This Commentary by Thomas G. Palaima over on the Austin American Statesman website struck a chord with me personally and hit on something I've been fuming over for a few weeks now so forgive me if this critique includes a bit of my own commentary on the matter as well.
The commentary starts off as a summary of education in America with a prose-like sound to the words. Perhaps not prose, exactly, but literature, at the very least. The commentary does not get to the "juicy stuff" and actually become a commentary until the last several sections of the commentary. This author hits on a subject I took in high school, Latin, and even uses my personal high school, LASA, as one of the main examples and arguments for keeping this subject in schools. LASA, which is technically no longer part of LBJ but is its own high school (but is still on the same campus and in the same building as LBJ...), is the magnet academy for Liberal Arts and Science which I graduated from in 2009 with my foreign language credit being in Latin. Mr. Browne, the Latin teacher there, is one of the most dedicated, thorough, strict, successful, inspiring, and all-around awesome (I might even say bad ass) teachers I have EVER had the joy of being taught by. Needless to say, when I heard that not only his job, but that of Mrs. Browne, his wife who is the head of the Spanish department at LASA, was on the line I was furious not only for their sake but also for the sake of the future LASA students who would no longer get the experience I was able to have. This has been a tender issue with all Latin student graduates from LASA ever since we heard the news. In fact, many of us showed up at a meeting the school had to attempt to argue for the job of Mr. Browne. I was not present but I can not imagine the impact was enough.
Now that I've gotten that out of the way, onto the actual commentary. Thomas G. Palaima is a regular contributor to this portion of the Statesman's website and it is clear in his writing. A quick google search shows that he is not only a good writer, but also the perfect person to be writing this particular commentary: He holds a Ph.D in Classics, is a professor of Classics at UT Austin and holds a chair in the Classics department at UT Austin. Needless to say, I believe he is more than qualified to write this commentary.(And that is not just because I agree with him with my entire heart and soul).
As far as his evidence or fact checking the statistics he lists, specifically for LASA, I lived most of those statistics, I do not need to fact check. Yes, ALL of the Latin students that took the AP exam scored AT LEAST a 3. Most students who obtained a 3 were disappointed in that grade and in fact most students made HIGHER than a three. Yes, Latin not only has increased my vocabulary and overall reading skills but also my ability to learn, read, and understand other foreign languages.
As for his intended audience, hopefully anyone who is able to read would see the sense in this article however I believe it will only truly hit home with other scholars, teachers, and students that are already familiar with, and angry at, this particular budget cut.
P.S. Why cut Latin rather than Japanese? I have been a Japanese student in my past, I love the language, and I don't WANT it to get cut, however I can honestly say it has not helped me nearly as much as Latin has. I'm simply pointing this out.
As always, this has been a student's perspective. (However in this case I believe this makes me more credible rather than less credible.)
