Julius Caesar and (Not So) Modern Education

 

The school where I currently teach Latin is an IB World School, as was the one where I spent the most recent 23 years of my career.  You can read more about the International Baccalaureate program on our website, but the aspect of IB on which I want to focus is called ATL, Approaches To Learning.  One handy graphic lays out the ATLs like this.

An argument can be made, quite easily in fact, that these approaches to learning, while displayed here in somewhat new packaging, have in fact formed the basis of good teaching and learning for a long, long time.  Because that is true, I have found that a project I have for many years assigned to Latin II students fulfills this model of instruction quite nicely.  Or perhaps I should say that this model matches well with a meaningful project my students have regularly pursued.

After spending quite a bit of time reading in Latin the war writings of Julius Caesar in his campaigns against Gaul, the students choose partners (social) to work together to explore more deeply some aspect of the ancient Roman military.  They must pick an issue or problem the Roman army of the 1st century B.C. would have had to address and then find out how the Romans actually handled it (research, communication).  They must work together (social) to analyze (thinking) how well the Romans handled it given the resources available to them, and they must devise an alternative solution (thinking), one not necessarily better, but at least different, that the Romans could have employed, again given only the resources available to them.  They have time both in and out of class to complete this, and I frequently use guiding questions to help them maintain their focus (self-management).  Finally, they must present their findings and alternative solutions to the class (communication).  The fun part, of course, is in their sharing of items they have made to illustrate their work, but more on that below.

Several years ago I co-hosted a podcast with Michigan Teacher of the Year Gary Abud, Jr.  In one of our episodes, we spoke with Dr. Bernard Barcio, himself an Indiana Teacher of the Year and a 44-year veteran of high school and university classrooms.  He talked about his decades-long project of guiding students in the construction of catapults, an effort that gained annual attention in the national news and that has been chronicled with archival video here.  As we discussed in that podcast, such an approach to education grew to take on the name "project-based learning," although when Dr. Barcio began it back in the 1960s, it carried no such appellation.  It was merely good teaching.

I am pleased, of course, if something I do in the classroom checks the boxes of the IB approach to learning.  We are, after all, an IB World School.  Yet what I, and I think the International Baccalaureate Organization itself, would argue is that this approach is simply about helping students make the most of their learning, regardless of what name the approach goes by.

What follows are pictures from this year's Caesar projects by the Latin II students at Guerin Catholic High School.  

On group recreated testudo,  the tortoise shell formation of the Roman army.

Another group baked buccellatum, the hardtack eaten by soldiers. Yes, with jaw-breaking effort, I ate one!

One group crafted a Roman gladius from wood.

Some may wonder why, in the age of electronic technology, my students create old-fashioned posters of the information.  Some of my other projects do indeed ask students to present using electronic technology, but this project allows me to display student work in the hallway.  Not only does this affirm the value of their work, but it allows other students to see the kinds of things we do in our classes, perhaps giving them something to look forward to when they reach Latin II.

In the end, this project helps students develop multiple skills while exploring topics of their choosing relevant to our class.  It ticks off the boxes of modern education theory, but in fact it is simply the kind of thing that teachers have long used to help students make the most of their learning.  When it comes to successful strategies, I think Caesar would have like this one.

What It Means To Compete

Eleven of my Latin students recently competed with Latin students from around Indiana at what we call certamen (care-TAH-mun).  Certamen is the Latin word for competition, and this particular form of competition sees students participating individually and collectively to answer questions about ancient history and mythology as well as Latin grammar and translation, which makes this event a competition in the true sense of the word.  "Competition" comes from two Latin words and literally means "to seek together."  In its purest sense, competition is seeking a goal along with others.  This can, of course, devolve into a slug fest of sheer brutality, whether in sports or music or academics, but that sense of competition is too narrow to capture the essence of what it means cum petere.  Because certamen represents competition as it should be, I was able to do something at this event that I have waited my entire career to do, but more on that later.

My students have re-launched a chapter of the Junior Classical League at our school after a hiatus of several years.  One of my predecessors had sponsored a chapter, but in recent years it had not been active.  Because this was our first time to participate in a state certamen, I had told my students to have fun.  There are students who compete with no more preparation than what they have received in class, some who supplement that by reading history or mythology on their own, and some who who hold regular, after-school practices and are the killer elite.  I was proud of our students simply for showing up, but when the day ended, I was smiling from ear to ear.

1st place-winning Latin II Team

One of our second-year Latin teams took first place with only two players!  And I should add that one of them is a freshman!  Our other teams acquitted themselves in fine order taking fifth, sixth, and seventh places.

Latin I Team

Latin II Team

Latin III/IV Team

I said earlier that I was able to do something at this event for the first time in my career.  Competition indeed means seeking along with, but who is the object of the preposition "with?"  In a purely secular understanding, competition is seeking along with others who are seeking the same thing, yet Christians know that any such seeking not attempted along with God is futile.  As we read in John 15:5, "Sine me nihil potestis facere."  "Apart from me, you can do nothing."  Although I have always prayed for my students before competitions and tests, I have done so silently.  Today, because my students and I were representing Guerin Catholic High School, I was able to pray openly with them, and that made this particular competition all the sweeter.

