Writing is Essential for Your Brain to Remember

Why an Online Program Tells Students to Write Notes Old-School Style

by Amy E. Barr (blog 012, reprint of Peri's Points)

You’ll often hear Lukeion instructors remind students to take notes by hand, old-school-analog-pen-and-paper style. Many of you might think it is a bit strange that a program that thrives on the latest technology gives a care about how students take notes. Trust us, it makes a huge difference.

The first complaint we hear from students when we encourage them to stop typing and start writing is that they write much more slowly than the instructor is speaking.  Yes, indeed, exactly: that’s the whole point! Typing notes simply can’t engage the brain like writing notes by hand.

The biggest complaint is the biggest benefit. Your brain must focus intently on the information and organize a thought that is short enough to go on paper before the next topic begins. Suddenly a passive experience of listening—and maybe even multitasking if a student’s focus wanders—becomes a deeply focused exercise in attentiveness and mental engagement in the subject at hand. 

Clever students will recopy notes right after class while the memory is fresh. Those who employ this simple discipline, seldom struggle with mastery. They’ve already engaged the information intently twice before the week is a third done. A later review will find that information neatly tucked into long-term memory.

“When you write down your ideas you automatically focus your full attention on them. Few if any of us can write one thought and think another at the same time. Thus a pencil and paper make excellent concentration tools.” --Michael Leboeuf

Want to get ready for a quiz or exam? Rewrite it a third time and/or teach the material to somebody else. People will believe you are a genius!

Thoughts disentangle themselves passing over lips and through pencil tips.  –anonymous

We aren’t the only ones who have come to realize how much cognitive difference writing things makes. 

Look at NPR: “Attention, Students: Put Your Laptops Away”  

The Atlantic: To Remember a Lecture Better, Take Notes by Hand

APD: Take Notes by Hand for Better Long-Term Comprehension

Scientific American: A Learning Secret: Don’t Take Notes with a Laptop

and finally, Why Thinking on Paper is a Fast Way to Focus

Ideas are elusive, slippery things. Best to keep a pad of paper and a pencil at your bedside, so you can stab them during the night before they get away. --Earl Nightingale

Ancient Roman Feasts and Festivals

We're Doing it Wrong
--by Amy Barr (blog 011)

Romans really knew how to party, I mean they really knew all about it. If you look through the list of Ancient Roman holidays and festivals, you can see why nobody thought to invent “weekends” back then. They didn’t need them. To be a Roman was to be perpetually engaged in holidays, observances, and food-filled festivals. One seldom had to wait long before a new event was on the calendar. Sometimes Romans would pause one holiday to celebrate a different one.

When people snort and claim that modern holidays, especially Christian holidays, are just this Roman event or that one, don’t take it to heart. In Rome, almost every day of the year was a celebration or observance of something. Good luck fitting in a new event without hitting another Roman festival, if not two or three.

Are there any holidays that the Romans observed in such a way that we moderns observe it still today? Not really. Compared to the Romans we moderns are super bad at this holiday thing. We now have very few nationally observed holidays and very few in which we all share similar activities and traditions. Look over Rome’s annual event calendar to see how many days off, how much feasting, how much drinking, how many competitions, races, plays, mock sea battles, productions, parades, and barbeques (sacrifices to the gods with tasty side dishes). Today we really aren’t “doing it right” with our paltry handful of puny celebrations. We should marvel that Rome ever got anything done at all! Celebrations fueled Roman productive days that much more.

New Year’s Day – the Romans had a tough time deciding when the year started. While they had a month called Januarius, it wasn’t always considered the start of things. Even when Januarius was marked as the calendar’s start, March kicked off the active year as soldiers headed off to a campaign. Much of January was tied up in festival events as was March with five major events celebrated in each month.

Valentine’s Day – strictly speaking, there was no event in which Romans doled out cheap drug store chocolates and stuffed toys to their loved ones. The saint for whom the holiday was named was a physician who was beheaded for helping Christians in the third century. Waxy chocolates and cards are a purely modern addition. The Roman holiday Lupercalia held on February 15, was celebrated by running 2 teams of young men dressed as goats who competed to make a disgusting a mess by smearing everything with milk and blood. Winners got goat bragging rights, I guess.

Also celebrated in Rome in middle February was the Parentalia, a 9-day event in which one primarily drank heavily while remembering one’s parents. Some still observe this festival year-round.

Halloween—Lemuria was celebrated on February 21^st, an event marked by again drinking heavily when remembering relatives. Lemuria is as close as we get to a ghost focused event and it was marked by bringing one's dearly departed dead a selection of food offerings so they wouldn’t roam Rome. Nobody likes hangry ghosts.

Thanksgiving—many if not most of Rome’s festivals centered around thankfulness for various events (victories), resources (fire, water, safety, peace), foods (grapes, goats, sheep, and grain), or drinks. The Ludi Romani, September 5-19 tied up most of the month with parades, feasts, theater events, and horse races. For obvious reasons, this event stuck around for centuries, until AD 549. This makes our one morning a year parades and green bean casserole a bit disappointing. The . Plebian games in honor of Jupiter were celebrated for much of November (4-17) just to remind everyone how much fun weeks-long events could be.

Christmas—Some love to state, and usually with a knowing expression, that our modern Christmas is just the Roman event Saturnalia, celebrated on December 17 each year. Eventually, Saturnalia would become a 5-day holiday centered around the winter solstice (Latin for sol+sto/stare, meaning the “sun stands”). The whole event was marked by gambling, roast pork, wine, silliness, goodwill, and especially gift-giving. Buildings were decorated with evergreen boughs and copious candles since it was, after all, the very dead of winter. Ancient writers used to complain about the horrible shopping crowds as they longed for peace and quiet. This event was like many other world solstice-focused events that lift the spirits in the darkest days of the year. 

