Beginning Greek, Again and Again
Posted: January 3rd, 2016, 9:02 am
From this morning's (Jan 3, 2016) New York Times Opinion page, a memoir familiar to many who have taught ancient Greek in the classroom, especially by traditional methods:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/03/opini ... ght-region
I was particularly moved by the remarks about the dialogue between Ismene and Antigone from Sophocles' Antigone. There certainly are gems in Greek -- or any other rich literary tradition, the savoring of which seems to justify the effort expended to gain the ability to appreciate -- and so many of them are in the text of Sophocles.
This professor gleefully notes how many of students working through the first semester have voluntarily committed themselves to continuing into a second. I sadly remember a young lady who surpassed all measures of success in Beginning Greek who wasn't going to continue it because, she said, she'd taken Greek only because she believed than exposure to it was a valuable part of her undergraduate experience. I should have been happy with that response, but of course I passionately wanted her to continue, and she wasn't going to do that.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/03/opini ... ght-region
I was particularly moved by the remarks about the dialogue between Ismene and Antigone from Sophocles' Antigone. There certainly are gems in Greek -- or any other rich literary tradition, the savoring of which seems to justify the effort expended to gain the ability to appreciate -- and so many of them are in the text of Sophocles.
This professor gleefully notes how many of students working through the first semester have voluntarily committed themselves to continuing into a second. I sadly remember a young lady who surpassed all measures of success in Beginning Greek who wasn't going to continue it because, she said, she'd taken Greek only because she believed than exposure to it was a valuable part of her undergraduate experience. I should have been happy with that response, but of course I passionately wanted her to continue, and she wasn't going to do that.