Fifty Minutes

It was a class like any other and because of that it was a class like no other.  My 3rd period is Latin II, and we were finishing our study of Julius Caesar.  The warm-up activity was to translate an English sentence into Latin.  Following that, we read and discussed a passage of Latin poetry related to Caesar.  Ho hum.  Not terribly exciting stuff.

Ah, but you were not there.  The warm-up sentence was the most complex piece the class had ever seen.  It was a compound sentence with two subordinate clauses, one of which contained a passive periphrastic.  Yet the students have been completing prose composition exercises since the beginning of the semester and they were ready.

Using different colors, we analyzed the parts of the sentence first.  We talked about the need to re-word the clause "troops must form a battle line" to read "a battle line must be formed by troops" so we could more easily construct the Latin passive periphrastic.  The students then turned to their notebooks and began the task of composing the Latin.

I walked around the room, and the questions were simply astonishing.  "Why is 'was announced' passive, but 'was announcing' is active?"  "Why does the form of sum need to be an infinitive?"  "How do you get the stem to make the gerundive?"  Again, these may seem rather ho-hum questions, but the earnestness with which they were asked and their specificity spoke volumes.  These average, normal, typical teenagers were not throwing up their hands in despair.  They did not simply check out and put their heads on their desks.  They knew what they needed to know and were able to formulate the right questions to obtain that information.  I am not exaggerating when I say that every single student was actively searching notes, figuring things out, and asking questions.  Many came within two or three minor errors of perfection, and one young lady was just one letter off in one word.

From there we turned to our discussion of a passage from Book IX of Lucan's Pharsalia, an epic poem written in the first century A.D. about a battle between Caesar and Pompey in 48 B.C.  Because our unit is primarily on Caesar's writings and Lucan's poetry is quite challenging, we do not read it in Latin but from a bi-lingual version with Latin and English on facing pages.  The passage we read this day gave Cato's speech to Pompey's men as they were about to face the arduous march back home across the inhospitable region of North Africa.  We talked about Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis and how his name has stood for two thousand years as the symbol of honesty and uprightness of character.  We talked about Joseph Addison's 1713 play Cato:  A Tragedy and why George Washington had it performed for his men on the eve of Valley Forge.  Students asked questions like, "Why do we think of Caesar as a hero if a man like Cato was against him?"  This, of course, led to a discussion of the complex nature of any person and how it is possible to admire and even imitate some qualities while being opposed to others.  When we read the lines

Must any soldier be assured of danger there's relief,

So taken with life's sweetness, let him seek another chief*

we talked of how success is not always assured, a good grade is not guaranteed, and a job after college is not a given, but that a true leader will always shoot straight and not sugar coat things.  The line "for whether I command or serve, I would not have it known" prompted the observation that the real leader is a servant-leader, serving alongside the rest.

It was fifty minutes of intense, complex grammatical work and intense, complex philosophical/historical discussion.  Conversation with one young man even continued after class, and I think it is safe to say that this ordinary class of young people, some honor students, but many not, proved the truth of Cato's words, "True honor comes more joyful when at higher cost it's won."

*Translations are mine, copyright 2010.

A Patriotic Moment

The picture is an unassuming one.  It is of a monitor showing a vote on C-SPAN.  The monitor hangs in the corner of the room.  To be honest, the most interesting part of the picture may be the bit of detailing on the ceiling, which is quite handsome.

If I told you the office belongs to Congresswoman Susan Brooks from Indiana's 5th congressional district, you might find it a bit more interesting, but only a bit.  This is, after all, just a picture of a monitor displaying C-SPAN.  Or is it?

Before I tell you what this photograph actually depicts, let me back up.  Mid-morning today, my family and I met with Senator Dan Coats of Indiana.  One of his staff apologized that the Senator would not have more time to meet with us as he had planned, but a vote called him to the Senate floor.  We took a couple of pictures outside his office in the Russell Senate Office Building and then we were whisked away on the Senate monorail to meet Senator Coats in the Senate reception area.

While the official picture is on the Senator's website, our son snapped two with my phone.

You must understand that I see all of this through the long view of history.  I am not star struck to be in the corridors of power, but I am humbled to shake the hand of someone who stands in a long line of elected officials that goes back to Cicero and Cato.  In 509 B.C., when the Romans had shaken off the yoke of monarchy and sought to govern themselves, they established a senate of elected citizens who could represent all of Rome.  In the 18th century, when Americans shook off a similar monarchical yoke, we looked to ancient Rome for inspiration on how to govern this new nation.  The grand architecture of our Capitol calls to mind our Classical heritage, and while togas have yielded to suits, the legacy of the Roman republic lives on in our own.

Filled with such historic and patriotic thoughts, we next made our way to the Longworth House Office Building to meet with Congresswoman Brooks.  We sat in her office and talked about Indiana, and when she asked me what I would like to see happen in education, I shared with her the importance of maintaining our two thousand-year heritage of well-rounded, liberal arts education, one that addresses the whole student and truly prepares him or her for whatever lies ahead.

In the midst of such conversation, her assistant informed her that her vote had been moved up, and that she would have to end her time with us.  To our complete surprise, she asked us if our children, Austin and Olivia, would like to join her on the House floor.  We said yes, and she led them off.  From her office, we watched the vote take place on her monitor broadcasting C-SPAN.

And so we return to the picture at the top of this post.  Although you cannot make them out, our children are there, on the floor of the United States House of Representatives.  Congresswoman Brooks allowed them to push the buttons, and they each registered the Congresswoman's vote on two separate issues.  Melissa and I burst with pride.

When people ask me what my favorite story is, my response is the book of the lives of our children, for I truly cannot wait to turn the page to see what will happen next.  This is no doubt true of most parents, and teachers have the privilege to help write a few lines.  Today I had the opportunity to read a chapter, one that places our children's story squarely within the drama of freedom that has been unfolding for two thousand years.  I could not be happier.