A connection with the birth of Christ with our December 25^th date did not happen until at least 273 AD. Even then, it was very controversial since in the ancient world birthdays were not typically celebrated. In hopes of giving a better reason for the yearly season of light, good-will, and gift-giving, early Christians supplanted the ancient Roman origins and repurposed an already well-loved holiday with better reasons for hope and joy.

The Romans celebrated SOMETHING almost every odd day of the year and not a few even days (it was considered bad luck to start a holiday on an even day). So, may all your odd days be merry and bright and your even days even more.

What's the Right Stuff for a Good College Recommendation Letter?

Great Grades aren't Always the Golden Ticket
By Amy E. Barr (Blog 010)

I write a lot of recommendation letters for students applying to college. This is not unusual for most language teachers, I expect. Colleges are interested in a language educator’s assessment of a student for the same reason that colleges require foreign languages. Success in a foreign language speaks well for future outcomes in any academic field. Languages require time management, self-management, tenacity, analysis, and consistent effort. Consequently, I write quite a few recommendations each year.

What makes a student recommendation-worthy? What earns high marks in my letters to colleges?

I have a few extra challenges as I get to know my students. I teach synchronous online classes. These are not nearly so impersonal as one might think, but a student does have to work a little harder to make an impression on her educator when normal first impressions (appearances, demeanor, deportment, even good or bad handwriting) are removed from the equation. On the other hand, many of the qualities that suggest a student will be successful in future academic enterprises rise to the top without biases interfering.

When I submit a recommendation letter to a university, the admissions counselor never asks about student grades. That data is already neatly tucked into transcripts and filed accordingly. I have had students with astoundingly high scores (nothing but A+ marks as far as the eye can see) but about whom I can find very little to say because, in the end, they were only outstanding when it came to grades. Colleges never ask me about grades in a recommendation letter. If a student only has good marks “going for them,” they may be in trouble. Colleges want to know if the applicant has…

• Intellectual curiosity:  Does the student regularly ask questions? Does the student get help when he or she is confused about something? Is she able to exchange ideas in discussions respectfully and effectively?
• Leadership and integrity: Is the student honest with his work? Does she get along with educators and peers? Does he display a good attitude in class and in personal correspondence?
• Grit: Does the student have academic and personal grit or resilience? Does he push through and get things done even during hardship and stress? Is the student willing to take critiques and improve accordingly? Is he self-directed?
• Communication: Does the student exchange ideas in a professional manner? Does he express himself well in class and in written communication? Is his academic writing up to snuff? (hint: colleges are not normally looking for skills in creative writing unless that student is going to major in that subject). 

A core value at The Lukeion project is to make our expectations and assignments college (and life) preparatory. Not everyone is a big fan but, regardless of perfect scores (or not), students with the right college “stuff” can really shine or … not so much. When composing a recommendation, I look for the details of that student’s time in my courses. Here are some of the questions I ask about that student’s time in my classes:

• Intellectual curiosity: Does a student get involved with discussions or question/answer time in class? Do I get an email from the student asking for clarification on assignments or does the student skip stuff complaining she didn’t know what to do? How well does the student interact with peers on the discussion board or chat box? 
• Leadership and integrity: Has the student ever crossed the line and been suspected of plagiarism or obtaining answers from peers, siblings, or friends? Does the student get argumentative, rude, or petty with peers or instructors? Does the student regularly try to wheedle more points awarded on quizzes or exams? Is the student interested in the fair exchange of ideas with others or does she tend to have an ax to grind all the time?
• Grit: Does the student frequently ask for extensions on assignments or make excuses for poorly done work? Does she have roller-coaster grades as the semester cycles through different parts of the year? Does he constantly ask for special considerations and blame external events when things go poorly? Does she get personally offended by peer reviews and instructor feedback in writing assignments?
• Communication: Does a parent always do the emailing and arrangements for a student? Does the student regularly participate in class, get fully involved in peer reviews, and go beyond the minimum on discussion boards? Has the student proven himself in formal academic writing assignments or does he avoid the type of classes that place writing expectations on him? Does she always write the shortest possible answers on exams?

I can write outstanding recommendation letters for academically average students who excel in these preferred qualities. Universities will be pleased to add them to their programs.

I am also sometimes compelled to write some bland letters for A+ students who never participate or who wheedle, complain, or make things hard on peers.

Excellence is far more than just good marks. Anyone can choose to have “the right stuff,” with or without the stellar scores.

CORNUCOPIAE

The Ancient Tradition of Challenging Family Gatherings

--By Amy Barr (blog 009)

My grandmother had a cone-shaped wicker basket full of wax fruit. She would predictably haul it from plastic wrap every year during the first week of November. This slightly musty smelling cornucopia, together with her matching pilgrim and Indian salt-and-pepper shakers meant the holidays were on their way. Once the vinyl harvest-gold tablecloth was spread on the dining table, the promises of pie and tender turkey were guaranteed.

Let’s go back to that wicker basket cornucopia decoration. For all you introverts looking to avoid small talk during this year’s family gathering, I’ll give you something substantial to use on your favorite extrovert, once he or she has you cornered. As a bonus, this may also impress grandma that the Latin or Mythology classes are paying off.

