Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Magistra

So, today, it happened.

I finally started my tutoring. Which would be all fine and well, except that part of my tutoring is in a language I have never spoken!

(and, well, let's face it...no one speaks it!)

I am SO glad I took on this little summer project however. When Mrs. Emily said "oh yeah, the girls are starting their new school and they will be behind 1-3 years on Latin." I jumped all over that.

I have been super interested in Classical education since I read the book The Well Trained Mind, and when I almost took the job at a Classical school. The job would have been amazing except for the fact that the salary was 14,000 dollars for the year. I snubbed my nose at that when I shouldn't have, because I spent the next 8 months in a junky job, and the last 2 months unemployed! OH well, I could've never known I wouldn't get a teaching job that paid 30,000, right?

So, I ordered a Latin curriculum for the girls, and a teacher's manual for myself and Mrs. Emily to use, and I have been working ahead of the girls to get a feel for what the lessons are like, how the letters are said, and the flow of the program, and let me tell you, I am loving it!

If you ever want to learn a new language, research and order an elementary based program that goes up at least 4-5 levels. It works better than any other book based system I have seen (for adults,) because of how fast I can complete units. It's also very encouraging to be like "wow! I finished 3 lessons today, and have semi mastered 20-30 words!"

But, this book is written on a 2nd -3rd grade level, so it's not like I will be fluent by the end of the book, just familiar.

It makes me very excited to start learning Arabic, although that is going to be 50 times harder to learn, (umm, different alphabet, a "throat" language, and reading right to left is really going to throw me off.)

I don't really know if I'll keep going through the next books, but we'll see what happens. I don't think learning two new languages at the same time is wise, but, if I feel like I really enjoy learning Latin and that it is a relaxing rather than a stressful thing, then I might consider it.

Right. So our first Latin lesson went well today. I think the girls are a little overwhelmed with the new vowel sounds and all, but they are so bright, they caught on quickly. Now just to make things more creative, interesting, hands on, and entertaining!

*sigh* I love teaching.

(ps: Magistra means female teacher, and I told the girls they had to call me that! What a riot!)

3 comments:

katie said...

How cool! That is great that you are learning Latin and that you are teaching it! I hope you incorporate Latin words in the blogs so that we might pick up a few things too...

And I might have to take you advice about the elementary books and order them for Spanish, as I think I would benefit from learning it and I haven't been sure of a way to go about it.

Callie said...

I like your "magistra" word! And wow, latin! I think I learned a little bit of the basic latin root words in school, but that was it. Latin doesn't seem terrible though, because alot of our words come from latin root words, so that has to help a little bit, right?

Hannah said...

thats so neat! i hope it goes well. Patrick is learning Hebrew on his own right now... to me it looks like chicken scratch with all the different characters and being read right to left.. but he understands it. Good luck!