts before and had thought you had some interesting and insightful things to say,< <

Thank you

> I didn't know Mr. Cave, so I am not invested in his memory (as you are).< <

And sadly your parents never taught you the common courtesy to be respectful of the dead who are no longer able defend themselves from harridans like yourself.

> > I personally think you are hoodwinked to think he didn't do your children a disservice,

Since none of my children are destined to be classics majors, (they hope to be gainfully employed instead) Mr. Cave's efforts suited them just fine, thank you for asking.

> Mr. Cave left a mess

Regardless of our disagreement, you've gotten your way and new Latin teacher will have fully installed the regimented lesson plan you prefer long before your kids arrive at SL. So what are you snarling about?

> I am aware of other academic committees at the school and they seem to be doing good work.< <

Not well enough aware to know I was writing about only one committee, i.e., the AP v. IB committee on which, if you were more interested in you child's high school education than libeling a dead man, you really should be participating if you were actually interested in improving SL. But posting petty attacks on a defenseless corpse on this forum is apparently so much more satisfying for you.

> Next thing you know the Eng Lit class will spend a whole year on Moby Dick and you'll just scratch your head and wonder why.< <

Too late.

That's exactly what's been happening for the last 12 years despite the repeated protests of scores of SL parents including me. Except its not English Lit. in FCPS. At least it's not supposed to be but that's what the "renegade" SL English teachers spend their time teaching instead of grammar and vocabulary.

On the other hand, there are entire year long colleges courses devoted to the study of Moby Dick.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/2008 09:06PM by Thomas More.

Cave was an ass...glad he is dead. Thank G*d no other children will suffer from his self-indulgent, self-delusional concepts of teaching.

Thomas More Wrote:
> Since none of my children are destined to be
> classics majors, (they hope to be gainfully
> employed instead)

Mr. Cave was a classics major.

Mr. Cave would take Thomas More's kid into the men's room for a little hokey pokey. More's kid did not learn much latin but did learn how to squeal like a pig.