The cornu copiae was originally a minor detail in the myth of Zeus’ troubled upbringing. Zeus was the youngest child of a large dysfunctional family populated by paranoid and argumentative curmudgeons. So far this may sound exactly like your own family gatherings, so read on.

As the story goes, Zeus’ dad Kronos solved family conflicts mainly by eating his children. The good news for Classical mythology fans is that Zeus’ siblings (Hera, Hestia, Hades, Poseidon, and Demeter) were all immortal. Nobody was especially harmed—just majorly inconvenienced—by Kronos’ poor conflict resolution skills. By the time little Zeus came along, his five siblings were already braving most of their formative years in their father’s digestive track. 

When Zeus was born, mom Rhea swaddled a rock and tossed it to Kronos in the hopes she’d outwit him. The plan worked. Kronos swallowed that rock and went back to work being in charge of things, satisfied that his kids would all leave him in peace. Meanwhile, Rhea smuggled baby Zeus to Crete because, well, Crete is fabulous. 

Zeus drank goat milk until he was big enough to grow a nice full black beard at roughly a year old. Details are a bit foggy but either the goat or the goat-herding nymph was named Amalthea who safeguarded Zeus from being overheard by his dim father by playing load music night and day.

Things didn’t go so well for the goat. Rough little Zeus broke the poor thing’s horn off and then, as a touching tribute to the critter that saved his life, he turned her skin into a nice poncho. He decided to call that goat-skin cloak his aegis. Athena would later wear Zeus’ aegis around Olympus as a token of his favoritism to start arguments at family dinners. Later she bedazzled that weird old thing with the head of Medusa and a selection of snakes.

That old broken horn was special. It was blessed with the divine power to supply an endless number of elegantly arranged wholesome snacks. Some think this horn originally came from that time when Heracles wrestled a river god so hard that he broke his horn off (Greek river gods often had horns, FYI). But I enjoy imagining the stylish symbol of autumn abundance having its roots in that doozy of a family fight about how to raise kids. Either way, the symbol of seasonal “plenty” arose from arguments and wrestling.

In later imagery, any abstract Roman deities who represented luck, prosperity, peace, wealth, or art, were depicted carrying a cornucopia. While my Latin students come to class proud to already know that the word cornucopia means “horn” (cornu) “of plenty” (copiae), the word copia usually means “abundance, provisions, supplies.” If you were to see the word in a military context it would be used to refer to military troops.

This holiday may your table be graced with plenty and with abundance (and not with troops). May your family never be so dysfunctional that dad starts eating the kids. And please, take good care of your goats.

The Right Kind of Ancient Greek

Which Version of the Greek Language Should I Learn?
By Regan Barr

When I was in junior high, my best friend and I discovered the magical world of Middle Earth and quickly became Tolkien addicts. To our delight, we discovered that my dog-eared paperback edition of The Return of The King had an appendix with a table of Dwarven Runes in the back.  For countless hours we practiced writing notes to each other in runes as we gradually mastered this new and fascinating code. Other close friends, however, thought we were crazy. Why spend so much time learning to write “meet me at my house in an hour” in a new alphabet?

Fast forward several decades to a homeschool conference at which The Lukeion Project was an exhibitor. A mother hurried up to our booth and excitedly announced to me, “My daughter wants to learn Greek!” I was thrilled. I grabbed the sample copy of our textbook from the table and opened it to begin explaining the new adventure she was about to undertake.

And then her daughter saw the first paragraph in Greek. She jumped back, visibly shaken, as though she’d seen a ghost. “What is that?!” she exclaimed. I answered, “That’s Greek. Look, we start here with the alphabet, and then…” She interrupted me, “I don’t wanna do that! What are those funny marks?” She turned on her heels and was off through the convention hall to find a language that offered the comfort and familiarity of her own alphabet.

Well, Greek isn’t for everyone. Yes, you do have to learn a new alphabet to even get started, and then there are those pesky accents and breathing marks. Everyone’s heard of Active Voice and Passive Voice, but what pit of doom spat out this new-fangled Middle Voice? I find that a students’ approach to the alphabet can be a good indicator of how they’ll do in the language. Some approach it with fear and trembling, and perhaps they should start with Latin. But others are magnetically drawn to the alphabet, eyes wide with wonder – as Bobby and I were to Tolkien’s runes. These are the students I love to have in my Greek 1 course.

I didn’t have a chance to learn Greek until college, but Sir Winston Churchill famously wrote of schoolboys, “I would make them all learn English, and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honour, and Greek as a treat.” In my experience, Greek is challenging, but it is certainly a treat. There’s nothing like reading the words of Plato, Jesus, or Thucydides in the original language!

Perhaps you, or someone you know, has considered learning Greek. There are many reasons for doing so: a desire to read the Greek historians and philosophers in the original language, a thirst for Biblical studies, or perhaps an infatuation with ancient civilizations and languages. The first question to answer is: “which Greek should I learn?”

Ancient Greek courses generally fall into one of three categories: Homeric Greek, Classical Greek, or Hellenistic Greek. Classes that focus on that last one may also be called Koine or Biblical Greek. The one you choose to start with might depend on your motivations, but I’ve studied all of them and definitely have an opinion about which gives you the biggest bang for your buck.

Homeric Greek (750 to 500 BC) is, as you might guess, the Greek in which Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey are written. It’s not our earliest written Greek; that honor goes to the Mycenaean Greek (1500 to1200 BC) found on Bronze Age tablets written in Linear B. But it is the earliest Greek to tell stories. (If you like reading financial records, Mycenaean Greek is for you; otherwise, I’d move along.) Make no mistake: reading the Iliad and Odyssey in the original Greek is a delight, but most of the body of great Greek literature is from a bit later.

