Vivit Lingua Latina

Miss Ranck at the time she was my teacher

I don't know whether this person looks frightening to you, but she made me so nervous I nearly quit Latin.  Since I met my wife in a collegiate Latin class and have taught the language for nearly three decades, I am glad I did not, but I was certainly tempted after the first day in Miss Alice Ranck's Latin II class at New Albany High School.

When I was a freshman, which in our school district meant the last grade of junior high, I signed up to take German for the highly academic reason that this was the language my friends were taking.  Because the class was filled, the assistant principal called my parents and said he wanted to enroll me in Latin, for, in his words, he wanted me "to experience Alice Ranck."  It would mean walking across the athletic fields to the high school each day, since Latin was not offered at Hazelwood Junior High, but he assured us the effort would be worth it.

As it turned out, my Latin I teacher was Joyce Woller, a very nice lady, and I enjoyed the language enough to continue it the following year as a sophomore at the high school.  Nothing could have prepared me for that first day.  Oh, Miss Woller had done a fine job of grounding us in the basics of Latin grammar, but what neither she nor anyone else could have prepared us to handle was the force of nature that was Miss Ranck.  She talked so fast!  It was like taking a sip from a fire hose!  I thought I would never be able to keep up, and when I told my parents, they asked if I thought I should drop the class.  I decided to stay with it, and my life has never been the same.

Miss Ranck had a white bumpersticker on her chalkboard from the American Classical League that read in purple letters, Vivit Lingua Latina, and indeed the Latin language continued to live through her instruction.  There was, of course, the grammatical instruction, which, after decades of my own teaching, I can assure you was as sound as could be.  Much of my own instruction, from style to curriculum arrangement, stems from her.  There was also the historical and the mythological material, and again I find phrases about Caesar and Cicero echoing from her classroom in my own.

Then there was the fun.  We had an annual Roman banquet, complete with Roman dress and high school students reclining on their elbows in the school gym to eat Roman food.  There was Latin Club, with its "pound party" fundraisers in which students brought in a pound of food for auction.  And there was certamen.  This is an academic competition that sees students playing in teams to answer questions about the language, history, and culture of Greco-Roman antiquity.  Miss Ranck took us to play certamen (pronounced care-TAH-mun) in far off Muncie and Terre Haute, and my mom often drove, following her little, blue Volkswagen Rabbit in the wee, dark hours of a Hoosier Saturday morning.

To be fair, this is all a nice description of a good teacher, perhaps even one above average, but it does not explain why this woman from Fountain City, Indiana, should have become a legend.  It does not give a hint why she was named 1982-1983 Secondary Teacher of the Year by the Classical Association of the Middle West and South.  It does not explain why she was the 1985 Teacher of the Year for the New Albany-Floyd County Community School Corporation and a candidate for Indiana Teacher of the Year.  It does not give even the slightest clue why hundreds of her former students have joined a Facebook group in her honor, have traveled over the years to visit her, and have shared with her weddings, births, and graduations that they have celebrated.  Perhaps those students took to heart the wisdom of Miss Ranck's favorite Roman author Cicero, who in his essay on friendship, wrote, "Qui esset tantus fructus in prosperis rebus, nisi haberes qui illis aeque ac tu ipse gauderet?" (De Amicitia, 22)  "How great would be the enjoyment in good times if you did not have someone who would rejoice in them as much as you?"

Miss Ranck at her induction into the New Albany High School Hall of Fame

Here at last we come to the heart of what made Miss Ranck a beloved figure in the lives of her students.  It is simply that, heart.  When she was inducted into the New Albany High School Hall of Fame in 2008, she said in her acceptance remarks, "It is our responsibility as educators to provide a sound education based on ethical principles.  Innate within every human being is first the desire to be noticed and to be loved, then comes the need to be taught to learn how to learn.  It is the role of the teacher to notice and yes, to love the student so much that he is ready to learn, and in turn develop all of his potential.  What better way for a teen-ager to learn to live honorably and well than to read from the literary masterpieces of Cicero."

Miss Ranck noticed her students.  Whether they were in her Latin class or not, all the children at New Albany High School were her students, and she greeted them warmly each day.  Those who had the good fortune to be her students were blessed by her demanding love, a love that would not tolerate anything less than a student's best.  And when in the course of human nature a student came ill prepared to class, that student heard the familiar refrain, "Preparation will cure what ails you!"

She inspired at least three of her students to become Latin teachers, and all of us have had long careers.  Drawing from my own experience, let's do a little math.  From middle school to high school to undergraduate levels of Latin and Classics, I estimate that I have taught around three thousand students.  During that time I have supervised eleven student teachers, nine of whom went on to teach Latin.  Now consider that Miss Ranck's other two students who became Latin teachers had similar careers.  Do you see where this is going?  Add on others of her students who entered the teaching field, albeit not in Latin, and took her wisdom and caring to their students.  Add to that the rest of her students whose lives were enriched by their time with her and who were better employees, neighbors, husbands, wives, and parents because they entered the grand conversation with the greatest ancient authors, a conversation hosted by one who modeled what she taught.  Ask them.  They will tell you that this encomium is based in fact, not hyperbole, and you will come to see what truly makes a legend.

