pedagogy

Although often left out of the conversation about the future of the instruction of ancient language, history, and culture in higher education, contingent faculty at community colleges serve on the front lines of this struggle, frequently becoming the first ancient studies professors their students encounter. Often working without job security, a steady salary, or benefits, adjunct faculty are providing cutting-edge instruction to an exceedingly diverse student body. According to the American Association of Community Colleges’ 2022 Fast Facts, community college students represent 39% of the total undergraduate population in the United States and include large percentages of first-generation students, workers, single parents, students with disabilities, and members of historically marginalized groups.

When I learned that I would be teaching my department’s graduate Greek survey in Fall 2021, I promptly burst into tears. The assignment was not what I was expecting; more painfully, it brought up all the barely suppressed memories of my own survey experience.

This is Part 3 of a three-part series. Find Part 1 and Part 2 here.

There is nothing ideologically neutral about grades, and there is nothing ideologically neutral about the idea that we can neatly and tidily do away with grades. We can't simply take away grades without re-examining all of our pedagogical approaches, and this work looks different for each teacher, in each context, and with each group of students.

— Jesse Stommel, “Grades are Dehumanizing”

This is Part 2 of a three-part series. Find Part 1 and Part 3 here.

Only by abandoning traditional grading and performance assessment practices can we achieve our ultimate educational objectives.

— Alfie Kohn

This is Part 1 of a three-part series. Find Part 2 and Part 3 here.

Picture a student getting back a graded essay or exam. They glance at the letter or number at the top of the page and throw the paper in the recycling on their way out the door without reading the feedback, even when you think it will help them succeed on the next major assignment.

Imagine being consistently impressed by a student’s in-class work. Their insights and positive attitude contribute significantly to the learning environment. However, they do very poorly on the first major assessment, a midterm exam. Both of you are surprised and dismayed, and the student is discouraged.

Last year, I published an edition of Perpetua’s Passio together with a group of students: Mia Donato, Carolyn Engargiola, Eli Gendreau-Distler, Elizabeth Hasapis, Jacob Nguyen, Siddharth Pant, Shamika Podila, Anna Riordan, and Oliver Thompson. I worried that a book with ten names in the byline would look like a monstrosity. I worried that, since nine of those names belong to students, people would dismiss it as a school project, of interest only to the parents of the students on the cover.

Like many educators, I have found myself in an endless loop lately of thinking and rethinking my teaching principles and practices — a loop caused by the unprecedented teaching conditions the pandemic has brought upon us. Though I consider myself a thoughtful instructor, I admit that I have never thought so extensively, carefully, and critically about the purposes and desired outcomes of my teaching as I have in the months between March 2020 and now. Each week of each semester involves calibrating and recalibrating my courses, as I hope to meet the needs of my students and help them balance their lives within the classroom and without. I have become more attuned to the extramural realities that bear on my students’ learning, and as someone who works at a Hispanic-serving Institution, a desire for inclusivity increasingly informs the way I teach.

The sudden rise of Latin novellas might come as a surprise to anyone outside of high-school classrooms. This genre, which didn’t exist seven years ago, now counts over a hundred published works. These novellas are largely written by and for those outside the world of higher ed, but they should be of interest to the larger scholarly community—not just because they will increasingly form the background and expectations of Latin students coming into college, but also because they are one part of a larger pedagogical movement that is in the midst of transforming the teaching of Latin.

“Think of the Children! The Reception of the Ancient World in Children’s Media” was the Women’s Classical Caucus panel at the most recent AIA/SCS meeting. We (Melissa Funke and Victoria Austen, co-organizers) conceived of this panel as a far-reaching conversation about how children have historically engaged with ancient Greece and Rome and how they continue to do so today. In choosing the papers for this panel, we had two primary concerns in mind: to think about how various media use ancient Greek and Roman material for education and play alike, and to use girlhood as a lens to reconsider reception in those media. While more traditional forms of literature, such as storybooks and poetry, were featured as an important aspect of this conversation, the presenters also addressed these issues in primary textbooks, video games, and web comics.