Classical Greek (500 to 300 BC) is the language of Herodotus, Euripides, Plato, and Xenophon. Some of our earliest and greatest literature is written in Classical Greek: Tragedy, Comedy, History, Philosophy, and more. This is the Greek that universities, a few special high schools, and programs like ours at The Lukeion Project, will focus on. It’s well worth the effort.

Hellenistic Greek (300 BC to AD 600) emerged as a result of the conquests of Alexander the Great. As his army marched south into Egypt and east as far as India, people who spoke different Greek dialects were thrown together with people learning Greek as a second language. The result was a somewhat simplified version of Greek, often called Koine or “common” Greek. This was the language of Strabo’s Geography, the New Testament documents, and Plutarch’s Lives. This is the kind of Greek that most seminaries teach.

The engaged student will profit from studying any of these, but I believe that the best place to start is with Classical Greek, whatever your ultimate goal.  Both Homeric and Hellenistic Greek are well within reach if you begin with the masters of Attic and Ionian Greek in the Classical period.

Many learners are very happy with that answer, but I get the most pushback from people who are particularly interested in Biblical studies. They often say, “but my real goal is reading the New Testament; isn’t it easier to just learn koine?” It’s a valid question, and one to which I am sympathetic; that’s where I began my journey with Greek. In fact, some seminary professors will tell you that’s all you need. I disagree with them.

Imagine someone who doesn’t speak English saying, “I want to read Shakespeare.” A friend might respond, “then you’ll need to learn English.” “But I don’t want to learn ALL English – I just want to learn Shakespeare.” Hmm… Shakespeare didn’t write in a vacuum. The words he used came with baggage and nuances and a variety of meanings, depending on context. Sometimes he used words in surprising ways that can only be grasped if you’ve encountered that word in other contexts.

So it is with the New Testament. Many classes on Koine Greek are actually classes that teach only New Testament Greek; if it’s not found in the New Testament, it’s not mentioned in class. You’ll leave class unprepared to read Strabo, the Septuagint, Plutarch, or the early Church fathers. If a word has a meaning that Bible translators and editors believe is never found in the New Testament, it won’t be in your glossary, either. You’ll never have a chance to consider that meaning along with the others.

The original recipients weren’t working from a New Testament glossary, and they weren’t encountering these words for the first time in their lives, like beginning Greek students are. For the first century audience, the words were already steeped in meaning. It was only when I began to read Classical literature that I could appreciate some of the surprising, original, and sweeping ideas that the New Testament writers expressed using words in ways that challenged their readers' assumptions. To truly read the New Testament as the original recipients did, get your translator and editor out of the way – read it for yourself, with as much context as you can. And that means starting with Classical Greek. 

More Keys to Memorization

Quid dicam de thesauro rerum omnium memoria?
What shall I say of memory, the repository of all knowledge? 
(Cicero - De senectute)

by Amy E. Barr

Homer, many would argue,* was the composer of the Iliad, an epic describing the almost final days of the Trojan war. I say “composer” nor writer because it is unlikely he had the luxury of being able to write down those 24 books of Greek poetry in dactylic hexameter since the Greek alphabet was still on the drafting table. Even if he was able to enjoy a beta test on that new Greek alphabet, he was blind, so there’s that.  Homer also composed and recited the Odyssey, the tale of Odysseus’ struggle to get home, in much the same way: all from memory. Both epics are 24 books written in meter (an arrangement of long and short syllabus) rather than rhyme.
*It is common for some to sneer that the Iliad and Odyssey were written by committee and perfected gradually over time rather than composed by Homer. First, I hate people that sneer but, second, I’ve never seen a convincing argument for how a committee would be able to write a better epic than a single author. These sneering types probably actually enjoy committee meetings. I bet they are the ones that regularly schedule them on Fridays before holidays. 

My point is this: Homer composed and recited and then MEMORIZED very long epics. As one might imagine, the need to memorize these epics (and others from this same early period) lasted quite a while until that Greek alphabet finished up the GoFundMe period and eventually launched. Even then, memorization continued. As an educated Greek or Roman person, one memorized parts, or even all of these epics, plus plenty more.

Memorizing fast amounts of information used to be standard. What happened to us? I think we forgot how the brain can do amazing things! While there are plenty of techniques you can use to memorize large quantities of information, I recommend two that everyone can use right away: writing and sleeping. Sleep is a fabulous study aid as long as you are not sleeping through the block of time scheduled study.

Rewire Your Brain Every Day 
Daily study alternating with other normal activities and a full night's sleep is the best stress-free way to soak up something complicated like Latin. I’ll use Latin as my example because I am a Latin teacher. These techniques work for anything complicated.  Try this: Spend about 8-12 minutes on vocabulary right before you go to sleep EVERY night. Your brain will work on it all night for you while you get some quality snoozing done. First thing in the morning, zoom through your deck once more. You’ll find your retention is pretty good! Your brain chewed on those facts for you all night.
Next, look at a chart of endings or forms that you taped to your bathroom mirror, just think them through while you are brushing your teeth. Then make yourself write them out quickly on a piece of scrap paper from memory. When you are riding in a car, spend 10 minutes flipping through flash cards or getting to know some noun or verb endings. Short study periods. No late-nighters.