Miss Ranck's students who became Latin teachers
(L to R:  Steve Perkins, Alice Ranck Hettle, Steve Prince, Tim Harbison)

One of the happiest days of my high school life was Tuesday, April 29th, 1986.  Miss Ranck had loaned me one of her copies of New Latin Grammar by Charles Bennett, and in it I discovered something about the imperative plural of deponent verbs, those tricky words that have only passive forms and only active meanings.  I shared it with her, and she did something that made my day.  She gave me that copy of Bennett's Grammar and inscribed in the front a message that ended, "May the best of everything be yours in the future, Steve!  You've already earned it."  I can still remember walking to my next class without my feet touching the ground.

Miss Ranck more than earned the respect of the students, parents, and colleagues with whom she worked.  The Romans believed that a person's fama, that which was said about someone, was the most important thing, for it would live even after that person had passed from this life to the next.  If fama has that sort of lasting power, then Miss Ranck's must surely shine beyond that of most.  In fact, as Vergil wrote of Jupiter's intention for the Roman people in Aeneid 1, so it is with the fama, the legend, of Miss Ranck, or as many of her students called her, Miss Alice, even after she retired to marry her high school sweetheart and became Mrs. Alice Hettle.  It has nec metas, nec tempora, neither limits nor duration, and through the lives of her many students will stand sine fine, without limit.  Because this is true, we can all borrow words from Catullus in poem 101, "atque in perpetuum, Magistra, ave atque vale."  "And into eternity, O Teacher, hail and farewell."

Vague, Sham, Redundant

Irvin Goldstein

Yesterday my sixth grade teacher Irvin Goldstein passed from this life to the next, and today Facebook has been filled with fond remembrances from former students.  He was one of the most influential teachers in my education, so it is natural to consider what words come to mind when thinking of him.  Several do, actually, and in this order.

Vague

Sham

Redundant

Verbose

Articulate

Gregarious

Mediocre

Magnificent

Loquacious

Although "articulate" and "magnificent" may have described him, the others do not, so you may ask why they come to my mind.  Each week Mr. Goldstein put a new word on the chalkboard in addition to our regular spelling list.  For extra credit, we could list each word and its predecessors  on that week's test.  The first week the word was "vague," the second week "sham," and so forth, and I have remembered the first nine in order for nearly forty years.

It is not so much that I have a prodigious memory as much as the fact that nearly everything Mr. Goldstein did with his students was memorable.  He read to us each day after lunch, and I still recall the excitement of Black and Blue Magic and Mrs. Coverlet's Magicians and Escape From Warsaw, which whisked me away to another place that stayed with me so keenly that I checked it out of our local library and read it to my son when he was young.

And then there were the pickles.  Yes, we made pickles.  And root beer.  In Mr. Goldstein's room, science took on a practical flair, which made sense, given his passion for helping his students engage with the world around them.  For example, he took the entire class to his farm for a field trip and designed a camping program for fifth and sixth graders that lasted for years in our district.  I remember lying out under the stars one evening at Otter Creek Camp, and Mr. Goldstein walked by.  He saw my friend Phil and me gazing at the stars, and he said with a gentle laugh, "They almost seem to move, don't they?"

The two things that had the most significant effect on my education and general life, however, were his instruction in creative writing and his preparation for later stages of learning.  He regularly gave us writing prompts, and that was where I came alive.  I could not wait for the next writing assignment and began to fill notebooks outside class with my own stories.  It was in Mr. Goldstein's room that the writer in me was born.

As for sending us on to junior high and high school, no one could have prepared us better.  He treated us as young adults and held us to the highest standards.  He equipped us to take notes and organize our time and materials so that the transition to seventh grade and beyond was a smooth one.

My memories of Mr. Goldstein are vivid and far from vague, for when it came to teaching he was no sham, but the real deal.  I could go on and on, but at some point my stories would become redundant and my writing would become verbose instead of concise as Mr. Goldstein taught.  I hope that this meager eulogy has been articulate enough, however, to give some insight into a teacher who, while not particularly gregarious, was beloved by all, for never would he accept the mediocre or anything less than the best from his students.  He made us great, and in so doing was the living definition of magnificent.  Since experiencing sixth grade with Mr. Goldstein would make even the most taciturn loquacious in recalling precious memories, I will end with a simple shalom to one who will always be one of my best teachers.



Update:  One of my classmates shared this picture from our sixth grade class with Mr. Goldstein.

Mr. Goldstein is center left at the top next to our principal, Mr. Gene Miller.  Yours truly is the young man in the upper right corner.

When A Student Asks A Question

Our district once allowed eighth grade students to begin their world language study at the high school.  Although that opportunity has been cut, we still have a few fifth year students who began their Latin studies earlier than most, and this allows them to explore areas of academic interest outside the traditional curricula in Latin I through IV.

