The Future of Classical Languages and the Liberal Arts

The Future of Classical Languages and the Liberal Arts John Arnold Student, Liberal Arts B.A. Shimer College October 14, 2014 We are asked in this workshop to imagine the most productive and valuable roles that classical languages can play in the future of education. This paper will argue that the best approach to the future of classical language education will involve four el- ements: language immersion techniques, a discussion-based pedagogy, a liberal arts curriculum, and technological mediation. Entertain this example: In a class on An- cient Ethics, the reading for the day is Seneca. The students, whose number is capped at ten, sit at a round table with their professor. When class begins, the students begin a conversation with one another in Latin about how the ethical system Seneca expresses could be applied to their lives; whether they agree or disagree; etc. The professor con- tributes his or her own opinion or asks for clarification from time to time, but does not dominate the class. Grammar or vocabulary is hardly ever discussed—it is not necessary, since the students are all fluent in Latin. These are not graduate students; instead, these students began learning Latin only a year ago. Their fluency has been rapidly obtained through a combination of spoken Latin immersion and technological assistance: an online database has recorded every Latin word each student has ever encountered since beginning Hans Ørberg’s Lingua Latina per se Illustrata, and uses neurological models of memory retention to customize vocabulary reviews and marginal aids for each student. Why is this pedagogical model desirable? A strong justification can be found in Seneca: “Ceterum unum studium vere liberale est quod liberum facit, hoc est sapi- entiae, sublime, forte, magnanimum: cetera pusilla et puerilia sunt.”1 The importance of cultivating virtue and exploring the variety of human experience has always been essential to the liberal arts or humanistic study. Wilfried Stroh has recorded the various notions encompassed by the Latin word humanitas, especially the Greek ideas of φιλανθρωπία and παιδεία.2 For most of its history, Latin and Greek instruction has been tied up in a larger process of developing youths into adults who can reflect on the breadth and depth of the human condition. To the extent that classical studies have retained such an impulse, it should be preserved, and to the extent that classical studies have become more about training linguists than training humanists, they should return to their heritage. This four-pointed proposal may sound fantastic but each of its aspects is already being realized by various institutions which this paper will explore, namely the Ac- 1Seneca, Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales. Perseus Digital Library. 88.2 2Wilfried Stroh, “De origine vocum ‘humanitatis’ et ‘humanismi’” (presentation, Humanitas, Naples, Italy, 2007). 1 cademia Vivarium Novum in Rome, Shimer College in Chicago, and various websites like Perseus and Memrise. The Accademia Vivarium Novum is the only place inthe world which offers a year-long Latin and Greek immersion program. It was founded in 1998 as a consequence of the Docere conference in Naples, which bemoaned the loss of spoken Latin in classical education.3 The Vivarium Novum was founded to pro- mote Classical instruction following the example of Renaissance Humanists, which is best expressed by Erasmus: “Et haud scio an quidquam discitur felicius, quam quod ludendo discitur.”4 Thus the classes there begin with simple amusing tales andskits composed by Ørberg, Comenius, Rouse and others. Some students arrive with hardly any knowledge of Latin at all. Yet through constant use of Latin, by the end of the year, everyone is able to handle even the tricky syntax of Horace with ease. Students at the Vivarium Novum live on campus and take meals together while discussing—all in Latin—the philosophical implications of the works which they’ve read. The key to the Vivarium Novum’s pedagogy is that it based on immersion: by developing an emotional connection to the language, students develop an emotional connection with the author’s words, which motivates the students to let their readings influence their lives. A similar emphasis on students coming to their own terms with a text is a core feature of Shimer College, founded in the Great Books tradition. The term “Great Books” was coined by Robert Hutchins and Mortimer Adler, two American educators who also bemoaned the disappearance of the older liberal arts tradition and responded with an ad fontes movement encouraging undergraduates to read original works of lasting significance in Western history. Shimer College helped pioneer this return toa classical liberal arts education as part of the University of Chicago in the 1950s. In ad- dition to ongoing efforts to include traditionally discriminated-against voices, Shimer retains its Great Books curriculum in which students spend 2/3rds of their time reading a core selection of works in both letters and sciences.5 More importantly, Shimer has a pedagogy which is centered entirely around student-led discussion. The recent American trend of “flipped classrooms” is a pale imitation of Shimer: every Shimer class, which is never larger than 12 people, involves students leading their own discussion; the professor never lectures nor has any greater weight than the students.6 This distinctive approach remedies a fault with the Vivarium Novum’s pedagogy, in which student-to-student learning occurs mostly outside of class time and is still largely lec- ture based. At Shimer, class time is a dense jewel of questioning, debate and reflection. Conversely, Shimer retains the very American neglect of language-learning: all of its readings are in English. Finally, progress in data-assisted language learning is more distributed than the components above, but could be easily combined. Memrise is a new language-learning internet startup which uses psychological research on memory to track its users’ vocabularies and exploit the spacing effect most productively.7 This service or some- 3“Storia Dell’Accademia,” Accademia Vivarum Novum, accessed October 14, 2014, https:// vivariumnovum.net/it/accademia/storia-dellaccademia. 4Desidarius Erasmus, “De utilitate colloquiorum ad lectorem,” Colloquia familiaria. Stoa Neo-Latin Col- loquia. 5“Curriculum,” Shimer College, accessed October 14, 2014, http://www.shimer.edu/about/ academics/curriculum/. 6Adam Kotsko, “The Immersion Method,” Inside Higher Ed, last modified May 3, 2012, https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2012/05/03/ essay-value-intense-discussion-based-instruction. 7Joshua Foer, “How I learned a language in 22 hours,” The Guardian, last modified November 9, 2012, http://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/nov/09/learn-language-in-three-months. 2 thing like it could be combined with the Perseus software and an XLST package that could create custom ebooks for every student which would be responsive to their classical vocabularies and include exactly those marginal vocabulary aids which would most facilitate the student reading that book. By combining the power of technology and immersion, students would be able to rapidly overcome the language barrier of classical texts and thereby have more time to discuss the humanity of their content. 3.

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