LONG CRAM SESSIONS ARE A WASTE OF TIME
Cram sessions (when you sit for extended periods trying to ‘cram’ knowledge into your brain right before the test) don’t work. This rule is true for any complex body of knowledge like math formulae or points of history or scientific names for seaweed. Break up your study sessions into short periods (20 to 30 minutes) that are never longer than 45 minutes to an hour. Even on a day off, do 15 minutes of study (I like a ton of homemade flash cards or reading the chapter), but do this especially before you go to bed. I recommend that you involve as much writing and rewriting as possible. Got a stack of principal parts to learn? Tell yourself you can go to bed after you’ve written them all five times each.
People who play instruments are already familiar with this mastery method which is why musicians tend to be really good Latin learners. “Music makes you smarter” because it teaches you how to learn. Constant practice and repitition does the job in music and in language.

Use all your senses
You might be surprised to hear this, but I’m not a proponent of approaches that have you mindlessly chanting Latin all day. Most of those Latin learning systems don’t teach you much except for how to make an hour boring while your dog or cat looks at you funny. There IS, however, something to be said for employing multiple senses to memorize things. So chanting (or drawing, or writing, or listening) can be a great tool depending on your learning style. Most of us benefit from the simple act of writing things out because slowing the brain to carefully compose letters on paper is a big boon to mastery.
Just like you wouldn’t lift weights with only one arm, why study only one way? Work out different parts of your brain by using all your senses to memorize. Get creative:  Read, write, draw, doodle, pronounce, even act out your data list. Some attempt to write a story in Latin each week using that chapter’s vocabulary correctly. This technique can be done for most subjects.

Some create a pictorial system for flash cards, drawing a doodle for a term to help cement a concept visually. Others enlist a study buddy who is willing to help wflashcardssh cards on a regular basis. 
Remember, study some every day, write things out, and get a good night of rest. Your brain will double your efforts for you!

Roman Ghosts

Ave atque vale dis manibus

By Amy E. Barr

There’s a crisp feel in the air, your neighbors might be decorating their yard in zombie themes, and most people are planning on at least a slight uptick in sweet treats soon.  Now is the right time to serve up a seasonally appropriate topic of Classical ghosts. While Classical cultures generally enjoyed their occasional specters, it was the Romans who adored their ghost stories.

Now to clarify, I’m not talking about current Roman hauntings like this story from Hadrian’s Wall or this group of Roman soldiers sighted in 1953, York. The Romans themselves enjoyed ghosts of all sorts very much. They were also careful to tend their ghosts to keep them happy.

One of the best examples of ghosts with the most was the assortment from "the very helpful" di manes category that Vergil includes in the Aeneid. In book 1, we have Dido’s dead husband telling her to grab the gold and clear out quickly to found the city Carthage before her creepy brother could catch her. In book 2, we have a very grisly Hector telling Aeneas to wake up and leave Troy. Soon after that Aeneas’ (recently dead) wife, Creusa tells him to get a move on, thank you very much. Not satisfied with earthly specters, Vergil visits his hero to the di inferi and the fabulously eerie underworld (book 6), where Aeneas has an awkward conversation with recently dead Dido. Fortunately, Aeneas has a more fruitful exchange with dear-old-dead-dad who encourages him in fine Stoic fashion to follow his fates. Aeneas also runs into his freshly deceased helmsman who is in need of a nice burial.

That’s a pretty good body count! Clearly, Vergil considered ghosts to be the best way to advance a plot and hold a Roman audience. The Romans had certain rules about the type of dead person who might appear in dreams. Only friends and loved ones could pay a visit while you snoozed. When they did, they usually had dependable advice which should be immediately believed. Thus, Vergil describes these sorts of ghosts as extremely reliable sources of information.

Historian Pliny the Younger wrote this chilling ghost story, complete with rattling chains and a haunted house. This one serves as a good example of how properly level-headed Roman philosophers can help even an old dead guy, all while getting a great bargain on a house. My Latinists might want to try to translate this story from the Latin by visiting here.

Don't worry! Only improperly buried folks felt restless (and extra spooky) which made the Romans incredibly focused on the details of a proper burial. If you tended your dead well, the Romans reasoned, they would keep an eye on the whole family and even offer occasional advice. The friendly types were referred to as Di Manes. One would inscribe a memorial to them as dis minibus (or D.M., for short) which you can still see inscribed on even later Christian gravestones. The di manes were your friends and family but belonged to the larger category known as the di inferi, “those who live below.” 

February rather than October was the normal month for Romans to attend family graves which were all placed on the roads outside of town limits. If you ever visit Pompeii, be sure to take the path out of town to the Villa of the Mysteries to get a good look at the rows of Roman grades still in place there.

Old fashioned Diagramming, New Fashioned Comprehension

Do a little Google or Bing search and you’ll find a blog lamenting a sad plummet in basic grammar skills among modern English speakers. More times than not, the writer will opine that texting and tweeting are clearly to blame for the whole mess. After all, nobody is refining writing talents with “tnx ttyl omwh.” Any parent of a phone-owning teen must expect to master such mysteries quickly or miss the fact that your son just said, “Thanks, talk to you later. On my way home.”  I’m expected to respond with an appropriate emoji and count myself lucky that my teen remembers to text me when he starts his drive home. Is this playful form of communication to blame for the collapse of communications in the modern world? I say, “No!... At least not most of it.”

My middle school had three 6^th grade English classes. Students were assigned randomly to one of the three. My teacher, it turns out, was on the verge of retirement. He insisted that he finish his career teaching grammar the same way he had always taught it. I remember that he explained this to all of us as we were handed some primeval old textbooks. The other two classes were taught by much younger educators who welcomed the state’s largess of shiny new workbooks and “cutting edge” language arts methodology.