One of those students recently asked me if I had any Plato in the room, and this confused me, since I had tasked them with deciding on something to read in Latin.  He went on to explain that he wanted a Latin translation of Plato, and I paused.  I could think of no Latin translations of Plato, despite that the ancient Romans certainly knew his works, and so I told my student I would have to get back with him.

During my prep period I did a bit of research and found an article that explained why I could think of no Latin versions of Plato.  In "Two Thousand Years of Latin Translation from the Greek,"* Dean Lockwood observed that not only was there little need for translation since most educated Romans knew Greek, but also the Romans went in more for imitation and adaptation than straight translation.  Plautus and Terence wrote their own plays, Cicero and Seneca developed their own philosophies, and Horace and Vergil composed their own poetry, and while all of these were heavily influenced by Greek originals, it was translation by way of adaptation rather than literal translation in which the Romans engaged.

This was interesting enough, and I quickly printed the article from JSTOR to share with the students later in the day, but I had also run across references to Renaissance Latin translations of Plato, and this made me curious to find a text online.  I soon found two sources for Marsilio Ficino's Platonis Opera Omnia, which was originally published in the 1480s.  These digitized copies, here and here, are from a 1557 edition, and the second allowed for the downloading of individual pages.

Republic, Book 7, Ficino translation

I quickly printed the first two pages of Republic, Book 7, which my students had read in translation during a Greek unit in Latin II, and at that point I began wishing the hours away until the last period of the day when I would see these students.  In the meantime, I asked my department chair if she would like to sit in on that period, for I would have something exciting to share.

When the last period of the day finally rolled around, I instructed the Latin III and IV students in what to work on and then met with the Latin V students and my department chair.  I was like a kid at Christmas!  We discussed the Lockwood article and why it made sense that the ancient Romans would not have produced a translation of Plato.  We then explored the Ficino translation, observing the difficulty of reading the typeface with its ligatures and abbreviations that were holdovers from calligraphy of the manuscript days, but noting also the relatively easy reading of the Latin itself.

In the end, the students decided to read some of the Roman philosophy of Seneca and Cicero because the typeface of modern editions is easier to see, but they agreed that it was fascinating to explore this Renaissance work and to marvel at what is available to us through digitized editions of works that would otherwise rarely see the light of day.

*Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 49 (1918), pp. 115-129 

On Handwriting and More

"An Evaluation Of Two Methods Of Teaching Handwriting," a seminar report submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Master's Degree in the Department of Education, July 28, 1964

Tucked away inside this Master's thesis from over a half century ago lies the kind of broad thinking that once characterized American education.  Make no mistake, the thesis is filled with the sort of data reporting one would expect after reading its title.  There are discussions of methods, reviews of relevant literature, and tables of results from a study conducted among fourth graders from February 12, 1964, to May 8, 1964, at Mt. Tabor Elementary School in New Albany, Indiana.  Yet on three pages in the middle of the thesis, its author looks up from her research to find a larger view

[L]anguage is the chief factor in the development of the human mind and civilization.  It is what chiefly raises man above animal.  The discovery of written language marked a great advance in the life of mankind since it made possible wider communication and more permanent records.  This, in turn, made possible the accumulation of knowledge and the growth of literature, history, and science.

The individual child profits from the possession of the reading matter which has thus been produced.  He also profits from his own acquisition of the ability to write.  It, of course, gives him a means of communicating in addition to oral speech, but this is not all.  In speech, the words disappear into thin air as they are spoken.  They make a momentary impression and then they are gone.  The form and structure of the sentences, paragraphs, and larger units cannot well be comprehended and criticized.  Their logic cannot readily be grasped or their fallacies noted.  They are heard one after the other, but they cannot be seen simultaneously so that their relation may be readily recognized.  Francis Bacon expressed something of this idea when he said, "Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man."  Writing, then, is not merely a utilitarian art; it is a vital factor in the child's intellectual growth.  (p. 34)

The author of this thesis, a 27 year old teacher in her fifth year of teaching, knew that the teaching of handwriting was about far more than skills training.  She understood it, rightly, as equipping children to take their place within the grand human story, one that involves not only their reading of literature, history, and science, but their contribution to such fields as well.

Yet even work within literature, history, and science can be little more than utilitarian endeavors, and this especially the case when such work is evaluated only for its immediate result.  The author of this thesis saw something deeper here, too.

Character development can be a by-product of every subject taught.  Habits of physical and mental self-control, promptness, industry, self-reliance, a sense of neatness, pride in work well-done, exactness, tenacity, and perseverance might all grow out of the teaching of handwriting.  (pp. 37-38)

Character development can be a by-product of every subject taught.  It can be, but it only will be when teachers and education leaders look up from the utilitarian and immediately practical, from the evaluation of charts and data, and from the narrow focus that is blinding too many of us.  It can be, but it only will be when we, like this young Master's student, who happens to be my mother, return to the broad thinking and larger view that helped American education produce some of the greatest thinkers, innovators, and leaders in history.