A Passion for Teaching....Teaching the Passion

I got a wonderful note from a teacher in Pennsylvania yesterday:

"I found your Latin word list, and your 'How to teach Latin' on YouTube this week....I have the great good fortune to be a Latin teacher. My students decline and conjugate ad infinitum, we sing our grammar (I make grammar raps); year by year, I find they are turning into grammar nerds. They get excited by new uses of the ablative. It's heavenly."

Hurray for that. This teacher's knowledge + passion is everything we need in the schools. First, teachers should major in, and be masters of, their subjects. Second, they should be given courses (by experienced successful teachers) on how to DRAMATIZE their subjects.

The problem now: schools of education don't care much about facts and think "pedagogical technique" means psychobabble by Piaget. Yuck.

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