All three educators were unknowingly participating in an accidental experiment that would be years in the making. Two taught English “by immersion.” This trendy “new” method meant students were given stacks of worksheets and tasked with circling nouns, verbs, and other important tidbits in random paragraphs. A job well done meant students knew their parts of speech.

My teacher taught sentence diagramming.  OHHH, sentence diagramming was SOOO last decade! 

The other teachers openly scoffed at him for it. He didn’t care. 30 awkward 6^th graders were marched to the chalkboard to diagram sentences. By the end, we were fiercely competitive grammar tigers asking our teacher to throw us tougher and tougher challenges. Rawr.

That teacher retired soon after and sentence diagramming was no more. Language arts had modernized.

Fast forward to high school. Students were sorted into language arts classes once again but this time, with very few exceptions, the honors English program was populated by students from that old middle school sentence diagramming class.  Look at the top of the graduating class! Most were from that same middle school group. Most went on to some challenging college programs.

There is no mystery here. There’s a qualitative difference (to say the least) between learning to passively recognize what a noun looks like in random paragraphs and learning how the gears of English work, right down to the smallest mechanical elements. This is like the difference between a person who buys a watch because it is lovely and a person who is a watchmaker.  One recognizes beauty and can point out a few appealing features. The other can build the watch for himself or describe how another craftsman (Dickens, Longfellow, Shakespeare, Dickinson) built an even better masterpiece. Learning to diagram sentences makes you a watchmaker of English, not just a casual observer.

Over the next several months we at The Lukeion Project will be rolling out the first part of the print version of our celebrated Barbarian Diagrammarian™ program, which we continue to offer as a live synchronous spring semester class each year. We designed the Barbarian Diagrammarian™ program almost a decade ago when we discovered that most incoming high school students starting our Greek and Latin program needed help with English before they could hope to succeed at Latin or Greek. Very few had ever gone beyond being casual observers in their native tongue.

It isn’t enough to know the difference between a noun and a verb! What’s the difference between transitive and intransitive? Active and passive? Direct and indirect object? Adverbs vs. prepositions? Aspect vs. time? Dependent clauses introduced by subordinating conjunctions vs. relative clauses introduced by relative pronouns? Now considered advanced grammar, these foundational ideas used to be standard knowledge for middle school.

We are developing a multivolume self-paced program that will allow anyone, especially our middle school students, to become English masters. Expect our signature Barbarian Diagrammarian™ quirky style but now new and improved because story-telling and fantastic illustrations are the spoonful of sugar that will help the grammar go down. We brought a trial version of Volume I to our conferences this last summer and were thrilled to see students grab the book like it was a tasty new epic as they connected instantly with Leland the Barbarian and his buddy, Lambert. 

We’ll keep you posted as we get closer to pre-orders. For now, you should know there are only 6 seats left in our 2:15 PM ET Barbarian Diagrammarian spring 2019 semester class, so the Department of Shameless Self-Promotion says you should register right away or miss out.

3 Things your High-schooler needs for College Success

These Things May Not be What you Expect

Amy E. Barr

Everyone who teaches classes for The Lukeion Project has also taught (or is even currently teaching) at the college level. When we say our classes are college-prep, we don’t just mean they are a tad demanding and look good on a transcript. From the first day of our first semester-class, we have been preparing people to flourish in challenging academic environments. This includes everything from managing time well, to learning how to successfully self-advocate by communicating with instructors, to writing a properly analytical research paper.  

Through the years, Lukeion faculty periodically gather at the water cooler and have collectively grumbled and harrumphed about the following skills that are absolutely 200% necessary for best success in college:

1. Successful students know how to fail well. 

This is not to be confused with "fail a lot." 

Ask any modern collegiate professional and they’ll likely put this issue high on their list as well: Academic stakes have become so high and so expensive that many students and their parents feel they can't recover from even a minor academic failure!
Each semester a few of our students predictably withdraw immediately after earning their first low quiz score. Sometimes this happens at the very start of the semester. Worse, it even happens when most of the semester has already passed...sometimes after two semesters have passed. "Failure just isn't an option," they opine. But failure is always an option! Failure is also normal. Your student needs practice experiencing failure and productively recovering from it.
Giving up after a bad week or two was so rare a decade ago we used to be able to remember specific details. For example, I once had a student who quit Latin after the third semester because she scored a 96% instead of 97% on a weekly quiz. It was the first time she didn't earn an A+! Her mom withdraw her from the class, fully supportive of ending her daughter's Latin studies due to this "failure." Certainly, such extremes are rare but becoming less so each year. Such students will meander through 7 years of middle and high school without suffering, surviving, and growing from a single failure. They will have developed almost no life survival skills. Even the smallest failure will eventually bring a catastrophe of epic proportions.

The qualities needed to endure a setback and return stronger are summed up as “grit.” Students must know how to have a bad week or two and still land on their feet. Second chances, no firm deadlines, and daily do-overs may seem like a great way to keep your kid happy but, be careful! Persistently protecting a child from failure will do the worst type of damage. Shielding kids from failure will never develop confidence, self-esteem, or resilience but rob them of those things most cruelly.

2. Successful students have lots of practice in academic writing.

In elementary school, even the most hesitant writer can be induced to produce when assigned creative writing projects. Limericks are tons more fun than book reports so creative projects rule the day. 

