Proposed charter schools include all-boys Latin prep

[Kephart, Ronald]

>  >From the Philadelphia Enquirer, Thu, Oct. 13, 2005
>
>"When you look at SAT scores, the kids who take Latin, as a group, 
>score the highest," Hardy said. "Latin puts an academic tone on the 
>school that gets people serious from when they come in the door."

Well, I don't have anything against Latin, but I bet a program 
centered on the rigorous teaching of any language would accomplish 
similar results.

>  He said Latin also helps students with English grammar...

The study of any language would help here, seems to me, because what 
we're looking for is the metalinguistic toolkit that enables students 
to reflect back on English.

>...and vocabulary...

OK. This is probably true, because the prestige vocabulary, the 
vocabulary likely to be tested on SAT, is largely Latinate. The SATs 
represent a sort of ongoing colonization of the mind; does the year 
1066 mean anything?  (How many native Anglo-Saxon words are 
specifically tested for on the SAT, I wonder?)

>...and provides a pathway for learning other languages. "Latin is 
>something that takes some effort to master," he said. "If you can 
>get kids to fight the fight to master it, they won't be afraid to do 
>anything."

Any language well-taught takes "some effort to master." The prestige 
Latin holds in this regard is, in my view, still more 
mind-colonization. Again, recall 1066 and then think of the folk 
notion of French being harder to learn than Spanish.

Anyway, as I tell my linguistics students, there's nothing special 
about Latin that isn't true of every other human language.*

Ron

*No Latin teachers were harmed in the writing of this email.