Talking Bout Politics

Lately I've had a great many interactions in which someone will say something about how Governor Snyder wants to take money away from schools, almost always accompanied by an expression of disgust with the governor and the fact that he is speaking at U-M's commencement. I find this awkward, because, well, I support the governor. The state has no money, and it has to make cuts, unfortunately. I guarantee that he doesn't want to cut education, but that the state also can't spend money it doesn't have. And in an economically depressed state, raising taxes on "the rich" or on "big business" just isn't a good policy. The problem is the tax base--everything we have that could be taxed--rather than tax levels. Until the economy here comes back, we're going to have to do more with less, educationally. I think our teachers are good enough to do that.

But...what is the best thing to do in that situation? Do I engage that in conversation and express my disagreement in a polite, respectful way? Or do I just ignore--at as I have largely been doing--smile, and move on? Among other teachers, I've learned just to smile and move on. What about my brothers and sisters in church? I don't think less of anyone who disagrees with me politically, but I sometimes get the feeling that others think less of me when they hear about my opinions. Well, that or become personally offended...

A Meeting of the Minds

In reading Latin, it is terribly important to think like a Roman. Latin speakers used word endings instead of word order to determine syntactic functions. As a result, one has to be able to identify words quickly by part of speech and often to use the word's ending to determine whether it is a subject, direct object, or some sort of adverbial modifier disguised as a noun and lacking the comfortable familiarity of the prepositions with which English abounds.

This process has to be modeled, and that was why I had written a neat little sentence core--two underlines with the words "subject" and "verb" scrawled underneath them--for students to fill in and thereby practice reading Latin correctly. When one stumbles over a nominative, one places the English equivalent of that word in the "subject" slot. When one bumps against an ablative, one mentally spins a giant wheel o' prepositions, combines the result with the English equivalent of the noun, and tapes it haphazardly to the end of the sentence.

At least, that's an acceptable starting point. At any rate, the students had given it their best shot, and it was time to walk through it with them. I asked my first target, "What is the first word?" "Quinto," he replied. "Right! What case is it?" "Could be ablative or dative, but it's probably dative because it's an animate noun." "Right! So let's translate it as 'to or for Quintus' and put it at the end." I turned to write this on the board, thus opening the door to or for trouble.

I turned around. One of the students now had a paper mustache taped onto his face. Undeterred, I asked a second pupil, "What is the second word?" "Marcus," came the answer. "Right! What case is it?" "Nominative; it's the subject." "Exactly, so let's right it in the subject slot."

Again I turned, wrote on the board, and turned back. Another student had taped a paper soul patch onto his face. Nevertheless, I trekked bravely on. "Next word?" "Clamavit!" "Part of speech?" "Verb!" "Tense?" "Perfect!" "Good! What's the translation?" "'He shouted!'" "Great, but we already have a subject, so we'll omit 'he' and write 'shouted' in the verb slot. Now, there's a period next, so--" and when I turned back around, the rest of the class had freshly donned facial hair.

There was a moment of silence as the competing forces in the room battled for final supremacy. Finally, one of the students asked, "Mr. Breen, do you want a mustache?" I gazed upon the class with narrowed eyes, pondering how to respond to this intrusion upon my carefully constructed lesson. Without altering my expression, I let out a gruff "Yes" and held out my hand.

In teaching Latin, it is terribly important to think like an eighth grader.

Here We Go Again

It seems that there are a few things about which I never learn my lesson and to which I keep coming back. For whatever reason, I always think that this time, when I start a HatTrick online soccer team, I'll stick with it. After all, it's only a few minutes' investment every day. Less often, I go back and make another BuzzerBeater online basketball team. Keeping a journal is another one; I just can't seem to keep going with it whenever I start up again.

In non-related news, I think I'm going to start writing on this blog again.