Too often students are never transitioned to academic writing until very late in their high school years, if ever. Aside from a rare few classes in college, students will never again be asked to produce creative writing projects. Lab reports, academic essays, research projects, literary analyses, and peer critiques are on their college schedule. Students won’t be taught how to write these things in college. If they don't know what they are doing, they will be assigned to a remedial course (code for “expensive class that doesn’t count toward graduation”) or they will require long hours with a tutor at the writing lab. All of our literature courses, history, and Latin 3 and beyond (including Transition), have academic writing requirements to help grow these necessary skills. 

3. Successful students have good time management.

Help students move toward independence by quitting your job as manager early in the teen years. There are plenty of job openings available in mentoring. Mentor was a character developed by Homer in his epic, the Iliad. Athena, disguised as Mentor, helps teenaged Telemachus safely cross the bridge to adulthood with timely words of advice. The modern idea is no different. A mentor does not manage the phone, calendar, and computer while handling every detail of a child’s life. Instead, she offers timely guidance while the young person does the hard work of navigating life himself. 

Parents must let adolescents do the legwork and heavy lifting now while there’s a safety net in place. Let your teen make his own arrangements with employers, pack leaders, teachers, and tutors. Let him coordinate his own details to find rides, attend a class, or practice a sport. When illness strikes, let her ask for make-up extensions on her own--even when she has the sniffles and doesn't feel like writing that email. 

The biggest obstacle to practicing this skill is the well-meaning parent. If you are an excuse-maker (“he didn’t finish because he was tired”), a second-chance giver (“please let her take the missed quiz”), or an extension-granter (“he is pretty busy, so you should give him extra time”) you’ll likely have a student who struggles with time-management issues. Your teenager will expect extensions and second chances from everyone if he has always gotten them from you.   

So Your Child wants to Be a Classics Major…

What's Next?

Amy E. Barr

"To study Latin is to encounter face to face the smartest, funniest, most beautiful minds that have ever lived."
—R. J. Teller

“Have her take Latin,” they said. “It will be good for her,” they said. Now 4 years of Latin and a couple years of Greek later she wants to be a Classics major. Is she going to be living in my basement for the rest of her life?

Ok, nobody has ever phrased it just this way, but I can read it on your face when you visit me at my talks at homeschool conferences. What’s in store for a student who has become so passionate about Latin or Greek that she wants to major in it? Is this something you should encourage, or should you press hard to steer your student toward a nice reliable S.T.E.M. degree or maybe Communications? I often have students who eagerly desire to continue studying Classical languages but the "more knowledgeable adults" in their lives have told them they must concentrate on more “lucrative” college-prep choices. Is Classics really such a bad plan for college?

While, like all academic fields, a future in philology offers assurances of neither luxury nor lucre. Classical languages and a Classics degree will surely take your student down some amazing roads. Fortunately, I ignored my mother’s grumblings when I decided to be a Classical archaeologist and philologist. In these crucibles, I discovered a practical passion for teaching paired with hundreds of glorious adventures in Mediterranean archaeology. I needed both.

As we finish our thirteenth year of teaching live-online at The Lukeion Project, we now have students who already pursued in full or in part, continued college and graduate level education in philology. They are now professional writers, lawyers, professors, historians, archaeologists, lawyers, parents, police officers, videographers, and creative professionals, to name only a few. Since you don't personally know our students, you can find lists of notable people online who were Classics majors who went on to make significant contributions to the world. That's great, you say, but what do mere mortals “do” with a degree in Classics?

Lukeion students enjoy an advantage. They often know before college begins that they wish to either major or minor in Classics (sorry, not sorry). Most people won’t have the opportunity to even try Latin or Greek until college, normally as late as their junior year. Can you say 6-year undergraduate degree?

If you want to pursue Classics, you can earn a BA in Classics. Most of these are more interdisciplinary and include Latin, Greek, or both plus history, culture, art history, archaeology. If you earn a BA in Classical Languages (working toward proficiency in both Latin and Greek) you'll spend more time on just the languages. These undergraduate degrees equip students to teach at the pre-college level or to go on to graduate programs in religion (Greek), Medieval Studies (Late Latin), Archaeology, Philosophy, Ancient History, Art History, or Classics (both languages).

If you earn the BA in Classics, are you stuck with getting a graduate degree that specifically deals with Latin and or Greek or will the degree prepare you for other things? Classics has consistently been viewed as one of the strongest liberal arts degrees a student can earn. Classics majors are trained as skilled communicators in writing and speech plus they have been taught to think critically and express themselves analytically. Classics majors are naturally suited to graduate degrees in law, sciences, medicine, communications, journalism, and so much more. Ever heard of Jerry Brown, governor of CA? Raymond Teller of the famous magic team Penn and Teller? Ted Tuner? J.K. Rowling? All these famous communicators are Classics majors.

Want more? Go here.

5 Best Ways to Memorize Tricky Things

Everyone Can Have this Superpower

Amy E. Barr, The Lukeion Project

"To observe attentively is to remember distinctly." ~Edgar Allan Poe

Being able to memorize tricky things is better than a superpower. Only a few people get to have super powers and super suits, but nearly anyone can learn how to memorize tricky things. Sure, shape-shifting and mega-strength will make you more popular at parties, but memorization skills can take you from a mild-mannered denizen of dull to a rocket scientist, brain surgeon, brilliant botanist, or illustrious archaeologist.

