Caffeine

I have discovered that a large part of my personality, at least in the classroom, is made up of caffeine. Without it (as I have suffered for two days because of a stomachache) I am: more disorganized; less able to come up with quick fixes for said disorganization; less witty; more cranky; more flat-footed all around. With it I am: slightly less disorganized; quick with a fix for any lapses of thought; quicker to think on all fronts; more forceful in my approach. If there is ever an end to caffeine, there will be a corresponding end to at least part of me.

From a bouquet of poetry

I like to keep certain poems near the front of my brain so that I can hold them like so many fragrant flowers against the stench of humanity. Here's today's, from Housman's Last Poems:

Star and coronal and bell

    April underfoot renews,

And the hope of man as well

    Flowers among the morning dews.

Now the old come out to look,

    Winter past and winter's pains.

How the sky in pool and brook

    Glitters on the grassy plains.

Easily the gentle air

    Wafts the turning season on;

Things to comfort them are there,

    Though 'tis true the best are gone.

Now the scorned unlucky lad

    Rousing from his pillow gnawn

Mans his heart and deep and glad

    Drinks the valiant air of dawn.

Half the night he longed to die,

    Now are sown on hill and plain

Pleasures worth his while to try

    Ere he longs to die again.

Blue the sky from east to west

    Arches, and the world is wide,

Though the girl he loves the best

    Rouses from another's side.

Testy!

So, my students are today taking their Latin II test. We've been on the same chapter for four weeks (with a break for Thanksgiving, so it's been a while since the beginning of the chapter). They've gone over the vocabulary at least three times and been quizzed on it once. We whipped through some of the stories in the book because they looked like they were about to die every time I did a translation. But they all they need to know for the test is the main characters. The questions on the passage are multiple choice and, with a few exceptions, involve more thought than Latin knowledge. Perhaps that's the problem, but it really shouldn't be. The vocabulary section ("What page is the vocabulary on?" asks a student. "The same one it's been all month," says I.) is only derivatives, from that chapter. No meanings, no forms, no nothing. Just derivatives.

The third bonus question says, "See board." One student asks if he is supposed to replace that with what is on the board, then asks, "What does this mean?"

I guess, in the old days, I used to give tests which quizzed and rewarded memorization. It seems that this sort of test, which involves as much thinking as memorizing, or, rather, thoughtful rather than mindless memorization, is simply beyond them.

Auden on being an educator

   But what can one do? Dearie, you can't do anything for the children till you've done something for the grown-ups. You've really got nothing to teach and you know it. When you have repapered the walls perhaps you will be allowed to tell your son how to hold the brush. In the meantime some of us will go on teaching what we can for a sum which even in its modesty we do not really deserve. Teaching will continue to be, not a public duty, but a private indulgence. (Scrutiny, September, 1932; The Complete Works of W. H. Auden: Prose Vol. I, p. 27)