Teaching In a Coat and Tie

I teach in a coat and tie.  Never in my career have I been required to do so, nor am I making a fashion statement.  As far as that goes, my sartorial selections are quite traditional, e.g. navy jacket with tan or grey slacks, blue tie with grey jacket and navy slacks, and so forth.  My reason for how I dress to teach each day is rooted in one of the most fundamental aspects of my teaching philosophy, the importance of modeling.  If anyone is having visions of me as a runway model, please stop.  That is not what I mean.

I am speaking of what the historian Livy meant in the preface to his Ab Urbe Condita.  He begins his 142-book history of Rome from its founding to the death of Drusus in 9 A.D. by stating his desire that his readers pay close attention to quae vita, qui mores fuerint, the life and habits of life that once were.  Cicero had earlier said something similar in his speech Pro Archia, an ostensibly defense oration that was more of an encomium on learning.  He asks rhetorically, "Quam multas nobis imagines--non solum ad intuendum, verum etiam ad imitandum--fortissimorum virorum expressas scriptores et Graeci et Latini reliquerunt?"  "How many images have both Greek and Latin authors left us, not only for gazing at, but also for imitating?"  (Pro Archia, 14)

What do an ancient Roman historian and statesman-cum-philosopher have to do with how I dress to teach high school students?  They both speak to the importance of models of behavior.  I dress as I do because that is how my dad dressed.  He had been an elementary teacher before I was born, but as I grew up I knew him as an elementary school principal.

Norman Perkins, Principal of Galena Elementary School, 1968-1991l

This picture, which was converted into a painting and hung in his school when he retired, represents the image of my dad that I saw every day when he came home from work.  It was a professional look, one that conveyed respect for his job as an educator and the people with whom he worked.  When I began teaching at a middle school in Kansas City, his was the model for my own apparel.  In fact, it was not until years later that I realized why I had made the dress decisions that I had.  At the time it was simply the natural thing to do.

Surely, you must be thinking, this cannot be the point of this blog post.  There must be a more significant purpose to this, and indeed there is.  Cicero and Livy were right.  Imitation is far more than a form of flattery, sincere or otherwise.  It is a foundational principle of learning, and this is part of why Cato the Elder's definition of an orator, quoted by Quintillian in Institutio Oratoria 12.1.1, was "Vir bonus dicendi peritus."  For both Cato and Quintillian, the ideal orator was not merely a person skilled in speaking, but a good person skilled in speaking.  It was not enough to learn phrasing and breath control and all manner of rhetorical devices.  These cannot exist in a vacuum but must be used by particular human beings, and what kind of people they are matters as much as the abilities they express.  The Stoic philosopher Seneca gave voice to this in his Epistle 88 when he suggested that rather than spending a great deal of time to earn the title o hominem litteratum, o well read man, "Simus hoc titulo rusticiore contenti:  O virum bonum!"  "Let us," he argues, "be content with a more rustic title:  O good man!"

Perhaps this is the reason that imitation of the true, the good, and the beautiful is rarely discussed in schools of education or in professional development conferences.  We have always, even in Seneca's time, distanced ourselves from that which smacked of the rustic because of an urban prejudice that values the supposed sophistication of the city over anything else.  It is helpful, as with any prejudice, to forego judgment until one has examined all sides fully, and once this is done regarding imitation of the good person, it will become clear why this should be a foundational educational principle and not merely a quaint rustic notion best forgotten.

Simply put, we do not like hypocrites.  We are unlikely to take seriously the advice to quit cigarettes if it is given by our chain-smoking doctor.  Once again, it is Seneca who speaks to this in Epistle 52 and summarizes the idea by admonishing his readers, "Eum elige adiutorem quem magis admireris cum videris quam cum audieris."  "Choose a guide whom you admire more when you see him than when you listen to him."

As a teacher I am called to a certain nobility of character.  Since I am a Latin teacher, that character should reflect the nobility and beauty of thought and creation expressed by the best of the ancient Greeks and Romans.  Teaching involves incarnation.  It is not enough that I dictate facts that students could just as easily and possibly better glean from a text or online source.  I must embody what I teach, for it is the witness of my life that will produce the most memorable lesson.  For a fuller discussion of this, read George Steiner's Lessons of the Masters, one of the finest books on what truly transpires between teachers and students.

Yet I am not a teacher first but rather a follower of Jesus Christ.  As a Christian I am called to follow my Father's example in far more significant ways than I did in patterning my professional dress after that of my earthly father.  This, of course, would be impossible if God were merely an abstract deity, an idea, a notion developed in the collective human mind over centuries.  Our Father is real and in the most basic, etymological sense of that word.  Those questioning this with the challenge that they have never seen Him join the ranks of Philip, the disciple of Jesus, and Christ's response to him applies today.

Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us."  Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip?  Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.  Hw can you say, "Show us the Father?"  (John 14:8-9, ESV)

I hope, at the end of the day, I have done more than just dress as Norman Perkins once did as the principal of an elementary school in southern Indiana.  My goal as a Christian teacher is to model, however imperfectly, my life on that of my Father in heaven, and this each of us can do by looking to the fullest representation of Him the world has seen, Jesus Christ.