Stylish modern pedagogy (a fancy term for teaching techniques) has turned a pouty frown towards this old skill, to the detriment of all. Teachers are taught to promote using “tools” instead of boring old-fashioned memorization. “Why waste brain space on memorization,” they argue, “if you can learn to master tools like computers and search engines?’

Can you imagine Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot asking the inspector to wait a few minutes while he checks his smartphone for information? Can you imagine your surgeon needed to pause every few minutes during a life-saving procedure to look stuff up online? What would have happened to the Iliad and Odyssey if Homer had not been able to memorize all those lines of epic poetry he'd composed in his mind?

This time of year at The Lukeion Project, we have our Witty Wordsmith, Latin 1, and Greek 1 students coming to--for many--their very first big memorization challenge. Most survive admirably. Others? Not so much! 

Fret no more! Here are the top FIVE ways to start memorizing tricky things right now:

1.  Repeat it

This seems like an obvious first step but if you are new to memorizing things you may be unaware of how MUCH repetition is needed. It takes, on average, 8 exposures to a new vocabulary word before you recognize it at all, much less with speed. Parents: If your learner sits down to a digital deck of vocabulary cards once and performs poorly on the quiz, there’s nothing wrong with your child’s brain but there is something wrong with her methods. It takes 5 to 10 repetitions with a hand-printed paper deck of flash cards that can be shuffled, flipped, and shuffled again to get the job done.

2. Sense it

Gone are the days when chanting alone helps anyone but the small minority known as audio learners. Audio learners were once the majority in the screenless, computer-less, YouTube-less days of yore. Visual learners rule today, and they need to use more senses, especially the ones that employ their eyes. If you have something to memorize, draw it, write it, speak it, illustrate it, journal it, demonstrate it.

3. Teach it

If you are a homeschool parent, this one should be obvious. If you have been homeschooling for a while you know how much you are learning (we’ll say “re-learning”) from all those years of being a passive listener in a school desk. Teaching tricky things to others will force you to learn those tricky things quickly. If your shy little thing doesn’t want to teach it, have him journal it, write out an explanation as if he were sending a letter to a student.

4. Shuffle it

Ever notice when you want to alphabetize things you find yourself singing the Alphabet Song? When our students learn Latin or Greek, they must learn a lot of information that is initially presented in chart forms such as the endings of a noun or the forms of a verb. We call these paradigms. Many learners can reproduce a paradigm perfectly but utterly fail to recognize the various components of that paradigm when translating an actual sentence or recognizing a word form joined to another Greek or Latin stem. Always turn the various parts of each chart into separate flash cards to aid the student in rapid identification outside of chart form. Students must recall the individual parts of a paradigm to make use of those parts. Therefore, we don’t promote a ton of those cute memorization songs. Students can learn a zippy tune but none of that helps if they can’t pull apart the smallest pieces of the puzzle.

5.  Visualize & vocalize it

Rapidly build your brain’s storehouse of tricky things by associating visual cues with new words. This can be as basic as making all nouns in your deck a certain color while prepositions are another. Artistic students might draw a little doodle. Anyone can pair a visual idea of a word or grammar concept as they memorize it. Don’t leave out SAYING the word to yourself even as you visualize it. In the first assignment of Latin 1 the textbook includes a Latin sentence with the Latin word labor. You would be surprised by how many students send me a distressed note complaining this word is not in their vocabulary list and they have no idea what it means. I invariably tell them, “say it aloud and see if that helps.” It always does. 

Meet Peri and The Lukeion Project

"To Begin, begin." ~William Wordsworth

Aristotle was the kind of person that I could invite over for dinner but never for a grand holiday feast. He would likely occupy the whole conversation at the dinner table and then eventually wander off to look at the garden and tree fungi well before dessert was served but well after everyone was riled up about metaphysics or politics.  Aristotle was a Friday dinner kind of philosopher. If you fed him some souvlaki, he would grab a fast nosh and still have plenty of time to browse the library, watch the sunset, and make predictions about where our copious hummingbirds sleep at night.
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher who also happened to make his reputation by teaching. His most distinguished student was Alexander the Great. Aristotle’s teaching success is best demonstrated by the fact that Alexander prized his copy of Homer’s Iliad more than anything else, even tons of Persian gold.

Aristotle had troupes of students who rallied around him at the Athenian Lyceum (Ancient Greek: Λύκειον) from which our online program, The Lukeion Project, takes its name. This temple library served as the world’s first university. Aristotle wasn’t much for staying put in the library, so he would always teach on the go, a real mobile school, one might say. The sight of Aristotle leading his gaggle of students around Attica like a flock of geese prompted people to refer to them as Peripatetics, the walkabouts.

Athens was already famous for smart people walking about the place, and for good reason. Their patron was Athena. Her symbol was her wise little owl as the official town mascot. Aristotle, like Athena and her wee owl, was famous for a type of practical hands-on wisdom that is still popular today in all circle of academic interests. He was as likely to touch on topics of physics, biology, and zoology as he was on logic, ethics, rhetoric, and linguistics.

Thus, the name The Lukeion Project was given to our (then) little online program which was founded way back in 2005 by a couple of Classical archaeologists who also happened to teach Latin, Greek, mythology, and history. Now we have a bigger teaching staff and even more classes, but we can’t yet compete with Aristotle nor his original Λύκειον (or Lyceum). Still, we offer a lot compared to not only most online programs but even compared to most college Classics degrees.

Our mascot looks like Athena's little owl and he’s also a walkabout. We gave him the name Peri the Peripatetic because the Latin name for owl, Bubo, was voted “not nearly cute enough” by all our AP Latin students at the time.