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Glories of Teaching Classics in the Inner City

My friend Lovina invited me to spend six weeks in Queens, NY, teaching inner city kids in her

program, called the Math and Latin Academy. I would leave my home in Maine during its

most beautiful time, July and August, to teach Latin, mythology, grammar, phonics and

penmanship (writing cursive). Her article and conclusions about this experiment are here:

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/11/giving_up_on_black_america_.html

Lovina’s offer to teach came as a gift to me. Like her, I live in a place I love, near the Atlantic.

Unlike her, I don’t have to watch my step, and I find it easy to love my neighbors, most of

whom look and sound a good deal like me. Before my fiancé drove me, in our old Subaru,

from Maine to Queens, I knew a lot about Latin, and (I thought) about teaching it, but very

little about Classical Christian Education. I had no experience teaching in the inner city. But as

with every other teaching job I’ve taken, I plowed ahead with a good will, trusting that my love

for my subject and, inevitably, for my students, would see me through, as they always have.

Like Lovina, I believe strongly in the value of teaching and learning Latin. I know from long

experience that learning Latin makes students smarter; it conveys a deep understanding of how

language works, and it involves working with one’s whole brain, both in small details (is that a

long vowel or a short one? And what does that tell you?) and in the big picture (who’s talking,

and to whom, and about what?). With the kids in Queens, I spent most of my teaching time

with the youngest group, 7- and 8-year-olds, so we started with stories and sentences, and

learning basic grammar terms like noun, verb, subject. We worked that over a lot, using many

simple sentences that would also introduce the story of Odysseus. “Underline the subject,

circle the verb.” Most of them were kind of clueless about this concept at the beginning, but

they got better and better at it. When it came to beginning the actual teaching of Latin, Lovina

had to give me something of a leash correction, to persuade me that these students could be

taught some simple vocabulary, but if I persisted in trying to get them to conjugate verbs, I

would lose them, and I was not to do it. But, I thought, it’s just chanting, to them. How is

“amo, amas, amat” all that different from “one potato, two potato, three potato, four” to a

seven-year-old? Children in this age range chant all the time, happily and spontaneously, as I

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realized from reading Dorothy Sayers. But Lovina was right, and she was right for a very good

reason. If your teaching method is based on the Trivium, then learning the building blocks

(what is a noun, or how do you say “road”), which is Grammar, has to be solidly in place

before you introduce Logic, which is “Now what can we do with these pieces? Let’s take this

verb and conjugate it!” I was working out of sequence, trying to introduce Logic tasks too

early. By the last week, the best and brightest 7-year-olds were conjugating verbs almost all on

their own.

That was a revelation to me as a teacher. It was not my only one. I gained a great, hands-on

respect for the pedagogy built on the Trivium. In less than two months, these kids learned a

great deal, and had a wonderful time, as did I. The fact that I was usually the only white person

in the building, and sometimes on the bus or even, it seemed, the block, was a matter of a little

curiosity, the curiosity about an unfamiliar place, new people – but there was no moment when

I felt unwelcome, much less threatened. The chance to teach students, who were generally

eager and well-behaved, energized and motivated me through six weeks of long days.

Lovina and I enjoyed many conversations. As she says, we have come from very different

starting points and arrived at very different positions. One of the most positive lessons for me

in the whole experience was that, in spite of the profound political divisions in America of

recent decades, I can still, or once again, engage in long, deep, back-and-forth dialogue with

someone whose perspective is so far from my own. I had come to think that such conversations

had been lost with childhood, or with the onset of political radio shock-talkers.

There were differences we would never resolve. I got the message that the Trivium is a

powerful pedagogical method, and I absolutely agree that all students, at least all American

students, need to learn the deep heritage of western civilization, from Homer to Abraham

Lincoln. The poetry of Virgil, the prose of Cicero, the political insight of the founding fathers

of this country, and all the riches in between -- this is a rich and worthy heritage, and one we

can learn and treasure and share, without condoning or overlooking the atrocities of any of the

colonial ambitions and powers down through history. All peoples have shameful chapters in

their histories. Americans (and our cultural ancestors of western Europe) are no exception. But

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we owe it to ourselves to know, and to our children to teach, the profound strength and glory

that has always drawn people to this nation. Lovina believes that the black community overall

rejects this heritage, and actively refuses to learn it, because of its undeniable flaws. It pains me

to think of a child being denied knowledge of Homer, or Virgil, or Shakespeare, because of the

horrors of the conquistadors, or the brutality of the crusades. By that logic, I should never

admire a great cathedral or a beautiful hymn because of the bloody Spanish Inquisition. It cuts

me off from the history of how this country was founded, of its deepest, richest roots, on the

grounds that the country has faults. I have two responses to that.

First, find me a nation that isn’t flawed, and show me its history. Find me a people who have

better souls, a people who have never trespassed against their neighbors. I don’t believe you

can.

Second, if anyone believes that their own heritage is somehow richer or more virtuous than the

one we share as Americans, then I would challenge them to go find it out. Learn it. Write it

down. Be the Homer, or even more important, be the modern equivalent of that nameless

unknown hero who first wrote down the songs of Homer. If you want to reject this culture, then

show me an alternative. And if the alternative is just modern rap, or a story about whether

Beyonce and JayZ are fighting this week, then I reject that, and I feel no slightest trace of

respect for that alternative. None. If modern TV, videogames, Facebook, Twitter, Hollywood

and Hulu are your culture, then you’ve lost this argument. You’ve given up the riches of

centuries for the shallow, greed-based entertainment of a few minutes.

The point where Lovina and I still diverge is about the Christianity of Classical Christian

Education. I think this approach to teaching, using the Trivium, would work with any students.

Lovina and I have very different faith lives. That hasn’t prevented us from sharing prayer – but

my faith is not as denominational as Lovina’s. I have family members who are orthodox Jews,

and others who are atheists. My faith is deep but inarticulate, inchoate, not verbal, and not

easily named. I believe that all faiths are flawed human efforts to describe the indescribable. I

believe that the enormous gift and power of Christianity, as a world faith and as an historical

juggernaut, comes from Jesus’ commandment that we love one another, love our neighbor as

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ourselves, first, last, foremost – a severe reorientation of human consciousness if there ever

was one. Not that we are able to obey that commandment, any of us – but at least we are

commanded to try, and that effort makes us better people.

For me, because of my own skill set, loving my neighbor would include teaching Latin to all

comers, to anyone who wants to learn it, regardless of his or her religion. Having taught in a

large public school, I have taught Latin to students who happened to be Muslims or Jews, or

atheists, or devout Christians who were also Mormons. My experience with Lovina means I

would teach them a little differently now, but not that I would make any new inquiry into their

faith.