Dead Languages Can Be Fun

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Teaching an evening course. Persuading an administrator that dead languages could be fun.

Then they signed up.

So you’re in Roman matron mode once a week: 3/4 vanilla L. L. Bean, one-fourth New Balance. Your hands wave energetically as you write on the board and optimistically conjugate verbs. The pens seldom work. It’s surreal. One cap off, then the next, then the next. You start lining the dead pens up on the desk. And if you can’t write on the board, everything is lost, because a dead language is all in the spelling.

Adult education is different from real school. The community education crowd is diverse. They’re not motivated by grades. There are no grades. Some want to learn language, others admit they just want to “dabble,” and several really enjoy the wild derivative improv. Okay, half haven’t done their homework. Everybody is there for a different reason. And you have to make them want to study or entertain them (not your forte), because they’re there on a voluntary basis - and it’s only once a week.

“That’s fine. Just say ‘Pass’ if you don’t want to answer,“ you say glibly.

It’s like - since you’ve moved back to the Midwest - nobody does any work. Is this possible? You tutored this subject once, and the father seemed to think all could be done in a one-hour session, with the kid doing no work between tutorials.

These are adults, thank God. But what do you do when they swing in and announce they haven’t cracked a book since last week? You GUESS it’s all right.

For a good time, try to explain to a stunned student that, yes, ora can mean “pray!” (imperative singular of oro), “border or boundary” (nominative singular of ora), and “mouths” (nominative or accusative plural of os). Now you understand you don’t WANT to explain this. It came up - in passing.

Have you ever noticed that the less prepared the students are, the more they want to kill time?

Now some of these students are very diligent. You thought you had slowed down enough for everyone, but the concepts of subject-verb-direct object-indirect object-adverbial are completely new to two or three - so you've had to mix everything up. You’ll go in next week and cunningly review two cases - yet also correct homework using all five cases - and imperceptibly move on and introduce a new declension for the others. One- room-schoolhouse, here we come - WILL everyone be caught up next week? - but Laura Ingalls Wilder and Bess Streeter Aldrich, did you have this situation?

They seem to have a nice time and you honestly like them, but it’s clear that your own subject isn’t enough for all of them.

You wish you didn’t find etymology so boring.

They’re just such a nice group.

What do you think? Crossword puzzles maybe? You are now for the first time understanding what a very laid-back teacher friend once said years ago - “We don’t actually care if they learn, do we?”

Well, you sort of do!