The premise of this introductory presentation will be that a common core of information can be shared about successful classics teaching at any level and that we owe it to our M.A./Ph.D. students to help prepare them for teaching while in graduate school and for teaching in their future careers. While clearly there are differences between college-level teaching and pre-collegiate teaching, and Ph.D. programs will reasonably emphasize the college-level, the overlap (to use just one example -- knowing the most common approaches to beginning Latin learning today) is broader than one might imagine.
Much interest in the topic of classics pedagogy was generated at last year’s panels sponsored by the APA Education Committee and the APA-AIA Joint Committee on Placement, respectively, on Standards for Latin Teacher Preparation and Ph.D.s who pursue secondary-level classics teaching. The current panel was organized by the APA Education Committee to capitalize on that interest and to address, specifically, how Ph.D. programs can contribute to training classicists as teachers for the 21st century. It is the committee’s belief that successful teaching is essential for our Ph.D. students’ careers in graduate school and beyond, and for the survival and enhancement of the classics profession as a whole.